Gali Arnon is the CMO at Fiverr since October 2017. Before the internet was even a thing, she was the CEO of the International School of English locally in Israel, giving her a lot of exposure to management, senior management, and specifically marketing. Then she joined an online gaming company Global One. Before joining Fiverr, she was CEO at Bright com Group, a digital marketing company based in India, for 2 years. In her 5 years of working at Fiverr, she has seen the company grow from a mere startup to one the most gigantic company serving people around the globe.
Gali mentioned that the last 5 years have been a journey for Fiverr. At first, it was about generating growth and building the brand globally, then came the IPO which was a very important milestone in the company’s journey, then the whole new challenges of PR, industry relations, and working with the press. Then during Covid, everything changed completely. Fiverr being at the default front of digital transformation and working remotely, started adapting to changing situations to assess different global economies. And now that the situation is changing again, it is becoming a challenge for Fiverr but as Fiverr is very persistent and true to its vision and wants the world to work together, it is coping with it just fine.
Discussing how Fiverr is different from other freelancing platforms, Gali mentioned that the most important aspect is the way Fiverr is built, and it is modeled. In many ways, the platform allows people to buy digital services in the same way as buying a product on Amazon. Browsing from the catalog of over 550 services, seeing the price upfront, no need for negotiation, no need to write a brief, and having 1 click experience to get the service are pin-pointed by Gali as the top features of Fiverr. Moreover, Fiverr is quicker, simpler, and easy to use which makes it different from other platforms. Furthermore, Gali stated that Fiverr has also localized the platform to 7 different languages including German, French, Dutch, and Portuguese so it’s not only in English anymore.
Talking about the hype of Web3 and NFTs, Gali mentioned that Fiverr is the first of those platforms that picked up the hype of NFTs and Web3. As soon as NFTs started making waves, Fiverr stepped in and introduced services related to them. Gali thinks that the hype of NFTs and Web3 started to increase when Mark Zuckerberg started talking about his visions for the Metaverse. This was the time when every company wanted to be a part of this new era of marketing. She thinks that now that it’s becoming more standardized and is not in the hype anymore, businesses have started working for it, and Fiverr have some tactics in store to develop further in Web3.
Gali talked about Fiverr focusing more on complex projects. She stated that features like milestones, subscription models, and Fiverr Business are launched keeping in mind the needs of bigger businesses that need freelancers for long-term or complex projects.
Gali gave some tips to entrepreneurs and freelancers looking for work on Fiverr mentioning positive reviews, and portfolios of work, saying the top secret is over-communication. She pointed towards the integration of Zoom on Fiverr along with an easy chat panel to extensively talk about needs and expectations for both the seller and buyer.
Saying aloud that freelancing is the future of work Gali stated, by the end of this decade, 50% of the workforce in the US is going to be freelancers. She said that people are willingly going to leave their 9 to 5 and chose freelancing as their lifestyle because they can control their hours, they can be their boss, can balance their time between family and work, and they can do what they like. Comparing businesses’ current situation to before Covid, Gali said that businesses now measure the output of people instead of measuring their working hours or where they are working from. According to Gali, this change in mindsets is going to lead to a bright future for freelancing and Fiverr.
Talking about the growth strategies of Fiverr for the future, Gali stated 3 things. The first one is Fiverr Business and accommodating the bigger businesses and organizations on the platform that use the services of Fiverr on an ongoing basis. The second big revolution is going to be global expansion. She mentioned that Fiverr is now more known to European markets than it used to be but they expect to grow more and more to reach everywhere across the globe. The third one is opening more categories. She revealed that NFT and Web3 were nonexistent on Fiverr one and a half years ago but now they are quite big on the platform. She added that Fiverr already has developers and designers building tools and assets for the Metaverse. So, Fiverr can be a lab where advanced solutions and technologies get a start.
Concluding the discussion, Gali mentioned that although Fiverr is much more known now than it used to be, its mission is to become the first thought in mind for any digital service that one can think of.
