Fiverr^® press

28 Oct 2012

"Globes" names Fiverr most promising start up

"Globes" has named Fiverr as Israel's most promising start-up for 2012.

Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman and CTO Shai Wininger founded the company in 2009. Fiverr provides a social e-commerce market place for users to buy and sell services for $5 and up. Fiverr charges a $1 commission on every transaction.

Freelancers offer graphic design, translations, business consultancy and other services ranging from writing songs and resumes to horse betting tips and gigs of almost any kind.

Three years later, Fiverr is a success story, offering more than one million services. Many companies have attempted to duplicate its business model and copy its design.

Aren't you bothered that your investment is so easily imitated by scores of websites?

"This is something that happens to involve a lot of illegality. There is room for legal action, and Fiverr is dealing with things in its own way, but it's just background noise as far as I am concerned. We don't sit around from morning to night just thinking about our imitators. Besides, the site's homepage is only a very tiny part of what goes on behind the scenes.

Fiverr's know-how - the technology that underpins the arena - cannot be copied. Besides, with all due respect to the imitators, the moment you reach a certain threshold of users, it's very hard to create an imitator that will reach these dimensions."

These dimensions include 3,000 new services a day.

Despite ambitions for globalization, the site's only currency is the US dollar, and its only language is English. What about expansion to other arenas?

"Today, Fiverr serves clients - buyers and sellers - in over 200 countries. We plan to be everywhere, in every language, currency, and culture."

Fiverr's success is measured in manpower as well as profits. It has 50 employees, and Kaufman says that it is hiring. It success has whetted his and Wininger's appetite. Although Israeli Internet companies struggle to reach serious dimensions and are quick to make an exit, they have plans to create a billion-dollar company.