Fiverr^® press

27 Jun 2017

Fiverr launches a Pro tier and acquires Veed.me

Freelance marketplace Fiverr has for years worked on connecting buyers and sellers of online services that range from writing to design to programming to digital marketing.

Freelance marketplace Fiverr has for years worked on connecting buyers and sellers of online services that range from writing to design to programming to digital marketing. Today the company is launching Fiverr Pro, a new offering that highlights a curated group of professional freelancers on its marketplace.

Founded in early 2010, Fiverr's original business model was based around a simple professional services marketplace where everything cost $5. That didn't last long, and the company has spent the last several years working to move further upmarket. It's done that mostly by giving freelancers more tools to increase the prices and manage jobs they accept on the platform.

In a lot of ways, Fiverr has taken a different approach than most other freelance marketplaces, making purchasing services similar to purchasing products on other e-commerce sites. Rather than run reverse auctions, in which service providers compete for business by lowering their prices in an unsustainable race to the bottom, Fiverr lets freelancers set their own price for the services they provide.

"We thought his should be like a common e-commerce experience," Fiverr founder and CEO Micha Kaufman told me. "You should be able to find whatever suits you and then just click purchase."

Over time, Fiverr has seen more demand on the buyer side for bigger projects from enterprise customers. As a result, it saw an opportunity to provide a higher level of service for buyers while also solving the biggest problem its sellers have — that is, finding clients to work with.

On the customer side, Fiverr Pro is designed to reduce the amount of time that buyers spend searching for talent. For the freelancers chosen to participate in the program, Fiverr Pro means more and regular work. And both sides of the platform will benefit from 24/7 support, including personal success managers assigned to each service provider.

To seed its Pro marketplace, Fiverr has selected highly ranked freelancers already working on its platform, as well as recruited those not on Fiverr who works with its clients. Finally, the company is bolstering its videographer options through the acquisition of Veed.me.

With Veed.me, Fiverr is deepening its capabilities in video, particularly in connecting buyers with videographers for local gigs. Since much of the work its freelancers do is purely online, having video coverage in specific markets around the world will help it grow that part of its business.