Q&A with 99Designs CEO Patrick Llewellyn
The wisdom of the crowd has touched sectors across the world, from crowdfunding all the way to changing the way we think about design.
Back in 2008, 99Designs started out to create the world’s largest marketplace of graphic design. Initially based on a competition model, designers competed for work by submitting responses to design briefs, opening up clients to new designers and creative influences.
Worldwide expansion
In 2011 they raised over $35m USD of funding from Accel Partners, and since then have hosted over 250,000 design competitions. Recently they’ve expanded worldwide, first acquiring Berlin-based 12designer and then Brazil-based LogoChef.
But now the company has taken on a new direction, with a number of new products that position them as a platform for managing design tasks between clients and designers.
We sat down with Patrick Llewellyn, CEO at 99Designs [pictured right] to find out why they’ve moved beyond crowdsourcing design through competitions and what advice they have for startups looking to expand worldwide.
Where do you see the business in 12 months time?
PL: At the 1st year anniversary of our push into Europe we’re continuing to push hard on international expansion.
Now we’re focusing on scaling and start to look at new regions of the world. 2014 will be looking at opportunities in Asia Pacific. We learned when we localised our customer experience on the front end, we improved sales and engagement, and we’ll continue to do the same worldwide.
Why are your new products moving away from your original competition-based model?
We started as a design forum where one person would post a brief and they’d try different designs and vote because it was what wanted the design community wanted. A contest is a great way to meet a new designer, but we realised it’s not the best way to work ongoing with them.
We want to be the best in the world at solving the problems between clients and designers, so we’ve launched new products like Swiftly (for small design fixes) and new one-to-one projects platform for ongoing work with designers.
Has crowdsourcing peaked?
I’m still staggered at the new things being solved through crowdsourcing. I don’t think it’s peaked, for us it’s been a great way of developing design concepts between clients and designers and will continue to be.
Nowadays, it does feel a bit more mainstream, I’ve noticed more and more larger corporates using it for all kinds of uses including bug detection as well as consumer successes like Kickstarter & IndieGoGo. Crowdsourcing has proven itself to be useful for information gathering, but you can’t apply it to every industry.
What advice would you give to a startup founder looking to rapidly build an engaged community?
The most important thing you can do is listen to both sides of the community. In marketplace businesses either side of the marketplace have very different needs. For us, it’s been our role to manage expectations between designers and clients and find solutions for either side.
The trick to a marketplace is making sure you have enough activity for either side to keep them engaged.
Try to work out the value proposition for people on both sides of the market and focus a lot of energy into building a product that matches both of their expectations. The virality then comes from that.
99Designs offer a dedicated UK site for design competitions, as well as new one-to-one services for managing projects between designers and clients.