Forget Uber, a design crowdsourcing site is shaping Asia’s gig economy

A 99designs meetup in Indonesia.

99designs is an online design crowdsourcing pioneer. The startup, founded in Australia in 2008, allows clients from around the world to submit project requests, ranging from logos and website layouts to T-shirt graphics and book jackets. Clients choose how much they’re willing to pay, then initiate a week-long “contest,” which draws participation from the startup’s pool of more than 1.1 million designers. After feedback is given to the leading designers, the client chooses a winner, who signs the rights to the design over before getting paid.

A debate has been raging for years over whether design crowdsourcing helps or hinders the trade. Some design firms allege that it cheapens the value of professional design, while proponents of the model argue that it democratizes the industry by giving anyone with talent an opportunity to get noticed.

In Indonesia, a country where the average monthly salary is just under US$1,200, mentioning 99designs is almost certain to elicit the latter opinion. It’s the startup’s second-largest international market for designers, behind only the US (where the startup is headquartered). Indonesians account for 20 percent of total designers on the platform.

“Dollars go a long way [in Indonesia], and some of our designers are making US$1,500 to US$6,000 a month,” Patrick Llewellyn, 99designs president and CEO, tells Tech in Asia.

Of course, landing on the higher end of that pay spectrum is rare, and there’s no guarantee that a designer’s work will end up winning a contest in the first place. But Indonesian designers are finding enough success on the platform that Patrick claims a majority of them have made it their full-time job.

“A local news channel actually did a documentary about us and how we’re impacting the lives of so many people. You’ve got people changing careers, literally leaving the rice paddies and making significant sums of money.”

Patrick says that after the documentary aired, traffic spiked so high that his team thought the site was being hacked.

While 99designs doesn’t have an official presence in Indonesia, the startup employs two full-time Indonesian speakers at its Melbourne office, in addition to local community moderators on the ground. Community meetups across the country attract up to 300 designers per event, where university professors discuss design theory and successful designers share tips and advice.

Regionally speaking, Asia is 99designs’ largest supply-side market. Apart from Indonesia holding down the number two spot, the Philippines and India are in fourth and fifth place, respectively. Patrick also says that Indonesia has the highest rate of new designer signups.

Patrick, center, at an event in Tokyo.

“We’re paying out US$3 million a month to the global design community. 25 to 30 percent, maybe even more, is going to Asian designers.”

Unlocking Japan