Fiverr.com - New Outsource Platform
Jeremy Schomaker aka Shoemoney said something that hit me like a coconut falling on head: “Everything in life is arbitrage.” If you aren’t familiar with arbitrage, the concept is taking advantage of market efficiencies between buying and selling. Now, I get the whole “buy low, sell high” thing when it comes to stocks, but amazingly, I had never considered it for human capital or business in general. But, when you think about it, the reason you have the $100K job is because you’re making the boss way more than $100K. He’s happy to pay you some fraction of what you’re actually earning the company. He’s happy to keep the spread. And, as long as you keep making the company money, you should keep asking for more and more money. And, when they won’t give you more money, you should consider striking out on your own, so you can simply make the spread yourself.
What does my realization have to do with the new Fiverr.com outsourcing platform?
Everything!
Outsourcing is not just about “getting stuff done.” It follows the arbitrage principle: I can hire and pay someone less than I can do it myself (buy low side). And, the result of that work will make me more money (sell high). I’ve outsourced a lot over the years with mixed results and have it down to a pretty good “science” to maintain as little waste as possible. When you begin to wrap your mind around a life of arbitrage, you begin to realize that it is more cost-effective to hire a website development consultant than it is to try and do it yourself.
I’m interested in this price-fixed auction of sorts that is occurring at Fiverr.com. The simple concept: People post what they’re willing to do for five stinking bucks…a fiver. These tasks range from the bizarre (Singing a song while doing 10 pull-ups) to actual useful outsourced marketing activities: social bookmarking, sponsored tweets, article writing, courses on how to gain fans on Facebook. You name it. It is simply a price fixed menu of services for a wide array of “things”.
Personally, for me, I’ve found some of the best outsourcing jobs are for things I just simply didn’t want to do: repetitive, administrative, boring tasks. But there are a whole host of people around the world who are happy to earn a great living in their home country completing these tasks for you.
The issue I see in this is that everything is a “one-off” opportunity – a potential trap of one-gig wonders. There is no opportunity to build relationships with your outsourced workers (against terms and conditions to conduct business outside of platform) and show them how you want them to help you. It’s simply: here’s what I do. Buy it or leave it. I don’t know how effective that is – over the long-term.
As a test, I’m trying out the Fiverr system and will let you know how it works out.
Speak Your Mind