Brandon Cowan is the 21-year-old owner of Crazy Dog Apps, one of Australia’s leading app developers. The four-year-old company, which has released games like Stacker Infinity and Wildlife Witness, has produced four top-100 apps on the Australian App Store and has been featured in Forbes and many other media outlets. Brandon is the company’s only employee.
Hire experts to do what you can’t
I don’t know how to code an app despite Crazy Dog Apps having produced more than 25 of them. I outsource the coding and graphic design. My philosophy is that when you are running a business, it is important to do what you are great at, and either pay an expert to do what you aren’t great at or spend lots of time learning to be great before undertaking the task. I’ll never be a good developer or graphic designer, and it would be counter-productive for me to spend time learning either as I would have less time to do what I enjoy and what I am good at, such as UX design and ASO (App Store Optimization).
I found out about Fiverr® by clicking on an ad. At first, I didn’t believe I could get things for starting at $5, but after a while, I thought I’d give it a go. Initially, I bought an infographic and some app icons, and I was very impressed with the high quality of work and the ridiculously fast turnaround – just a few days. Since then, I have placed more than 140 orders and spent over $4600 AUD (Australian Dollars) on Gigs® from Fiverr sellers in 27 different countries! The Gigs I have ordered have ranged from app testing and app icons, to logos, voiceovers and business card design, to tattoo design and funny happy birthday videos.
All these Gigs have delivered with the highest possible quality level, but a couple of Gigs require special praise. I recently hired Parulk30 to test an Android app. Within 24 hours, he sent me a very detailed list of bugs and some of them required him to do a fair bit of testing. I was actually shocked at how good he was. I order voiceovers from Scottstoked, Andymuzic, and Simplyservices. They have always been incredibly affordable, but the quality could literally not be any better or more professional.
Finally, there are some absolutely incredible illustrators on Fiverr that have drawn very specific, custom designs for me—from scratch—and done an absolutely amazing job. I have to admit that whenever Jjawzip sends me his work, I just sit there and stare at his designs for a bit while thinking to myself, “This is amazing. I am so lucky to be hiring someone so talented.”
Why I like Fiverr
I estimate that I have saved at least $30,000 and hundreds of hours of time by using Fiverr instead of hiring local companies. But not all the benefits can be quantified. For example, without Fiverr, I don’t know how I could have got a guy in a vegetable costume to sing happy birthday to my dad late last year. And I wouldn’t have known where to get a list of virtually every country, state and suburb in the world. I actually spent many hours looking online for this and couldn’t find anything. Then I paid someone on Fiverr US $20, and they sent the list to me within 24 hours!
Other outsourcing websites exist, but Fiverr offers tremendous value and is MUCH faster—you usually get the work done within days instead of weeks or months. I have also found that about 95 percent of the people I hire on Fiverr meet or exceed my expectations. I can only assume that this success rate is unprecedented on any other major outsourcing website.
How to find the right sellers
Here is my not-so-secret process for hiring awesome sellers on Fiverr:
1. Search for what you want.
2. Click “High Rating” so you are immediately shown the best sellers on Fiverr.
3. Browse through the sellers and select four or five of them to open in new tabs in your browser.
4. Compare them all in terms of:
Timeframe: For most Gigs, sellers give you the option of paying extra for faster delivery, but some Gigs are delivered within 24 hours without paying extra, so keep an eye out for those gigs!
Cost & description: Read the descriptions and calculate the total price carefully. For example, I usually want high-resolution source files for graphic designs, which often costs a little bit more.
Note: If you have an urgent need, send a message to four or five sellers asking if they are available immediately. You will usually get a response from one of them within about 20 minutes, so that’s the one to hire!
Are you a Fiverr buyer with a great success story to tell? Let us know in the comments below.
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