Five bucks goes a long way at Fiverr

Some of you may remember the “five-and-dime”, variety stores like Woolworth, where you could purchase all kinds of inexpensive items for pocket change. With a cup of coffee now topping two bucks, the value of money “ain’t what it used to be.” But let’s say you’re willing to spend 100 times as much–5 dollars instead of 5 cents. What will that buy you?

According to the Five Dollar Comparison, you can get a one-way ride on a San Francisco cable car, a kilo of peppercorns at a Delhi spice market and a bagel with cream cheese in New York.  But can you get a website design or a marketing campaign or an original rap song? You might be surprised what some people will do for a Lincoln.

I recently stumbled upon Fiverr, a site that lists thousands of services available for five bucks. Here’s a small sample:

I will translate your text or article from English to French for $5
I will write a lovely personalized love letter for $5
I will do your Programming and Algorithm Assignments for $5
I will create a professional logo for you for $5

The site makes interesting reading–the range of services is astounding. But does it deliver? Over the last two weeks I’ve hired five Fiverrs. Two of them dropped the ball completely. With an “investment” of $10, I wasn’t too concerned about a refund, but getting my money back was simple. The site issued credit.

The three people that came through did a very professional job. Kate shot a short video intro with her webcam for Learn the Net. Although it’s rough around the edges, with a bit of editing, it will be a charming addition to the site.

Blake designed a background for my Twitter page. He was fast, efficient and delivered ahead of schedule.

Alex “mobilized”this blog so it will display easily on mobile devices. Again, the results were beyond my expectations, particularly given the amount of time he invested. So why do it? Here’s what Alex says:

“I was initially attracted to joining the site because of the ‘Funny and Bizarre’ category the site has, which contains some pretty interesting things. I looked around at what services people were offering and thought it would be a good idea to offer some of the things I can do.  With Fiverr, it’s actually $4 a pop after Fiverr takes its cut. At 4/5 bucks a pop it’s hard to earn much, but part of the motivation is that it can lead to more work and it has.”

Like with me. I was so impressed with Alex that I’ve hired him to do additional work, like migrating the blog from one hosting service to another, albeit at more than $5. And maybe that’s the genius of Fiverrr. Just like the folks that give free samples at the market, with Fiverr, before you make a large purchase, you get an (almost) free sample–an old strategy updated for the digital age.