Fiverr & How to Become a Successful Freelancer | #AskGaryVee Episode 204

Subtitles section Play video

- On this episode we bring Fiverr to the house.
- [Gary] The #AskGaryVee Show.
- Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk
and this is episode 204 of The #AskGaryVee Show.
Actually you know what switch because
I'm going to use him as my India.
Let's do a little bit of add-on, I like your glasses.
I'm pretty excited about the show.
This is really fun.
I'm going to let this wonderful gentleman tell you who he is and
what we're doing here on this episode but much like
musically, even Snapchat before recently and I finally did
invest there're certain companies that I watch that
I'm not involved with.
I didn't make an angel investment but I watch and they
deliver on a thesis that I believe in and the company that
I've teamed up with for this campaign and then subsequently
this episode and I assume I don't know what the questions
are gonna be so the themes of the questions are delivering on
a very important thesis and so I'm not in the
let's make a commercial.
I'm in the content business.
You need to go down the rabbit hole of what these guys do for a
living because I know my audience.
And for 80% of you there is something meaningful that this
platform can do for you that will be good for your business.
And I think that now that we have the search engine
we'll be able to pull it up.
I think I brought it up like 120 episodes ago.
I believe most things are overpriced
because of inefficiency.
I believe these guys have solved it to some degree.
And I'm personally excited to be doing this with you.
I don't team up for contests or be the face of things ever and I
did in two seconds because I believe in the thesis.
With that unbelievable anointment that I'm sure you'll
chop up and use for other behaviors, why don't you tell
the Vayner Nation who you are and from what company and then
let's get into the show.
- Sure. Gary, thank you.
Thanks for your trust and thanks for having us.
I think you nailed it.
- That often happens by the way.
- Does it?
(laughter) I got that.
Listen, Fiverr world largest marketplace of services.
Fiverr was built in order to provide largest category
of services for digital needs.
Our primary customer is small businesses, entrepreneurs,
solo-preneurs, micro-preneurs, mom-preneurs.
Any -preneurs you want should go on Fiverr and
find the services they want.
You are going to 5 million of services, hundreds of thousands
of sellers are providing you their talent and their skills
around graphic design, music and audio, online marketing,
programming and tech each of them are going to provide you
with services that will allow you to go faster and often the
entry price on Fiverr is going to be 10 times lower than you
would find on the backend.
- Supply and demand. Supply and demand.
What's tough about marketplaces is that you need both
sides of the funnel.
And that's why so many people fail.
They pulled it off. Period, end of story.
Help me with this because sometimes I don't stay up to
date for everything.
I headline read the things that I don't deep deep into,
originally all the services were five bucks.
- That's correct.
- I think now that that is not the way it is anymore, right?
- That's correct.
- Obviously you opened it up and somebody thinks that the thing
that they're willing to do, a logo or things if they want 30
bucks you had open up that marketplace and that make sense
even when you guys launched 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago.
- 6 years ago, yeah. - Right.
Five's my favorite number by the way.
So that was originally caught my attention and second I just
believe in this.
It's really no different than VaynerMedia.
We do everything that the biggest agencies in the world do
a lot cheaper.
Because we created a process.
Now you did it better because it's software
and it's marketplace.
I'm doing it a little bit different because I'm building
it for myself different story. Different day
but what's going on now?
How did you figure out the creative way to make Fiverr name
still stick or you just didn't give a crap or
is five now the bottom?
What do you guys do? - That's a good question.
Fiverr is our brand.
Fiverrs is our community and Fiverr is our name so put that
aside for one second.
How we thought about--
- When did you do it?
When did you move from everything is $5?
When did that happen.
- It has happened gradually over the last couple of years.
- Yes.
- It's now this trend is accelerating.
What we're doing we let our seller have complete pricing
freedoms under one--
- Condition? - condition.
- What?
- Which is being a scope well the service so the price
can be understood.
What's the difference between a logo at five dollars and a logo
at $50 and a logo of $250 and a logo of $5,000?
We are helping and we are productizing that process
for each of the categories.
150 categories. - Theme songs.
- And understand how people buy them.
- But I'm sure you also agree and I'm sure you're doing this
because I watched from afar and I think you guys are doing so
many things right.
But I assume but maybe not.
One of the differences between a logo for $50 and $5000 is hours.
That you can scope. - Yes.
- Talent is not something you can scope.
- You're absolutely right.
- So you have to leave room for the gray.
- Exactly.
- Why is my keynote speech six-figures and somebody else's
is $10,000 and we both talk about social media because
I'm fucking better.
- So this is where, you are. - Thank you.
(laughter)
- You're right. And I think--
- Again. (laughter)
- You're right and I think what you have to think about Fiverr
we focus on that market where we're not going
for the $3000 logo.
What you are going to find on Fiverr is you're going to have a
variety of options between 0 to $100.
- We have to get into the show because I have to be on
a live somewhere.
- And when I say zero I mean five.
- I know you mean five.
Let me just say this and you guys know me we're now 300 deep,
250, I've been around for 10 years.
I don't do things with anything because I just don't believe
in most things.
The reason why talk about Facebook and Snapchat 24/7 is
because I believe in them.
I am very aware of the community that watches the show.
I am secretly, this is selfish, I'm secretly pumped that a lot
of you don't know about this and that literally it's going to be
the thing that helps your small thing over the next year because
you don't have a lot of money and you don't have unlimited
time and I think there's a ton of services on this platform
that are grossly underpriced. The end.
So let's get into the questions.
- Let's do it.
- India, who are you today? - My name is Adam.
- And what you do?
- I do a lot of things.
Substitute asking questions for shows but I do marketing at
Fiverr as well on the side.
- Very cool. - Side hustle.
- And you know what?
You didn't actually say who you were.
We went right into it.
Why don't you tell the Vayner Nation for five seconds who you
are, I'm sure they're making assumptions and your name.
- David Manela, chief revenue officer at Fiverr.
Born 41 years ago.
North of France, my parents first generation in France.
Very nice childhood decided to move to New York at 22 years old
for three months and I'm still here and during
the last 19 years,-- - I love it.
- the last 19 years I have been working with a variety of
startup and high growth company and I've developed an expertise
to scale businesses.
- I got it. Let's get into it.
- [Voiceover] San Barrionuevo asks, "How can I charge more
"than other sellers in my market without losing revenue?"
- Nice, nice question.
- Go ahead, go ahead.
- It's about the why.
When you think about pricing it's about the why and the why
is often about quality and what you just talked about you nailed
it on how can I justify a higher price.
We just released a new product on Fiverr for most of
our sellers and most of our categories now called packages
and what happens it allows you to use a well new marketing
technique which is good, better, best pricing.
- That's right.
- You can start at five, you can have a package at 15, you can
have a package of 30 so what you do is that it allows you to own
that entry price point that allows you to build credibility
to get volume and to customers that could not afford the $50
but maybe at $50 what is going to happen is that you're going
to provide more time, faster delivery
better techniques and
more options around the logo you are providing.
And this is how you should price it.
- I'm gonna go yes and I'm going to go and.
You can always go back.
- Take risk. - You can always go back.
Let the market decide.
If your 400 bucks to make a logo and I promise you whatever you
got last time ask for more the next time figure out
what your cash flow is.
It depends on how fancy you are.
- And how much you want time you want to spend working on Fiverr.
- Of course. How fancy are you?
Do you want a nice watch?
Well then you need more money to buy that watch but if you're
willing to live in your basement you could always go back.
You could get, it depends how many no's can you take.
I did it for 400 now I want 600.
You come in no. You come in no.
If you're fancy, you're going to go back to 400
'cause you need the 400s.
If you're not fancy and you can wait and be patient then all of
a sudden you can do a whole bunch of waiting, 10 no's
get your first 600, you established the market.
another thing how DRock got his gig.
The other thing you could do is get understand the difference
between something you want to do for 600 bucks but then somebody
asks you to do a logo and you do it for free because the exposure
is going to allow you to get all the $600 ones that you want.
Let's move on.
- [Voiceover] Letecab asks, "I have a really hard time
"letting go of my job.
"I don't like it, but I've been there for so long.
"I have loans, two kids to support, a deep fear of leaving
"the security and I'm not sure what it takes to make it as a
"solo-preneur. Any tips on how to release the fear and
"decide whether to take the risk?"
- I'll go first this time.
Punt leisure. Punt leisure.
You can work,
I'm going to call you out.
If you really mean that you can live on six hours sleep.
So you have 18 hours, 18 God damn hours.
I want to know what you're doing with your 18 hours.
Because you can work your 9-to-5 and that's fine and you can
travel for an hour here and there, respect,
nice little solid commute.
Oh you want to be a family man?
Mazel Tov, you can spend two hours with your kids,
what are you doing with those of the five hours?
You're watching House of fucking Cards.
You're playing Madden.
You're relaxing from the other intense.
Gary already spent 11 hours.
Well great then don't complain or want more.
Respect that by getting rest and this and that you're giving up
opportunity to go into a new market.
You want the audacity to have a 1% life.
Let's call it what it is.
You want to live as well as the 1 to 2% in the world.
It's not very complicated the math is very raw.
If you want to have one of the best lifes in the world and you
live on your terms then you have to pay your dues to get there.
And you have to be lucky enough to figure out that you had
talent in the thing you actually want to do because you work 24
hours a day and if you stink at golf or you're not a good
content producer or your logos like the shit I would make then
you're going to lose.
So that's what you gotta do.
And Fiverr was built for you.
Fiverr was built or those talented individuals while
trying to find--
- Was Fiverr built for everybody?
- Yes, yes for talented and skilled individuals that want to
find financial and professional development.
So what you have on Fiverr today yes you have sellers making your
six digit a year that are top sellers.
- Real quick I apologize, I know you want to say it but like
they're all going.
Here's the punchline.
What's the mechanics are you guys taking
20% of the transaction? - That's correct.
- Is at the number? Yeah, listen.
The reason I went there is because he's the chief revenue
officer is all going to sound...
How do you cure cancer? Fiverr.
How do you go to the movies? Fiverr.
Let me save us time here.
Here's why I'm curious at the scale that you guys are now
not five or six year ago, four years ago.
Giving up 20% for that attention no different than eBay or an
Amazon I think is very minor for the exposure.
I think there's a Fiverr and things like Fiverr but you guys
are at scale that's why you're sitting here and social media
combo if you can make that one plus one equal four there's
something very real there. Let's go.
- [Voiceover] Emerchant asks, "I understand both are important
"but if I only had to pick one should I focus on content
"marketing or paid ads? I have learned paid ads provide
"more results with less effort. Thoughts?"
- I start, you start, you start. - Go ahead.
- Okay. I'll start.
I'm advising a few startups and that question
comes often and I think it's about again,
most of this question is about the why.
What are you trying, the why and the what.
What are you trying to achieve right now?
I'll tell you something which is thinking that you can build a
business based on paid ads at one point
it's going to catch up with you.
- It always does. - It always does.
- Because the creative is the variable of success.
And the creative is your business it's like the product,
your service, the creative.
By the way, you can get in front of everybody with your ad if
that creative is bad you won't convert.
And you're exactly right, the answer is yes if it makes you
more money up front.
First of all the person's going to win because they understand
there's two different things he or she already knows, who was it?
- [Adam] Emerchant.
- That was the name? Got it.
He or she already knows that there is a big difference
between sales and marketing.
Paid advertising is sales, branding marketing content
that's what that is and so I don't buy these because Nike
fucking cookied me and chased me around the Internet and I gave
up and I bought them.
I do it blindly. Because it is Nike.
- [Adam] I got the red pair by the way.
- Love it.
We're going to agree on that one.
I know we're keeping it tight.
Let's go to the next one that when I think we got.
- [Voiceover] Mike asks, "As a copywriter/fiction writer, a lot
"of work goes uncredited or remains private to buyers.
"What's the best way for me to showcase my business without
"practical examples of my work?"
For Fiverr, it's a very fair question.
Fiverr when you come as a buyer you buy on Fiverr like you buy
your book on Amazon.
And Gary's book, please. Ideally.
You buy what you see.
Buying what you don't see is a little more difficult so how do
you do that?
It's about your seller profile, it's about your skills,
it's about the emotion and your talents on how to describe
your gig on Fiverr.
It's about to show your personality, it's about the put
your face as your profile picture and not use
a design.
You want to create trust and confidence to do that.
That would be my clear recommendations.
- I would say this again I'm going to pound this
because it is just true.
They wouldn't be here, you know that, this is a great tool at
what it does you don't need to make every tool do
everything for you.
If you want to get your name out there as this great writer
there's something called Medium. Medium is amazing.
You can get completely discovered, all day long,
write for free. You want exposure?
It comes at a cost, it's called not getting paid for it.
I wish you got paid $100,000 to write an article for the
New York Times and get money and exposure.
I wish.
I also wish I was 6-foot-5 and could throw 100 miles an
hour so I can be a baseball player.
Wishing doesn't mean anything, here's the practical answer.
You don't use that screwdriver to hit in a nail.
You have a whole tool belt.
You don't need to make Fiverr do this and you don't need
Snapchat. Everyone's like,
"Oh Snapchat how are you going to target?"
You don't.
You just realize that every 13 to 25-year-old is on it.
And it's awareness.
So what I would say it's funny eluded back to a recall when I
said I see this social media-Fiverr I guess what I see
is I think of your designer or songwriter or things of that
nature using the Fiverr URL on your Instagram to drive people
there to create transactions around your free creative in an
Instagram environment could be quite interesting.
It's a very subtle way to throw a right hook without it doing
especially because of the oomph now.
There's a lot of Fiverr's.
I'm sure there's a lot of marketplaces out there but this
now has the oomph in the same way that a Facebook something of
that nature an Amazon has.
There's a lot of bookstores on the Internet.
Once something hit scales and it's the brand you take
advantage of that and so I would say write great stories for free
on platforms where people can see it.
Here's a good one and go and search every fiction or
nonfiction Facebook Page that has a lot of followers and ask
them if you can write an original story for them to post
in their community.
I'm sure there's something called "Fantasyland Fantasy"
where you write a great little fantasy article, a story--
- And what kind of page was that?
- It's a Facebook page.
- Meaning? Moving on.
- I think there is some kind of silly page that has 4 million
fantasy readers that people love that Harry Potter and stuff like
that, you write a great story for it they post
because they said yes or maybe
they'll charge you for the exposure, I don't know.
Heck, you may have to get charged to build your brand
and things of that nature.
Nonetheless it's about exposure and you got to find the avenues
that have it and not every tool has to everything for you.
- [Adam] Great. Last question.
Cinco on Cinco de Mayo.
- [Gary] You were waiting for that.
That was your moment. (laughter)
Look in the camera and say thank you for that moment.
- Thank you for my moment. (laughter)
It comes from JustMe07.
- [Voiceover] "What would have been your first gig if you are a
"seller on Fiverr and why?"
- That's cool. - I let you start with this.
- Mine would definitely have been, probably especially when
I saw it four, five years ago I probably would've done
hype videos for product.
I would've an infomercial guy.
Right, I would've been the informercial guy saying
this is delicious juice.
Video is my medium.
I would've created original video.
You don't agree DRock? You're shaking your head.
- [DRock] I agree. I'm kidding. (laughter)
- [Man] Check out Fantasyland. - Exactly.
(laughter)
Hey everybody go to Fantasyland Fantasy for all your fantasy
needs Harry Potter to Dungeons & Dragons.
You'll love Fantasyland Fantasy. (laughter)
- Nice.
For me, I'm very (inaudible) with that
which is all of those
gigs are my children.
I don't want to choose one. - Forget about that.
That's a copout. What do you do well?
What could you sell for 10 bucks?
- I'll go with either SEM services or SEO services.
- Got it. That great. That's grounded in your craft.
I would've hired you to voice over old Wine Library TV
episodes with proper French accent.
I'll do that too. Question of the day.
You now get to attack, this important moment,
you guys have built something special.
You wanted to team up with me for this contest which
we have to link up.
That has some restrictions, right?
- [Man] New York, SF, Chicago. - That's what I thought.
New York, SF, Chicago. They have to live there?
The contest we're doing. - [Adam] Need to be based there.
Your SMB needs to be based there.
- No worries, so if your small business is, there's a landing
page for it in the video? - [Adam] Yes.
- We're going to link that up in Facebook and YouTube, Staphon.
- [Staphon] Yep.
- You sometimes get freaky on me.
You got it man? - [Staphon] Yep.
- Alright, this is where you get to as a question of the day.
There'll be hundreds of answers on YouTube on Facebook
which will give you great feedback so
you should think about it carefully.
It could be about anything but as the CRO I think it's going to
be pretty Fiverr'd out.
But anything you'd like, ask any question that you'd like.
What do you want to know from
a lot of entrepreneurs, solo entrepreneurs?
What do you really want to know?
- What is their number one pain as an entrepreneur?
I'll talk to two audiences.
First audience, which is those of you
who are not comfortable with the online,
that are mostly off-line businesses,
what is your main pain as you go into the online business?
What do you need? How can we help you?
What is your number one pain so we can solve it
because it's your number one goal.
For those of you that all online--
- Which is the far majority.
If you're watching this show you on the online ecosystem.
Because I suffocate the people that are not.
(laughter)
Keep going. (laughter)
- And for you what can we provide same question but as an
online entrepreneur what are the services that we need to provide
you because you can get access to that?
And we will.
Off-line entrepreneurs, online entrepreneurs please answer
those two questions. Gary, thank you.
- You did a really great job. You brought great energy.
You keep asking questions we'll keep answering them.
(upbeat hip hop music)