Creating a Revolution in Freelancing & Entrepreneurship w/Karl Swanepoel

If you find this podcast helpful, please subscribe to our YouTube channel at Tools of the Podcast Trade. Follow us and also leave a five-star review. I really appreciate your support, Thank you. My guest today is CEO of Revelancer, Carl Swanipoil. Thanks for the coming and speaking to me, Carl.

Well, thanks very much for having me.

Yes, Okay. So before we get into what you do because it's a fascinating story that I'm sure we'll all want to hear Can you tell us who is Carl?

Well, I'd say I'm someone who is very obsessed about entrepreneurship and freelancing and have been for a very long time. I'd say my hobby has been entrepreneurship and freelancing and all kinds of online business for a long time and now I'm fortunate enough to have that as a full-time gig.

Okay, all right, so I noticed that you just said it that you started at a young age, and I see that you started from 13 freelancing. Now we didn't call it freelancing back then, I'm sure, but what got you into freelancing and entrepreneurship? What got you into that working lifestyle?

Sure, yeah. Well, when I was quite young so probably 11 or 12 or so I decided that I wanted to work for myself. I also realized that that's a very difficult thing to pull off, that many people much older than I was at the time, very talented people struggle with, because it's just not an easy thing to do. So when I was 13, I decided to start taking it very seriously, thinking that the more experience I can rack up while I don't have obligations to pay rent or provide for a family, the more experience I could gain in that time, in the better position I would be in to hopefully pull this off. So that's kind of when I got started.

So when I was 13, I started freelancing graphic design and web development services. I worked on a bunch of different platforms. I realized quite quickly that these platforms weren't really working right for freelancers and the clients alike. So when I was 15, I started my own freelancing platform, which I was forced to sell because I was too young to have a pay bail account About six months later. But yeah, I mean, that's essentially how I got started and I've had a real passion about this space for a while.

All right, thank you for sharing that. I'm still intrigued, though, as to because, when we're young, we're told you know, go to school, get good grades, go into college, then get a good job. But what sparked that imagination and knew that you weren't going to be that person?

Well, it's difficult to say where it came from, because both of my parents kind of went the post-grad route. My dad is a professor and my mom used to work in the academic field as well, so they were both quite sort of persistent about me taking school a lot more seriously, whereas my focus and hard and hard work were somewhere else. So I don't really know where it came from exactly, but I've always been quite a creative person who has wanted to do something new and break the mold, rather than going for what is, by all accounts, a safer route but also, in my view, a more boring route or it certainly would be for me personally.

Okay, so I would say that it was an inborn, inborn granite seed there that wouldn't go anywhere, kept growing right.

Yeah, absolutely, I'd say I've always been this way.

Okay, so the first business, the one that you had to give up because you were too young, was that the Buysell Jobs platform.

It was yes. So yeah, buysell Jobs was a freelancing platform that I started in late 2014.

Okay, and what kind of experience? What did you learn from that venture that made you successful in Revelancer?

A huge amount.

I mean I spent what little money I had saved up just on getting the website live, so I didn't have any money to promote it, nor did I know anything about advertising and marketing, so I just had to do trial and error, and I had to do it with zero money.

So I tried lots of different things, but I managed to scale it to a few thousand users within a few months without ever spending anything on advertising. So I tried lots of things that didn't work, but I also tried some things that did work really well. So I learned a huge amount from basically just being thrown in the deep end and trying to figure out how to scale the platform with nothing which has really paid off with Revelancer, because now we are venture capital backed. But still I have this kind of mindset of not just throwing money at a problem but really thinking about how the problem can be best solved in a really cash efficient way, and that's been ingrained into me for having done this kind of thing for so many years when I didn't have any money as a kid, basically as a teenager, yeah. So yeah, I mean, in many ways it's helped a lot.

Yeah, so it was like a training ground for the real deal, which is Revelancer right.

Yeah, exactly.

I read somewhere that you want to stop eliminate the nine to five, the nine to five thing mindset, and tell us about that, Tell us about that movement.

Yeah, absolutely so. About a month ago or so we launched a petition to ban the nine to five and we got over 16,000 signatures but got quite a lot of press coverage from them, also coverage on social media. Essentially, I'm not really serious about banning the nine to five just outright like that, but what the point of the whole petition and that whole movement is is to call into question some of these kind of traditional customs of work and then also presenting an alternative and kind of spreading the virtues of freelancing. So it's really to just get people to pay attention because unfortunately, something like three quarters of people are not satisfied with their job, which is horrible, and frankly I think that a freelancing route could really help a lot of those people be a lot more fulfilled in many different ways.

Yes, yes for sure. I guess if we could change our mindset about freelancing, because a lot of us think that 925 has job security right.

Oh yeah, absolutely, and I mean, in some ways I'd agree. But then again it is what you make of it. If you don't take freelancing very seriously and you don't kind of really get creative and contact as many people as possible and try your best, you're not going to succeed. But then equally, if the sites are sharp to your 925 and not try, you're going to get fired. So then I mean, I think what the pandemic kind of helped people realize is that nothing is as secure and risk free perhaps as they thought before, and that you know, sometimes it's worth taking a risk because, well, you know, everything in life is a risk and if you take calculated, slightly bigger risks, like perhaps going into freelancing, then there could be a very big upside there for you.

Yes, for sure. All right. So let's talk about Revolancer. We have Fiverr, we have Upwork, we have Flexjob, we have a host of platforms that host our freelancers. What makes Revolant Lancer different?

Sure. So I mean, if we look at the market leaders today, so some of those platforms you mentioned, the way that they make money is through commission fees. So if we take Fiverr as an example, they charge 20% to the freelancer and 5% to the client. So in other words, you pay $105 for a service and the freelancer gets 80. So first of all, you're paying sort of a lot more than what the freelancer is actually getting. So then there's a question of what value are you getting? Also, from the freelancer's perspective, do they overcharge you to account for that? Do they settle for a lower rate than what their work is worth?

It poses some difficult questions. But the bigger, arguably bigger problem that this causes is platforms like Fiverr don't let you exchange email addresses or hop on a video call or Slack or whatever. And the reason why is because if you could talk outside of their platform, where they can't carefully monitor your communication, you could and probably would find a way around their insane commission fees. And they know that and that's why they don't allow those things. So we solve those problems in a very simple way we don't charge commission fees and we let people communicate outside of that.

Okay, thank you. That's awesome Putting the freedom back in freelancer, right. So I noticed. There's another difference, though, in how Revolancer manages the members on its platform. I didn't notice any payment system, so why is that, and can you explain how that works?

Yeah, so we have a novel skills and service exchange feature that's credit based. So basically I could build you a website and you design me a logo, but we don't need to trade with one another. So I could build you a website, you pay me a thousand credits and then I could use that to source I don't know work from an accountant or something which is maybe not a service you provide, or the copywriting or whatever it is, and then it gives a lot more flexibility and a lot of freelancers are already engaging in skills and service exchanges, despite the inflexibility of doing it without a system like that. But now, of course, revolancer has a novel system that solves those problems. But outside of that, we also have paid work opportunities for freelancers. We have a sort of a feed where people can upload their portfolios and various other bits so you can browse what other freelancers are up to and be inspired and get in touch with them. So we're quite a well rounded platform, really addressing kind of all of the key needs of the freelancer.

That's an interesting concept, a bit like the border system, right? So do freelancers actually pay to have access to a system like that?

So right now it's 100% free.

Okay, all right, thank you. How do you find the courage, given that you failed, and failed in a significant way? How do you find the courage not only to keep going, but to start new ventures?

I mean, that's a good question. I'd say like from when I was very young, I've always had this kind of mindset of facing my fears by jumping into the deep end, and I've kind of trained that into myself so much that now, whenever there's something that scares me, I want to do it more, you know, obviously within reasons, so not anything like stupid or dangerous, but maybe something that makes me nervous. So, for example, public speaking, that made me nervous, but then I prepared for speaking in front of 100 people by speaking in front of 250 people a few times first, so that you know, and then speaking in front of 100 people was not a problem at all. So I'd say, you know, lots of different things, you know, have kind of caused me to be nervous or have some level of fear, but I've always tackled those problems by jumping in the deep end and you know, just getting started.

Ah, jump and grow wings, huh. What is Carl grateful for today?

I'd say I'm most grateful for all the amazing people who have helped me and who are kind of on my, you know, on my journey with me to improve the freelancing space for the better and forever. And so you know that comes down to mentors, my team, my co-founders, advisors, investors, you know just everyone who has really supported our journey. And you know and I certainly couldn't have done it alone. I think that's also very important to say you know, I've only been able to achieve what I have because of lots of really fantastic, talented people around me kind of helping me out.

Thank you, Carl Swanipoil, for coming and talking to us today on the tools of the podcast trade. I really appreciate it and before I let you go, can you give some advice to an up-and-coming entrepreneur, especially in the podcasting space?

Yeah, so the first and most important thing is this question of why. So you know, I ask why do they want to start a business or become an entrepreneur, whatever it is they want to do? And you know, and it's very important for people to have a very good understanding of you know what drives them and what motivates them, and then kind of start there and and yeah, and I mean, you know, starting a business isn't for everyone, it can be a very painful experience at times. It's really like a roller coaster. You have some very high highs, but you also have some very low lows, you know, and that's if things go well. If things go less well, then maybe you have a lot more very low lows. So, you know, it's not for everyone.

One question I like to ask people that I think is a pretty good indicator of whether entrepreneurship is right for them is would they rather be bored or stressed?

And most people would much rather be bored than stressed, but for me personally, there's absolutely nothing worse than being bored. So I would much rather be stressed and, and you know, and that tends to be, in my experience, a pretty good indicator. Actually, that particular question so yeah, I'd say that's the best place to start is, you know, to really understand yourself and figure out if it is for you, and then, if you decide that it is, then the best thing to do it's cliche, but it's really true is to just start. You know you're not going to have all of the answers up front. That's not how it works. You're never going to have all of the answers. But the best way to start getting some of the answers and getting enough of the answers to move forward to the next level is to just go out there and try and do and and learn on the on the job, and that's what I found to be by far the most effective thing.

Amazing. Okay, can you tell us how we could get in touch with you? I almost forgot that.

Yeah, so probably the best place would be LinkedIn. I've also got a personal site with contact details, so if you just search my name on Google, you'll find both of those, and then if you want to check out Revulancer, just head over to Revulancercom and you can start your freelancing journey.