Will Your Next Fiverr Gig Be Stolen By a Robot?

This year, I developed two applications: Gratitude Journal and DailyUplift. My goal was to minimize expenses while requiring numerous assets.

During the initial stages of DailyUplift, I needed a logo and various assets, as is typical for app development. In this post, I share my experience and several enlightening (AHA!) moments I encountered while incorporating AI into my workflow.

Logo

Before I even conceptualized this project, I was already a regular user of ChatGPT. Naturally, my first step was to leverage ChatGPT to help me pinpoint the perfect name and domain for my project. Together, we generated hundreds of name combinations. I made sure to check the availability of domains until I finally settled on DailyUplift.

Pleased with the name, I moved on to ask about potential logo designs. After receiving several suggestions, I opted to make a small investment and turned to Fiverr for more professional assistance (I did design myself in the past but these days I just find it a necessary evil. I prefer to code and do other things.).

The design process spanned over a few days, and I spent around $100, partly because I needed time to clarify my vision for the logo’s appearance.

Lesson Learned: It's crucial to know exactly what you want and to set clear expectations. The more cost-effective you wish your asset production to be, the less room there often is for creative input from the Fiverr creator.

Ultimately, I received my logo:

Around the same period, I began experimenting with Midjourney. Driven by curiosity, I tried out a few prompts, and eventually, I came up with a design that I was actually happier with. Thus, the DailyUplift logo was created.

Lesson Learned: Midjourney turns out to be quite effective, and perhaps more economical, for developing initial ideas. If the app were to gain significant popularity in the future, I would still invest in having someone professionally render these assets in vector format. However, for prototyping and creating cost-effective assets, I find AI to be highly beneficial.

Assets

I decided to use Midjourney to create all the assets for the app. In my enthusiasm, I probably invested more than necessary by upgrading to a mid-tier Midjourney subscription and overloading the app with assets. However, it's often the costly experiences that leave a lasting impression.

Midjourney has been performing exceptionally well. Since discovering it, I have generated everything with Midjourney: blog post images, app assets, logos, web graphics, and even stickers for my daughter's birthday party.

Lesson Learned: Midjourney is excellent for simple asset creation but struggles with more complex requirements. I attempted to start an fun Instagram channel to document the journey of an asteroid miner, but it proved incredibly challenging, if not impossible, to produce consistent images with very specific criteria. The technology hasn't quite reached that capability yet.

For the app, I used ChatGPT heavily to determine core values and craft daily affirmations based on those values. It also assisted me in writing over 50 blog posts, mainly comprising lists of daily affirmations for various themes.

The results were decent, although not groundbreaking. However, after 6 months almost no traffic comes from it.

To be honest, I didn't invest much effort into refining the output as the project eventually fell by the wayside. However, the articles produced are not far off from those that rank #1 in Google Search results from competitors. It’s probably more about being first to the market than the quality of the content (or it being generated by AI).

Next Project: The Gratitude Journal

Eager to maintain the momentum, I soon embarked on another project—the Gratitude Journal app.

This time, I embraced full AI integration from the outset. I utilized ChatGPT for information gathering, assistance with concept development, asset brainstorming, gamification suggestions, and more.

For logo design and all other app assets, I turned to Midjourney once again. However, I approached it with greater caution based on the lessons learned from the first app.

Thanks to my previous experience, I became much more proficient in crafting prompts (which I diligently saved in Notion) and, most importantly, managing my expectations.

I must admit, the title of this post is somewhat of a clickbait. I don't believe Fiverr will become obsolete anytime soon. However, AI is definitely here to stay—only becoming more refined. Based on my own experience, some of the simpler tasks can now be delegated to AI.

This shift has tripled my productivity. I no longer face the design and copywriting hurdles I encountered before. This change has brought a significant daily uplift to my work (pun intended), and honestly, it might well be the reason I'm able to complete more projects.

I'm bursting with ideas for existing apps and new, thrilling ventures, and I intend to make extensive use of AI. My motivation isn't just to cut costs but to enhance creativity and visualize my concepts more quickly. And focus on what I enjoy the most/am best at.

I'd appreciate hearing about your own experiences with the AI in the comments.

FYI: this article was written by me but proofread by AI. I am not a native speaker and although I hate AI fluff (sometimes I feel that AI was with us already for years with all the bloated blog posts all over the internet) I find it incredibly useful for polishing my text.