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Fiverr IPO’s at $700M valuation
- smallgovt 7y agoIt's crazy to me that a marketplace like this can be trading at 10x revenue w/ -50% net margins when a company like Blue Apron is trading at 0.2x revenue when they're turning the corner to profitability.
- ibarea277 7y agoIf you're not zero margin, you can't scale the same way.
- pmart123 7y agoWell, to be fair, while Blue Apron's gross margin is expanding, it's operating margin is still negative and it has ~20% negative LTM sales growth the last few quarters.
- rossdavidh 7y agoIt is, in fact, crazy, but that doesn't mean Blue Apron is the one whose result is out of whack with the fundamentals. Quite the opposite, in fact.
- chatmasta 7y agoFiverr is effectively a spam factory. I would be curious to see the breakdown of its most popular offerings. How many of them are legitimately creative tasks, and how many are "I will post your link to fifty web 2.0 sites?" More importantly, how much revenue can Fiverr attribute to these "gigs" that are borderline legal? Their F-1 filing does not mention it as a risk factor. [0] This website has its roots in the gray-hat side of the SEO and affiliate marketing industries. It's shocking to see it valued at $700M. Surely we are in a bubble? [0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1762301/000104746919003413/a2238869zf-1a.htm#da46501_risk_factors https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1762301/000104746919...
- oooshha 7y agoI spent $500 usd on Fiverr in the last month getting design done, getting studio musicians and rappers recording parts for music. Previously had full animated videos made there. It's pretty great.
- 1337biz 7y agoHow do you ensure quality? I usually find 4-5 people for the same tasks and 1 or 2 are in the end to my expectations.
- TomVDB 7y agoAren't the prices usually low enough that you can have the work done multiple times and choose the best one?
- antisthenes 7y agoYep, it's pretty much the way you do discovery of quality work in this sort of market. I've commissioned vector artwork from 3-4 people and just picked the best one, and then kept working with that person going forward.
- vidarh 7y agoThat's my approach. Want a logo for a project? Get it done by five different people instead of having one person do a few iterations. Over time of course you find people you'll go back to for specific types of work.
- bduerst 7y agoThat's usually how it normally works with creative agencies in the industry. You brief them and they come up with a creative work, but there's always several rounds of back-and-forth to get refine it to the point you want it at.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoDo you pay all the prices, then I don't know that it would be cheap. Do you not pay the ones you don't choose, then I'm not sure it's ethical.
- Timucin 7y agoWow. I know Fiverr for years but I never thought of it more than as a cheap version of freelancer dot com and now it goes to IPO with $700M valuation? That’s crazy!
- rossdavidh 7y agoEspecially crazy given that, as far as I can tell, they have never turned a profit and never will.
- icedchai 7y agoI'm surprised Fiverr has 360+ employees. I always figured it was 50 folks max, "craigslist" type of company.
- cosmodisk 7y agoWhat the hell those 360+ do there?...
- rossdavidh 7y agoWell, some of them are required to manage the others. Those managers need secretaries. Some of them are required to prepare reports for the managers. Some of them provide HR support for such a large workforce. Also, you need IT support for all those secretaries, report-generators, managers, and HR people. Payroll department needs to be larger given how many people work there. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
- penagwin 7y agoI work at a warehouse with ~300 employees, selling over 70,000 different skus, etc. We have 3 Programmers, and 3 IT/network people, 1 hr, etc. We're hiring more programmers though. What the heck are 360+ employees doing? You're right you do need lots of management, but there's no way they need that many people. Like, thats a LOT of people.
- dannylandau 7y agoAlso use Fiverr, and you can find quality designers with portfolios from Dribbble and even some developers that are competent. You have to dig deep but the quality is there. The negative attitude in this thread is misplaced. Not sure where it is coming from. For example, I use an iOS developer that charges me $50/hr on Fiverr, and I'm willing to put him against any Google or Facebook developer for quality and exceeding expectations. Although, I will admit that he is a rare find on Fiverr.
- bcyn 7y ago> developer that charges me $50/hr > any Google or Facebook developer for quality and exceeding expectations Something about basic economics tells me that's an exaggeration. But I do agree with your point that there are hidden talents to be found on sites like Fiverr.
- immad 7y agoIts most likely geographical arbitrage
- beart 7y agoDo you usually find salary to be a strong indicator of skill?
- goobynight 7y agoWhat part of basic economics tells you this? I could think of a few ways that this makes total sense. $50 is $400 in an 8 hour day. There are places where $1000-1500 covers you for the month, even with non-local, white guy pricing. My hourly comes out to "only" $20/hr more, but my apartment alone is likely a few hundred more than this guy's entire monthly expense profile. He's going to get consistent work at this price point, so he won't have to hustle for contacts. That's more time billed or spent on the beach. Stepping away from the economics and getting into comparison to Google/FB engineers, there are tons of people that could outproduce many Google engineers in a startup setting. They just aren't good at Leetcode problems or never took a shot at FB/Google. A lot of stuff just works as an engineer at Google that you don't get for free elsewhere. They're good at leveraging the output of some truly amazing engineers across their org. They're also generally overstaffed.
- cosmodisk 7y agoThere are some quality people on Fiverr,but as others already mentioned, you need to spend time finding them. The valuation,on the other hand, is complete overblown nonsense baloon.
- asdf21 7y agoThen you must believe that about nearly every valuation..
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- umeshunni 7y agoFiverr's competitor Upwork IPOd last year and is currently valued at 1.68B
- bredren 7y agoI'm amazed Fiverr is "worth" close to half upwork. Upwork seems to be in an incredibly strong position and that service has improved a ton in the past 2 years.
- artur_makly 7y agohiring talent in under 24hrs, to stand in front of the Taj Majal[0] to say your (past)startup's tag-line [1]..for just $5... is priceless. [0]https://www.fiverr.com/arjunrocks/record-a-video-at-taj-mahal--2 https://www.fiverr.com/arjunrocks/record-a-video-at-taj-maha... [1]https://www.dropbox.com/s/98udl9ypeuqvcph/M4H07189.mp4?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/98udl9ypeuqvcph/M4H07189.mp4?dl=0 - edit - seems like he 2x his rates as of 5yrs ago.
- el_dev_hell 7y agoThat's outstanding!
- unixhero 7y agoI use FIVERR for micro secretarial services and research work. Works great!!!
- bredren 7y agoCan you elaborate on exactly the types of things and roughly the pricing you pay for to do this?
- unixhero 7y agoSure. 5-10 USD per hour and I create "tenders" for every 2 hour job hence the micro part. The jobs must be meticulously thought through so they can be communicated succinctly to a person in the other side of the planet. I also have to go over all the work, because sometimes there are errors. Sometimes I have several contractors working in the same Google Drive Spreadsheet on separate sections at the same time. That is pretty cool to do, and watch happen in real time.
- mderazon 7y agoOne of my favorite songs was produced with Fiverr: https://youtu.be/v1V5Oc3hMbc https://youtu.be/v1V5Oc3hMbc
- yyyyip 7y agohttps://drive.google.com/open?id=1UO3iBE0nsuayzNceZPeK2mynHjwuktvu https://drive.google.com/open?id=1UO3iBE0nsuayzNceZPeK2mynHj... Here's a tune I made with Fiverr. Bassist from venezuela, rhodes keyboard from greece, rapper from washington dc, rhythm guitar from finland, jazz guitar from USA, mastered by a guy in croatia.
- tonystubblebine 7y agoBoth of these are so cool!
- mderazon 7y agoWow! Really nice
- godzillabrennus 7y agoI have used fiver for finding developers to do small business Wordpress work, for telecom consultants, for windows server consultants, for an audio engineer to discuss soundproofing, for a tutor in a new programming language, and for a bit of graphic design. There is no better market on the web for finding low cost talent if you ask me. I love this website.
- rkho 7y agoHad a bad experience with a designer on Fiverr. They were "highly rated" and all. The task was a logo for a side project and we settled on a clean design that was just text and code brackets with a specific font and color scheme (I ended up doing this on my own in the end) The design was acceptable, but the delivery/communication/execution was atrocious. The request I made from the start was SVG over transparent backgrounds with the font in two different colors, and three different positions for the logo, so six total SVGs What I got were: PNGs JPGs Illustrator files I went back and forth four times before giving up and just marking the job as complete. Once I finally got SVGs, they were not over transparent backgrounds and/or they were weirdly cut in ways where you could see border lines halfway below the image, and the SVGs were mixed in with the other file formats. Every time I asked for what I wanted in explicit detail, I would get the complete opposite with, say, one SVG fixed in an acceptable way but another (which was already acceptable from the last delivery) completely broken again Overall, completely frustrating
- bdcravens 7y agoI've had similar experiences with development on eLance (prior to Upwork acquisition). The issue often is the person you're communicating with isn't the person doing the work.
- megy 7y agoHmmm, I wonder if, no, it can't be. But I do wonder, sometimes, if you get what you pay for.
- rkho 7y agoI don't believe this kind of snark is welcome on HN
- Hasz 7y agoLOL “We are believers in the long-term potential of these marketplaces,” MKM Partners’ Rohit Kulkarni wrote Wednesday before trading began" says the guy offloading risk onto a public market -- that's a statement so hilariously full of shit it deserves to be laughed at. Even worse, he' going to follow up with “unclear pathway to profitability.” good god, here we go again.
- cutenewt 7y agoI've been a long-time Fiverr user. I've had my share of hits and misses, and it looks like many of you are in the same boat. Would any of you be interested in Slack group where we can trade Fiverr referrals? If so, I'd be happy to set it up.
- el_dev_hell 7y agoYes please. Like a lot of comments here, the only winning strategy I've found with Fiverr is to hire 3 or 4 sellers for the same task and pick the best. But I have to admit, I once ordered a completely custom logo for $8 and it was perfect (the 2 week wait was worth it).
- toomuchtodo 7y agoSeconded!
- cutenewt 7y agoSlack group is created! Instructions on how to get the Slack group invite here https://www.lewis-lin.com/blog/2019/6/14/better-freelancers-slack-group https://www.lewis-lin.com/blog/2019/6/14/better-freelancers-...
- wmeredith 7y agoWhat did that logo look like?
- cutenewt 7y agoSlack group is created! Instructions on how to get the Slack group invite here https://www.lewis-lin.com/blog/2019/6/14/better-freelancers-slack-group https://www.lewis-lin.com/blog/2019/6/14/better-freelancers-...
- uxcolumbo 7y agoYes please
- jonthepirate 7y agoI've never liked Fiverr since I heard about how they really screwed over voiceoverpete. For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anbBwpoI9TI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anbBwpoI9TI
- freedomben 7y agoIt is legitimately terrifying the power over our lives these tech companies are amassing. The ability for them to arbitrarily cut us off from our livelihood is terrible. I'm afraid that we are headed toward a world of corporate tyranny if this trend can't be reversed.
- dalacv 7y agoFiverr is awesome. Where else can you pay someone to dress up like Jesus and record a personalized Happy Birthday video?