Building a business is tough, especially when you’re operating with a lean team and a tight budget. Oftentimes, new businesses have to cherry-pick growth initiatives because there just isn’t enough time, money or manpower to do it all. That’s where a freelancer marketplace comes into play.
Modeled after traditional e-commerce websites, freelancer marketplaces allow specialized professionals such as graphic designers, app developers, SEO consultants and social media marketers to offer their services to small businesses for a fee. Welcome to freelancing the gig economy.
On Fiverr that fee is usually just $5.00
These marketplaces have made it easier for small business owners to save on administrative and overhead costs while also meeting critical business needs that might otherwise have gone unfulfilled.
The gig economy is a term used to describe part of the labour market characterised by the prevalence of very short-term contracts or freelancing work, as opposed to permanent jobs.
Companies such as Fiverr and Uber are seen as epitomising the gig economy. A common feature of the gig economy is a reliance on digital platforms and apps to connect self-employed workers with work. Another common feature is a high number (thousands) of contracted pieces of work per annum. Types of freelancers are:
Independent Contractors
These “traditional” freelancers don’t have an employer and instead do freelance, temporary, or supplemental work on a project-to-project basis.
Diversified Workers
People with multiple sources of income from a mix of traditional employers and freelancing work. For example, someone who works the front desk at a dentist’s office 20 hours a week and fills out the rest of his income driving for Uber and doing freelance writing.
Moonlighters
Professionals with a primary, traditional job who also moonlight doing freelance work. For example, a corporate-employed web developer who does projects for nonprofits in the evening.
Freelance Business Owners
These freelancers have one or more employees and consider themselves both a freelancer and a business owner. For example, a social marketing guru who hires a team of other social marketers to build a small agency, but still identifies as a freelancer.
Temporary Workers
Individuals with a single employer, client, job, or contract project where their employment status is temporary. For example, a data entry worker employed by a staffing agency and working on a three-month assignment.
In some jobs in the creative industries the likelihood of being employed full-time is limited, but organizations or individuals require certain skilled workers for short periods of time. This is not just the case in professions that require significant technical abilities, such as visual effects.
It is also true in areas such as writing or design, where a particular style of work might only be wanted for a short period of time.
Fiverr is excellent for new or small entrepreneurs who requires services that are best left up to professionals such as logo design, marketing or website creation. At Fiverr the cost of such services are as low as $5. Fiverr offers any and all services imaginable!
