Fiverr Rings the NYSE Bell

First published June 13, 2019

What a great achievement for Micha Kaufman and the whole team at Fiverr, which made its debut on the NYSE today. They have built a company that is changing how the world works together, and which facilitate millions of transactions between buyers and sellers across over 200 categories.

We first invested in Fiverr and its team of 40 in May 2012. Today the team supports a global network in more than 160 countries, and the platform has facilitated over 50 million transactions – between 5.5 million buyers and 830,000 sellers – opening up a new universe of talent for companies, and potential clients for independent workers.

When Fiverr began in 2010, e-commerce platforms existed to sell products. Micha, along with co-founder Shai Wininger, had the vision to see that the same was possible in services – productizing them so that buyers could enjoy the speed and efficiency of an online retail experience when shopping for talent.

As a repeat entrepreneur, and having previously run a start-up accelerator, Micha knew from experience the difficulty of sourcing contractors for a growing business, and the time it took to identify and manage independent workers through traditional channels. Fiverr was created as the solution to that problem. Its core innovation has been to package up services into product categories it calls Gigs – such as app development, logo design or video production – allowing buyers to browse for specific skills, just as they would search and shop on Amazon. They called it “Service as a Product” and their vision set them on a path to transform the traditional freelancer staffing model.

Fiverr started selling its Gigs for $5, giving its name to the company. The pricing model quickly evolved to multiples of that and today the platform is used by buyers of all sizes, from small companies to global brands such as Netflix and Google with prices in the thousands of dollars with gigs ranging from logo design to translations to branding services.

For its sellers, it has been a catalyst for growth, with numerous stories of people who have used the platform to successfully launch a freelance career, or rapidly grow their small business. From an SEO and web analytics expert in Spain relying exclusively on Fiverr to sell its services in 80 countries to a logo designer in Israel who increased her income about four times by selling her services on the platform, Fiverr has opened new horizons for the growing new generation of freelancers across the world.

Fiverr has made big strides towards its mission: to change how the world works together. This journey has been supported and driven by strong and distinctive values. These include ‘we are doers’, symbolizing a culture which is all about execution, and enabling customers to get things done; ‘think simple’; and ‘stay awesome’, reflecting Fiverr’s commitment to help its employees and users be themselves and tap into their creativity. This open and diverse culture is immediately visible when you spend time at Fiverr’s Tel Aviv office, a free-flowing environment complete with a community space for buyers and sellers from the platform to meet.

Congratulations Team Fiverr on this milestone, a testament to what clear vision, strong values, and consistent execution can achieve. A Fiverr value I haven’t yet mentioned is ‘making impact’. In the fast-changing world of work, Micha and the team have lived up to that many times over.

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