Here’s a Secret Use For Fiverr You’ve Probably Not Thought Of
In business, you’re supposed to do your due diligence before starting a new venture. A lot of the time, business gurus will suggest you do market research, take questionnaires or base your ideas on keyword research or social media.
The problem with this is that you’re never going to get a true sense of the level of commercial intention from what people say, because what people buy and what they say they buy is different.
The other alternative is pretty weak as well though; you can’t just jump into a new business without knowing if it’ll sink or swim.
Well, you can do that. I’ve done it a few times, and it rarely ends well. I don’t recommend it!
It would be great if there was somewhere where you could provide a service or product that took next to no time at all to do, and tested to see if there was a buying market. Bonus points if you could build some funds while you were at it and split test some copy at the same time.
Luckily, there is!
It’s called Fiverr.
Fiverr
You’ve probably heard of Fiverr.
It’s a website where you can buy services and products that cost… a fiver. $5.
If you’re a writer, you can sell your services on there – freelance copywriting, content writing. Generally, anything that takes less than fifteen minutes is worth posting an ad for.
You’re probably not going to make a good living there, but you can make some side income.
And when it comes to testing out new services, it’s ideal.
Why Fiverr Is Better Than Other Freelancing Sites For This
When you’re testing out a new service, you could theoretically go to any freelance site.
Except most freelance sites won’t allow you to post an ad and have the buyers come to you. Instead, you have to approach the buyer and try and sell them based on what they want, not what you can provide.
Also, you don’t get to see other bids on the projects you’re applying for.
If you’re dipping your toes in the water, then you might not get a bite: that might not be because your service is rubbish, but instead because you’re competing with a guy who has twenty years’ experience in the field and a massive list of testimonials.
Fiverr, on the other hand, is great. You might think there’s a gap in the market for Muppet impressions. If that’s the case, you write a simple ad and upload your gig. No competing, no guesswork.
If people buy your $5 Muppet impression, then you can rest assured that someone wants your service.
If nobody bites for $5, then you’re probably not going to make a million dollars doing it.
Other Stuff/Moving Forward
On Fiverr, you can also charge more for extras.
Our Muppet Voice Over guy could charge $5 for a one-minute Kermit impression. He could charge $20 for a video where he dresses as Kermit and does his voice over.
That way, you can get some* idea of whether people are interested in the higher-priced service.
*Bear in mind, Fiverr is for buyers who aren’t exactly premium customers. It’s just for an idea.
If your service is a steal at $20, then in the real world, you can charge more for it. A lot more in some cases.
Other Things Fiverr Is Useful for Regarding Testing The Market
Fiverr is good for some other reasons.
Firstly, testimonials. There isn’t a law against you getting a Fiverr testimonial and using it on your real website when the time comes to go official. The feedback is useful in and of itself: If someone says your Kermit impression isn’t worth $5, nobody is paying $500 for it.
If someone says your microphone is terrible, then save your fiverr money and buy a new microphone with it before your official launch.
Secondly, stealing ideas. I don’t mean ripping people off or violating copyright, but if you’re doing a Muppet impression and all of your customers want a Muppet to talk about the same thing, then you might want to look into why they’re all trying to get into the same thing with a muppet voiceover.
You’ll get more of a sense of what’s viable commercially once you’ve written a thousand articles, for instance.
Thirdly, stuff pays for itself.
Say a piece of software for audio recording is $400 but does some weird thing that no other software does. Nobody is going to buy a $400 piece of software so they can make one muppet voiceover. Not when a muppet voice-over guy charges $10 and adds that weird thing as a $10 extra.
If you charge $20 for bells and whistles, your software pays for itself after twenty clients or so. It’s free, or double-free if you count it as tax deductible.
You can also use that software for life knowing that it’s paid for itself and every time you use it in your own business, somebody else has paid for it.
I have a few musician friends, and they’d never think to sell their work for $5. But they’ll spend thousands on software and hardware for their music. If they put two and two together, they’d realise that they could easily get that software for free by writing thirty second jingles for people.
People that paid them, gave them testimonials and helped them launch their business profitably.
Closing Thoughts
This is a quick thought because it’s something easy. Essentially, if you have a little business idea that you want to test viability for, go on Fiverr.
Pick a service that’s a $5 version of what you intend to offer. Add in some extras to get it up to a more reasonable figure.
Then, solicit testimonials. Keep those for when you launch the business proper.
Finally, think about base costs and what you can buy with your meagre earnings. Can you get expensive stuff for effectively very little? Can you get extras that will pay for themselves as investments if you use them as gig extras? Think these sorts of things and work out the figures.
Start, and keep going until you’ve got the momentum, skills and commercial viability knowledge to provide a better, more expensive service offline (or, at least off Fiverr.)
Finally, remember me when you’re rich!