9 Companies Changing How The World Approaches Work

Fiverr gives companies access to freelancers at the click of a button.

• Fiverr is a small company that is tackling big things. Despite being valued at $1.2 Billion, Fiverr is the world’s largest platform for hiring freelancers to do anything from graphic design to data analysis.
• Fiverr takes what’s traditionally a difficult process for small-businesses - approaching freelancers to complete specific and often one-off tasks - and makes it substantially less impactful on time and finances. Business owners can engage with freelancers on Fiverr with requests for work to be done with set parameters on budget, delivery time and expertise.
• Fiverr has been loss making to-date and is expected to continue being loss making for some time which has put off traditional investors looking for profitable companies and value. Fiverr’s business model is predicated on reinvesting all spare cash into marketing to acquire increasingly large cohorts of buyers on the platform. Over the last few years, Fiverr’s marketing spend exploded from $11.7 Billion in 2018 to $44.3 Billion in Q2 2022.
• The growing marketing spend means the number of users on the platform is exploding as well. Fiverr’s quarterly filings show that customers acquired during any quarter tend to pay back the performance marketing budget in the following quarter. Older cohorts and trends within more recent ones show that once acquired, customers tend to be very sticky which means the customers of every quarter yield strong revenues for years into the future.

Upwork lets you outsource work at real scale.

• Upwork is one of the only 2 big platforms for hiring freelancers along with Fiverr. The two platforms are very different, however. While Fiverr is more suited to outsourcing specific tasks to specific freelancers, Upwork lets you hire people for more complex work on a longer-term basis.
• In a world where work is becoming more distributed, Upwork empowers small businesses by opening up access to a wealth of talented professionals who are able to assist with complex tasks over a defined period. This is super helpful for businesses in the early stages of operations that require high level expertise, but often don’t have the resources to employ these people full-time.
• Like Fiverr, Upwork has seen a big hit in its valuation in 2022 as part of the overall stock market downturn and is 75% down on the highs from late 2021. But all along, the business has continued to grow and post increasing revenues quarter after quarter while reinvesting in growth.
• The economy is in a unique time where a period of high inflation and a drop in GDP coincides with record low levels of unemployment. Although it is unclear how this situation will play out, tougher economic conditions may present an opportunity for Upwork if demand for work grows, giving strength to small-businesses in being able to negotiate terms.

Google provides startups and small businesses all the tools they need to get going.

• The company we all know for its search engine and YouTube is also one of the cornerstones of every startup’s tech. Google Workspace is fast becoming the default way to manage small business necessities like email, calendar, chat and cloud storage and Google’s Sheets and Docs are showing increasing popularity when compared to its competitor in Microsoft Office.
• Google is taking things one step further with its Google Cloud offering. Google Cloud lets anyone running an online business operate their websites, apps, databases, and storage do it all through Google’s Cloud Console.
• I run all of my online businesses through Google Cloud as I find the integration with other services invaluable.
• If Google continues to build out the functionality of its offerings, it’ll be able to acquire business customers migrating from Microsoft Office. Their comparatively cheaper subscription plans and seamless cloud integration offer appealing propositions for businesses that are money-conscious and so there’s plenty of scope for Google’s subscription revenue to boom if their functionality rivals or even exceeds that of Microsoft.

Amazon is the global leader in cloud computing that underpins tech companies and app developers

• We all know Amazon for the online shop that has changed the retail landscape forever. But while buying things with one click and having them delivered the next day is useful, Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) is the product that is changing the game for web and app developers.
• AWS is the Amazon Cloud service that has quickly become the #1 provider of cloud computing services that underpin most tech startups and mobile apps. Amazon’s AWS service has outcompeted, and outpriced Google and Microsoft and it is no surprise that AWS is the fastest growing segment within Amazon’s overall business.
• AWS’s ‘pay for what you use’ model is so important for web developers, start-ups and small businesses as it eliminates the costly overhead of unused computational power, data storage or hosting services. There’s no upfront cost to build a storage system and no need to estimate usage. AWS customers use what they need and their costs are scaled automatically and accordingly.
• Their model has proved so successful to the point where they now dominate the cloud computing space, controlling 33% of market share compared to Microsoft Azure’s 21%. Estimates say that by 2023, end user expenditure on the cloud services will reach nearly $600 billion USD and so AWS’s growing dominance will mean that AWS could become the cash-cow driving Amazon’s profits.

Microsoft’s Windows operating system, Office suite and Azure cloud computing touch every small business owner.

• Microsoft has been around for a while, but recent changes to its pricing model and engagement mentality is opening up improved revenue streams from turning one-off purchases into long-term subscriptions.
• Microsoft Office’s suite of software forms an essential part of a small business’ infrastructure and provides these businesses with some of the most compatible and widely-supported email clients, word processors, spreadsheets and collaborative tools on the market at a competitive price. The holistic nature of Microsoft Office ensuress that a multitude of technological needs of small businesses are met with a single subscription, making sure these businesses aren’t being left behind in a digital world.
• Microsoft Office has already seen stellar success after switching to a monthly subscription model from expensive one off software costs and this is popular with freelancers and small business owners as well as boosting Microsoft’s bottom line in recent years.
• Microsoft Azure may be lagging behind Amazon in terms of cloud computing, but, like Amazon and Google, it is growing at a phenomenal rate year on year and is expected to be a major P&L contributor in years to come.
• More recently, Microsoft has been combining its offerings with services like Windows 365 where cloud computing, Microsoft Office and Windows all combine to let anyone use a virtual machine to let users carry out demanding work tasks without having to splash out on expensive hardware.

Intuit lets small business owners do accounting and corporate management with ease.

• Intuit’s QuickBooks product is known the world over for letting small and medium-sized companies easily manage their accounting and finances. Over the last few years the service has gone from one off software purchases to an online subscription model which is both – more popular with customers and more profitable for Intuit.
• However, Intuit has taken steps beyond their leading accounting product through offering more and more services to its core customer base in adjacent spaces. Through targeted acquisitions and internal development, Intuit helps with US tax submissions through its TurboTax product, manage automated emailing services with Mailchimp, and even manage your money better with Credit Karma and Mint.
• By covering off several different needs of small businesses, Intuit joins Microsoft in making a compelling value proposition for small businesses who want a multitude of different needs covered without the arduous process of managing 10 different subscriptions. Through acquisition of software IP that runs adjacent to their current offerings, Inuit can capture a greater variety of business customers, and the possibilityl for them to upsell to highly retentive customers.

The upstart online accounting software that is becoming the default choice for freelancers

• Xero is an online accounting and financial management upstart company from New Zealand that is fast becoming the default choice for freelancers and small businesses. Trading on the Australian Securities Exchange, Xero has a $12 Billion market cap and boasts Peter Thiel as one of its early investors.
• Starting out in New Zealand and Australia, Xero has since spread to the UK, United States and over 100 countries around the world. The super simple online accounting tool lets anyone manage their company finances for a monthly subscription fee. The simpler interface and UX design has meant that Xero is often favored over more established names by freelancers who don’t have a financial background.
• Xero is still in relatively early stages of growth with additional integrations, tools and features added on a regular basis making the management of your business easier year after year. This creates a very sticky customer base that provides an unusually high resilience on revenue for Xero.

Apple provides a unique hardware-software combination that is leaps ahead of any competition for freelancers in some categories.

• Apple has carved out a niche in providing a unique hardware and software blend that many freelancers in creative industries really appreciate. From video editing and graphics processing to many creative applications, Apple’s mac lineup is the default choice for creators who want their computer and software to work together seamlessly.
• The introduction of the M1 chip and the M2 successor has given Apple’s Mac segment a boost after a period of relative stagnation. The unique integrated design has meant that Apple’s laptops and workstations are leaps ahead of any competitor in dedicated work streams. As the world moves more and more towards distributed working patterns, and away from localized mainframes, demand for leading systems on a chip is likely to increase in the coming years and Apple is first in line to benefit.
• While a closed hardware and software ecosystem like Apple would traditionally be seen as a poor move, Apple has found untold success in their Mac, iPhone and iPad ecosystem of devices and their market penetration is so deep that many tools used by freelancers and small-businesses are being developed for their ecosystem only. Creating incredibly sticky customers that will continue purchasing Apple products out of necessity.

AMD provides the processing and graphical hardware that are the backbone for many technical freelancer work streams.

• A surprise addition to this list, AMD has increasingly been more and more important for freelancers and small businesses operating in industries requiring high computing performance. Engineers, scientists, data analysts, graphic designers and video editors all need powerful hardware to do their work and AMD has stepped in as the provider of choice.
• Many computing-heavy industries are exploding – things like online content production, data analysis, artificial intelligence and machine learning are becoming more and more important. AMD’s Chief Executive Lisa Su has taken the company in a new direction focused on enterprise and commercial applications which is now delivering incredible results with 70% year on year growth in revenue in the latest results for Q2 2022.
• AMD’s main competitors took other bets which have played out much worse and are now lagging further and further behind. Intel focused on cheaper processor design which meant that the architecture is now years behind AMD in terms of development and Nvidia’s bet on crypto mining and extreme game performance is taking a hit as the crypto boom passes.