What I would do for Five Bucks….

Posted on | May 24, 2010 | No Comments

I was intrigued. The question of what I would do for five bucks lingered for days; obsessively I thought about what I could do. I needed a mental break on the weekends away from work and school work and thought that this was the perfect chance to monetize some of my hobbies. I liked to paint, but had never sold any. In fact, I lost money putting them on Etsy. I also liked to make music, but had never successfully been able to put together an EP.

So I listed two jobs on this site called Fiverr. I offered to paint a 3 x 5 index card with an abstract painting for five dollars; I also offered to write a song about the topic of a person’s choosing for five dollars. Quickly, I was inundated with jobs.

Paint me a Picture
This job was all about me. I stated simply that I would determine the composition of the paintings. I had thought about trying to keep costs down so I went with a very inexpensive medium that I had a large number of lying around from working on my thesis. Yes, I used index cards. I also then chose to only use leftovers of paint that I had from previous projects. The mistake I made was offering to send the images by mail to the people who had ordered them. This is only a net loss of 45 cents; however,  was not aware, many people in the United Kingdom were also avid users of Fiverr, and I ended up taking a hit of nearly a dollar per picture.

Cost of supplies: $0
Cost of Mailing: .40 – $1
Fiverr’s Cut: $1
Total Profit: ~3.50 per image.
Time taken: ~45 minutes per painting
Earnings: about $4.60 per hour of work

I quickly realized that despite the costs of the supplies being zero that I was making below minimum wage by doing something that I enjoyed. I had successfully monetized my hobby!  But at what cost? By doing paintings that I worked hard on, was I cheapening the work of those who do paint for a living? (See the Paintings that I made)

Sing me a Song
I also offered to write people a song about a topic of their choosing. I had done improv music with my friend over the years and it never seemed hard. Put a couple of chords together, sing some funny words and presto! song! The first job was relatively easy- it seemed- write a short song about a friend who had been betrayed by her boyfriend.

I had come up with a chorus pretty quickly; however, I remembered that songwriting is serious work. And then to be funny?! I could have written anything and maybe gotten the five dollars; however, I felt the pressure of this being my first job. I poured over the lyrics, re-wrote them.  I turned on the camera and began playing. Yes, it takes more than one take to nail a song. It took about ten takes before I came up with a version I thought was worth five dollars.

For a five dollar song, I spent nearly three and a half hours writing and trying to get it right. In the meantime I had about ten other requests for songs. I was trying to write all of these other songs and maintain some level of quality, but it was impossible. I eventually succumbed to pressure and had to cancel all of the jobs. I had about ten fragments, but nothing that I felt was worth five dollars.

So were my standards too high? Perhaps. I admit that I could have been the one holding myself back. But also, was I myself undervaluing what I had once taken so much joy in? Music was surely worth more than I was getting paid for it. After Fiverr’s $1 cut, I earned just under $1.15 an hour for my work.

Lessons Learned?
Unlike previous experience with five dollar work for hire like the short lived Brijit.com, I realized that doing this work for five four dollars was a bad deal for artists and creators. I put more work and effort into what I put out there than five dollars could buy.

But perhaps Fiverr wasn’t the right venue, two of the users I sent my work to did say I was “bargain.”

What an amazing bargain! houseofsuns created a beautiful and unique piece of abstract art and I would highly recommend this gifted and creative artist. – Petrichor

Hilarious song… it would have paid $10 for it… luckily it was a bargain at $5. Would totally recommend this guy for personalized songs! -JessicaHoek

In the end I’m not sure. Is Fiverr.com a bad deal for artists and creators? Or was it a bad deal for me because I undervalued my own work?

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