Small business owner Danni Guerreiro now knows how it feels to achieve the fabled “work/life balance” so many of us dream of. But getting to this place has taken quite a journey. Danni started her Sydney-based business, Rock-A-Bye-Baby Equipment Hire 13 years ago in a bid to make life better for her family.
Danni told Flying Solo: “Like many parents I had a preschooler moving to big school and we all found the before school care, school all day and then after school care just too long a day for someone so young. I looked around and saw a similar business for sale but it was out of my price range. Undaunted I went ahead anyway and started my own hire company from scratch, literally just cramming the dozen or so items I had for hire in a spare room in the house and delivering in my completely unsuitable Honda Jazz,” said Danni.
As most small business owners will understand, launching the business was only the first step and Danni quickly realised her biggest challenge: just how many aspects of business she alone needed to be on top of.
“In the early days the budget could be very limited so I had to be the customer service person, the delivery person, the marketing manager, the SEO service, the cleaner, the bookkeeper etc,” she said.
Keen to make her business sustainable as well as successful, Danni engaged the services of Fiverr, the largest online marketplace for freelancers to help ease her daily workload.
“I regularly engage the same graphic designer on Fiverr for all our infographics, HTML newsletters, flyers and handouts,” said Danni. “I’ve found it to be competitively priced and the turnaround times are generally very fast. I also really like the star rating system so you can see genuine reviews from previous users to enable you to choose the right person for the job.”
As the largest global marketplace for freelancers, Fiverr provide millions of small businesses all around the world with expert help and support. They’re an invaluable resource for anyone starting, restarting or building a business this year and beyond. Plus, it’s 100% free to sign up and join.
Thirteen years on, Rock a Bye Baby is still going strong and Danni feels like a different person to the one who started her business, and she’s also very proud of her success.
“The business has grown exponentially and the preschooler is doing her HSC this year. I would 100% recommend it to others interested in having their own small business. You can learn on the job, you have to there’s no one else to turn to – no IT department, no line manager, no help desk etc. But it has provided an enormous sense of achievement and satisfaction to me and I love waking up every day excited for what is ahead.”
Sound like a life you’d like to be living? Don’t sit on your brilliant business idea forever, now is a great time to team up with Fiverr as a seller, and bring your brilliant small business or side hustle to life. With verticals across Graphics & Design, Digital Marketing, Programming & Tech, Writing & Translation, Video & Animation, Music & Audio, Business & Lifestyle, Fiverr.com can help. Sign up (for free), set up your profile and gig, and offer your work to our global audience.