844: Brybe: The #1 Marketplace for Freelancers and Influencers with Igor Fedenkoff

Speaker 1 0:00 marketer of the Day episode 844 Bribe the number one marketplace for freelancers and influencers with Igor Finn cough

Robert Plank 0:13 Welcome back to the podcast. We are here with Igor veteran cough and Igor is the co founder of bing.com. That's vryv.com. So bribe with a why Igor is a serial entrepreneur. He has a decade long history of creating successful startups in the healthcare and hospitality verticals. He improves brand image and revenues, TEDx. He has an MBA and he has a platform for remote professionals and social media influencers, looking for opportunities for brand collaborations and ongoing work gigs. We're gonna get into the nitty gritty, the fun stuff, eager, glad to be talking to you.

Speaker 3 0:53 Robert, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

Robert Plank 0:57 It is a pleasure to have you and so bribe.com is I have it open right now it's the place to hire the finest freelancers and influencers for your project. So right off the bat here, elephant in the room, why you Why not like a Fiverr Upwork type of marketplace?

Speaker 3 1:14 That's excellent. You miss one more freelancer.com? Oh, yeah, it's only three large companies that actually run in the space right now. And fibers model is the closest to us. We, about two years ago, we created an influencer platform based on the two sided marketplace. Because I don't think the interests of the smaller to medium sized businesses and influencers were really well represented in the market. The majority of the platforms were originally built by engineers and represented a lot of analytical and search based functions. But we decided to build something that offers direct interaction control flow funds, makes it an automated and easy to use process. And that happened in the very beginning of the pandemic. So we quickly realized that freelancers would be an industry to be in the space to definitely jump into. And considering that we have some large players, obviously, there are some barriers to entrance. But the biggest things that we had to offer is a we're brand new. And we're built by marketers, not engineers. So this is an extremely well, based on a backhand a very complex engine. But on the flip side, first of all, we don't charge our sellers, anybody who comes on platform to sell their services is not subject to platform fees, we figured this is going to be an easier way for the professionals to actually jump into the space. And the second biggest thing is that majority of the professionals are just jumping into the market. And we're talking about 57 million Americans and hundreds of millions of people around the world. If they even do jump onto existing platforms, they are subject to being at the end of the list. Because majority of the current professionals already rated, they have their stars, they have their reviews. And if you're brand new, and you're coming in, you end up on you know, page number 100. With a new platform, new boss, new name, bright orange, funny name, you're actually up in the very front for any business or any buyer to take a look at your platform and acknowledge your services. So those are generally the best idea that we could come up with. And I think it's been working for the past two years. Plus, we have both social media influencers and freelancers on the platform. And mind you they are two completely different groups, although all of them are called Digital traders. But we're able to serve both markets and able to provide the services of those verticals to the buyers worldwide. So plus, we have the most annoying jingle on this planet. Oh,

Robert Plank 3:57 now I have to look up what that is because but knowing can be good, right? I know, annoying can mean attention getting in your face catchy, memorable, things like that. And a lot of what you said makes sense here. And what comes to mind is you always hear about these platforms, like the Apple App Store, Uber, Amazon, they all start off with good intentions. And then they do all kinds of things to attract people, buyers and sellers in the marketplace. And it seems like as they get more established, they treat their users like crap, especially sellers and they end up kind of charging on both sides, they end up charging fees to sellers and buyers. And and you know, there's one freelancing site in particular that comes to mind where the last week or so they have completely changed up their user interface. And it's so awkward and it's not just a matter of like I'm, I'm used to what I'm used to, I hate it and it's all just like you're saying here, it's made by the engineers by the geeks. It's kind of organized in a way that people aren't used to using and you wonder these these things that you're bringing up like why not? My approach or from like a marketing conversion perspective, why not in this day and age of split testing artificial intelligence, why not kind of optimizing so that people use the site the most. And then also what you're mentioning of giving a break to the the new people on the marketplace? It's like, why don't why doesn't everyone do that? Right? Like, if I'm brand new on bribe, I only have a limited attention span, I might have, you know, have watch other things going on. I want to see if this works. So it makes a lot of sense that you would promote your new, your new sellers to kind of show them what the platform is all about. So it seems like a place that we we need to go and maybe even replace what we're already doing with the freelancing and the influencing. And so that kind of influencer subject. That's kind of interesting, right? Because as you said, Igor, you're kind of you said, well, with the pandemic, there's kind of these growing industries like freelancing and like the like influencing. But whenever you kind of research it, you wonder, what's real, right? You wonder how many of those followers are real? Or if the people that kind of made it work? Did they sort of win the lottery select? What are your thoughts on it? If someone says, I want to become an influencer of some kinds, I want to use the bribe platform to do it. What is your advice to kind of a newcomer in that industry? Well, all

Speaker 3 6:25 the things that you've mentioned, make complete an entire sense. And actually, I think influencer marketing has been an overused concept for the past few years. And I think it also scares a lot of people, because they look at larger influencers, like you know, the Kardashians and the Kanye West of this world. And smaller businesses realize that there's no way in hell they can get somebody like this to work with them. And influencers that are obviously smaller than that are trying to figure out how, how do we get any kind of gig, but realistically, and absolutely, the fraud is, is present on it. And I think it's up to the platforms that offer this type of services. To keep an eye on that. We have our own analytical engine that we're building and about to finalize, actually, at the end of this year. But we have partnerships with companies that already have a long standing name in the industry like hypeauditor. And they offer the services of a basically verifying the profiles of the influencers and making sure that if you buy the service, or if you are trying to establish a relationship, more or less, you're capable of doing with at least some information, rather than just poking around in the dark, like you do with a lot of larger platforms. So influencer marketing is great is going to grow, I think smaller influencers actually have a lot larger chance of succeeding because they're local, and they're a lot more engaged. For instance, we have a mom from Las Vegas that does reviews for all kinds of kid product products. Her conversion rate and exchange rate for any kind of recommendation is about 27%. While you look at some larger influencers, you're looking at 0.006. So there's a huge difference, despite the millions of their followers, smaller and fillers, our influencers are a lot more engaged, they're more influential for the lack of a better word, with their audience. And they actually value their following so much that they pick very carefully which services they review or which products they promote, as opposed to looking at somebody's profile where you see, you know, one post is energy drink, another post is makeup, another post is clothing, then you understand that these guys are just basically selling their work and talking advertising and more power to them. They're actually quite successful. But we're focusing on the digital professionals right now that are entering the market they're learning. So we're building a learning base on bribe which is soon going to come on and it's going to be called bribe Academy. In the meantime, we have a very nice blog, which is regularly updated. With all the recent information, we have a relationship with a legal professional, that is probably the only one right now in the United States that put together a course on the legal side of becoming an influencer. So all the little loopholes and all the little scary things that can happen to somebody who starts promoting for somebody else. He covers that he explains that. So we take it upon ourselves to make sure that people make an educational decision by promoting themselves with brain

Robert Plank 9:24 and we help them well cool and I'm kind of making a little like behind the scenes know of I like how you have this you made sure to make content a priority. You have this blog with all these kind of like the the frequent questions people ask and things like that. So that way, it works on in all kinds of ways, right? It's more content for you more traffic for you. But then also people who are curious about your platform and using your platform. They can kind of see these blog posts and then you have this kind of Academy piece that's up and coming so that way people kind of have a full course with everything they need to know to use your plan. So that's one of those things where any kind of like software or platform scenario, we have to educate people so that way they they use our platform. So it's a cool just little like tip behind the scenes thing I'm filing away. And so you mentioned a little bit about some of these people like this, like this attorney, who is kind of teaching your platform, we're using your platform. And as you know, Igor stories are so fun, write stories are fun, because if you're not really in learning mode, then you can kind of just like, get hooked into the story and and get something cool. And then usually, there's kind of some cool nuggets of information hidden there. So in the story department, if it's a story about you, in building this company, or story about some successful user has anything come to mind about a fun quick story you'd like to share with us?

Speaker 3 10:44 Oh, my God, there are a ton of them. We actually, we have a very well established moderation on the platform. And it's so fun to see how, on the flip side of things, people are trying to get on the platform and run some schemes and run some fraudulent stuff. So we had a story with a company that actually masks themselves as an app promoter. And they had direct links to Google Play Store, etc. And basically, they were hiring influencers, and asking them to purchase $100 Google card, and then take a picture with it and make sure that the number is seen. So that they're promoting an app, we actually caught it on the third user, thank God. And unfortunately, the two previous users were for the lack of a better word naive. And they actually posted the picture. So obviously, the scammer has just removed the funds from their cards and they were gone. We were able to locate them then had conversations with a few other platforms in the space, found their digital footprints and basically got rid of them on many different locations. And with our influencers, we actually ran a little bit of educational like newsletter explaining to them what they can and cannot do in situations like that. So the way I like the stories, success stories, obviously, I find it incredible. But I think the challenging stories actually show that, for instance, in our particular case, we care about our users were able to catch stuff like that nipped in the bud, so to speak. And make sure that we like you said we're educating our users. So that was that was a great story. I'd rather I'd rather share the challenging stories than just success stories, because success stories we have planned out.

Robert Plank 12:30 Yeah, and then the challenging ones are more real. And there's so much built into that it's like there's like kind of the reassurance and all the things that go on that you do not see as a user, but then also from like an entrepreneurial perspective, that kind of sharing in the maybe not the misery but like the stress or temporary panic when you have these unexpected problems, but then you go and you kind of calm down and figure out a solution. So it's good to know these sorts of things. And so it's cool that you have sort of niched yourself out, right? You're not You're not just another freelancing site, because who needs another one of those but you're kind of more focused on there's the influencer side. But there's also these other like Freelancer categories, I can look on on the website, graphics, video music, writing it. And so as far as those other categories, kind of the non influencer Freelancer categories, is there one that has really like blowing up or is growing or that has you really excited.

Speaker 3 13:27 I have two answers. One of them is finally one of them. Statistical, statistically, we have over 340 categories and subcategories on the Freelancer site. Obviously, the one that's helping come in is the NF T's. There are NFC creators on the platform. There are people that are interested in understanding what it is. And frankly, I had to go back to school and figure out how it works. I created my first NFT, two years ago, two days ago. And I realized that it's really not that hard of a process. But there is always that laziness, I guess, that people possess. And they would rather find an expert or somebody who knows how to do it and figure out how to do it themselves. So I think this presents an incredible opportunity for people that are on the edge of the technology and are able to offer in this particular case, the NFT services to promote what they're doing and to find a wide spectrum of buyers on the platform. So something like that. Oh, and the funny one is when we ran the analysis for the first two quarters of this year, on the influencer side. The first one was I think the first category was fitness. The second category was fashion and makeup which are very logical. The third category was animal husbandry. I didn't even know stuff like this exists in the influence award. But we placed it based on the analysis of the market and it is absolutely insane. Seeing how a lot of small geographical areas in Europe and in the United States actually have people that offer their expertise and in, you know, taking care of the animals and the husbandry itself. And there are a lot of companies that are interested in promoting that. And that was it proved to us that we're actually onto something here. And we're addressing the needs of the companies that usually probably would not appear on your usual list of people buying influencer campaigns or influencers working with businesses in that kind of stuff. So yeah, that was my story.

Robert Plank 15:39 And that is kind of cool. And as far as the like, the NFT side of things there. What's interesting about that, is that there, there are many different skills out there that are easy for people like you and me part for others. And we every person is different, everyone has them. And it's a good reminder that will even though I know just to run this software, push this button or do this thing. Some people are like, which software which button What if I pushed the wrong button, am I am I doing the right thing. So and whenever we have that, like kind of entrepreneurial dream, that goal, that business we want to build, it's, it can be really discouraging. And you might even quit before you started. I mean, how many people out there want to create their own NFT for their artwork or something like that, or want to create an app or a website or software or something like that, and they are hung up because they think they need to go back to school, you need to take a class you need to read books, and the magic of these freelance marketplaces now more than ever, is that you can just go to a freelancer and get something set up or have some kind of long term project or, or get them to create something for you. Even if you have none of the skills don't have the expertise, you just get good at communicating what it is you want, and then check their work. That's kind of a important reminder, which I feel like our conversation is full of those. And so to kind of, kind of unpack that animal Husband Husband tree example. Like what is what does that like? Because like usually when I think influencer marketplaces I think remote work. So is that a matter of like, my horse is sick, my pig is sick, I need like medical veterinarian advice or like, what does a bribe influencer or freelancer job for animal husbandry look like?

Speaker 3 17:20 For the most part, it's the expertise and the promotion of the peripheral products and services that come with the particular need. So whether it's going to be some technology, or devices or products that are used for grooming, or you know, the newborn animals, the shampoos, the everything that comes into the picture that people really don't think about. But if you are in a particular segment, or in a particular market, they are incredibly, incredibly important because what products you use on your, you know, newborn animals is how these animals are going to grow up. So I think this would be the main direction. And funny thing, you mentioned something because we are actually in the process of developing and adding the third vertical to our platform. And this is going to be the first podcast that I ever mentioned it on, we are going to be adding online coaches. So I think by that we are basically covering the majority of digital creators side because you can learn about things and you will be able to purchase the courses from those educators online. You also can obviously order any kind of creative assets for your company and new through the freelancers. And from the influencers. You can order the promotional campaigns on social media, and all of it is actually by keeping your advertising costs and labor costs way down. Because these are all gig employments, they don't require long term employments, they don't require benefits, etc. So especially for smaller businesses, as you know, first thing they cut is advertising budget. And in current conditions, they're probably not even thinking about advertising. But we're giving them an opportunity to actually run advertising campaigns at pennies on the dollar.

Robert Plank 19:11 And this this kind of goes full circle, because at the beginning of our discussion, you mentioned COVID times you mentioned kind of a shake up a changeup in the industry, and there are probably there are guaranteed businesses out there that are looking for these kinds of additional income streams. And so and so it took a couple things come to mind from our current line of conversation. One is that you always hear about an influencer seeking work and trying to get hired but then knowing about your marketplace here, there's kind of the other side of that of, of some of someone like selling their their services and like the selling like the like the the veterinarian kind of service is like the you know, advice about raising my newborn pig or something like that. And so I'm sure that there are like veterinarians and people like business owners like That who maybe have a brick and mortar location, and they're looking to get new streams of revenue, and they could use your platform to use their existing, you know, animals, livestock, things like that to you to advertise these kind of products as an influencer on your platform. So that part is pretty cool. And then also what you said there about kind of the online coaches and about the advertising. I mean, anytime I interview, Facebook ad, Google ad, YouTube ad expert here, Igor, but there's usually the gotcha, which is, it'll cost you about $30,000 retainer, right, it's, you need to give us a bunch of money up front, and we'll just burn through it. And there's no guarantee in six months, what we can guarantee is that the money will be spent. But then we might ask for more money, because either the campaign didn't break even or barely broke even. And now it's time to really do the advertising and keep paying us because if you stop those advertising campaigns are done for and so what you've explained here is a very interesting solution here of hiring someone on the bribe platform, to do the strategy to do the coaching to solve the problems and create a plan, and then go and hire someone else for implementation. And that seems, as you mentioned, there kind of a lien or way of getting the job done, especially in whether might be this business or that business that has been hit hard, and needs to figure out a more low budget way of getting the job done. And maybe people have been held back by the cost prohibitive pneus of all these Pay Per Click ads. So now your platform makes it possible you're making dreams come true. Congratulations. As we're winding down our conversation here. Is there anything that we did not mention about the bribe platform or about what you have going on that you think we need to work into the show anything come to mind,

Speaker 3 21:51 the only thing that comes to mind, come check us out, we're free, we're wide open, my 10 year old daughter is on the platform. So that proves to you that it's very easy to use and very user friendly, I actually do one better from what you said, for a lot of our personal corporate needs. We hire the professionals from bribe. So we have so much faith into people on it that the YouTubers, the promoters Instagramers, we use them all the time, we're very happy with the results. There's a lot of repeated orders from our company, and coming users bribe.com

Robert Plank 22:26 Fantastic bing.com. That's brybe.com. You heard it from ego. It's like Inception. Sometimes they hire the bribe users to get work done on bribe, check it out, you have everything to gain, nothing to lose, except for maybe the possibility of finding this new freelance marketplace who actually wants you who is up and coming and eager for your business, like you always hear about, you can you can either put your money in like a big bank with a national chain where you're just a number to them, or you can go and find a more local credit union where you get a better deal because they're more localized and they care about you more. This seems to me like the version of that be our ybe.com is the place to go. We'll see you there. And thank you Igor for stopping by and taking the time.

Speaker 3 23:14 Thank you, Robert. It was great being here. Appreciate it. Have a good day. Happy Holidays everybody.

Robert Plank 23:22 This is Robert plank from the marketer of the day podcast which you can find at marketer of a day.com for more episodes and def Why podcast.com forward Slash Free. If you want to know more about running your own podcast or running a better or more fun or easier or less time intensive podcast. Go to DF ly podcast.com/free To find out more right this instant