Don’t worry, I’m not just talking about the TimelessFinance Facebook Group today. (Or is it the TimelessFinance Facebook Page? Sorry if “Group” is an antiquated term — back in ’06 I started a pretty awesome Facebook Group called “I may be at Trent but at least I’m not an Arts student”. Those were the days. Oh no, I’m reminiscing in the introductory paragraph. It’s downhill from here.)
This post is actually a review of Fiverr – an extremely frugal way to acquire a variety of services — with a bit of related bragging about TF’s group on Facebook.
“Bragging about what?” you ask?
Well, as if you needed another reason to “Like” the TimelessFinance Facebook Page, I designed a really cool header using graphics that only cost $15:
How did I get such an awesome header so cheap? I harnessed the power of Fiverr.
Fiverr is a website where a Seller can post a “Gig”. A Gig is a task that the Seller will perform for $5. Buyers can browse the various Gigs on listed on Fiverr. The Gigs are usually related to art, writing, music, or marketing (particularly advertising and branding). That’s because such services are easily deliverable over the internet.
I didn’t actually set out on Fiverr to overhaul this site’s social media presence. I just wanted cartoon avatars for Adina and me, to use in the comments section on TF. Using Fiverr seemed like a logical step for getting the avatars made. TF is definitely a product of internet collaboration and, more specifically, frugal internet collaboration. For example, Adina lives over 3,000 kilometers away. I used a standard WordPress theme but sourced significant modifications from India. In all, those modifications only cost about $110. (The improvement in monetization, alone, has proven the expense worthwhile.) I’m thinking of buying some more modifications, e.g. widening the right column, realigning it, and perhaps moving it to the left side.
I spent $10 to buy 2 “Cartoon Portrait” Gigs from relaxabe on Fiverr, and I sent him pics of Adina and me. He sent back these:
Adina wasn’t happy with her cartoon nose since, in real life, it’s much smaller than the artist portrayed. I conveyed that to relaxabe and he sent back a modified picture within 12 hours:
He didn’t request any payment to do the extra modification, but I insisted on paying a $5 tip. Getting two very high-quality avatars made this one of my best expenditures of fifteen bucks ever. It’s right up there with buying generic antibiotics, before I had a drug plan, to treat a horribly-infected wound on my leg.
I put the avatar images together, added the TF slogan (Personal Finance for the Generations), played around with it a bunch, and made uploaded the new Facebook cover photo. I also tried to improve the header by adding the TF Twitter feed as a tab and creating some new photo albums (in strategic order, to make sure a cute pic of Cat is on the front of the TimelessFinance Facebook Page).
For better or worse, you’ll probably see these avatars popping up elsewhere, e.g. the comments here and on other blogs.
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Here’s a summary of what I think about Fiverr:
Cons
- The services are limited in usefulness — you’ll probably only use Fiverr (at least at the moment) if you run a website or do a lot of work on the internet.
- The quality of each Gig will differ. On Fiverr, you’re dealing with any one of thousands of possible service providers. I had fantastic luck with my caricature Gigs. Steve Zussino, from GroceryAlerts, said his experiences with Gigs have been “hit-or-miss”.
- Each buyer can “rate” a seller and provide written feedback to be displayed publicly on the Gig, but I don’t find this information trustworthy. I have a strong suspicion that certain accounts manipulate their numbers. For example, they’ll refund any “negative” Buyers to get the poor feedback expunged from their record, leaving only positive ratings.
Pros
- Gigs cost five bucks each. Come on. Even if a Gig turns out terribly you can probably afford to buy another.
- The result can be downright remarkable. I was honestly blown away by the quality of relaxabe’s work. I would gladly hire him in the future and I sincerely hope he’s willing to work with me again.
- The turnaround can be very quick. Sellers have to set a promised deadline for delivery of a Gig. My order took four days, but it was still delivered within the promised time frame I could have bought from a Seller who promised a one or two day turnaround but I focused on finding the highest quality provider, not the quickest.
- While Fiverr’s usefulness isn’t broad enough to be truly “mainstream”, this situation improves daily. There are, for example, some Gigs that would make awesome gifts. If somebody had given me my cartoon avatar for Christmas, I would have thought it was an extremely thoughtful gift (just don’t tell the recipient that you only paid $5).
And here’s another shameless plug to conclude this post: please join the TimelessFinance Facebook Page, otherwise my $15 expenditure will be for naught. (If you’re a fellow blogger, I will gladly reciprocate by joining your group with my personal account; I won’t only give you a “Like” from my TF Page, since those don’t actually improve your public “Like” count.)
Or, instead of attracting real, organic users, I could just buy 250 Facebook “Likes” for $5 on Fiverr…
To be clear, my main concern was that the first picture made it look like TF consisted of two guys, one of whom likes to dress in drag. Nothing wrong with that, but not the most accurate representation of the principals involved
I’d like to clarify that TF *does* consist of one guy and one girl. But both of us dress in drag.
I have had hit or miss results with FIverr (for the price it can’t be beat)!
Great avatars.
Thanks Steve!