The global graphic design market is worth $57.5 billion in 2023-24 and is expected to reach $78.25 billion by the end of this decade. The global demand for visual elements in different formats such as website graphics, illustrations, web design, posters, packaging materials, branding collaterals, marketing collaterals, etc. remains the primary contributor to the industry’s success. However, the market dynamics have shifted from hiring a permanent designer to freelance contractors who can bring more creativity to a design project.
This is particularly true in the case of large-scale projects that require highly skilled professionals. Due to the high charges of these professionals, smaller companies can’t hire them on a permanent basis and thus, prefer to hire them on a per-job basis. Fulfilling this demand for skilled creative professionals, Behance and Dribbble emerged as dedicated marketplaces to help graphic designers and digital artists showcase their portfolios and get hired.
Both Behance and Dribbble work similarly and have common offerings for customers, which are highly talented designers backed by their creative portfolios already published on the platform. This creates a sense of reliability and trust amongst the customers who can verify the previous works of designers. However, despite the huge demand for freelance creative professionals, the number of dedicated platforms for them is quite limited. This opens an opportunity to gain a competitive edge by launching a marketplace like Behance and Dribbble.
To help interested entrepreneurs launch their own creative professional marketplaces, we have created this guide that includes everything from Behance and Dribbble’s USPs to the most practical development approach.
Table of Contents:
About Behance and Dribbble
Unique Selling Points of Platforms like Behance and Dribbble
Revenue Model of Behance and Dribbble
Building a Platform like Behance and Dribbble
Selecting the Right Software to Develop Behance and Dribbble Alternative
Conclusion
About Behance and Dribbble
Let’s learn a little about the background of these two marketplaces.
Behance
Behance is one of the first marketplaces for sharing digital artwork. It was launched in the year 2005 as a social media platform where multiple talents could sign up and share their designs. In 2012, Behance raised $6.5 million in funding from notable investors including Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos. Seeing the platform’s success rate, it was later acquired by Adobe in December 2012. Today, Behance has more than 24 million members and an estimated annual revenue of $632 million.
Launched Year: 2005
Founded by: Matias Corea and Scott Belsky
Annual Revenue Estimate: $632 million
Total Number of Users: 24 million
Dribbble
Dribbble is another marketplace for sharing and distributing digital art. On Dribbble, corporates can easily find skilled professionals for their design work and directly hire them. The platform was launched as an MVP in 2008 by Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett. Initially, Dribbble only worked on an invite-only model but became public in 2010. Today, Dribbble is available in 195 countries and has an average of 4 million users every month. In terms of revenue, Dribbble makes an estimated $97.5 million every year.
Launched Year: 2008
Founded by: Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett
Annual Revenue Estimate: $97.5 million
Total Number of Users: 16 million
Unique Selling Points of Platforms like Behance and Dribbble
Although both Behance and Dribbble were one of a kind when they were first launched, they still had to innovate and improvise their unique selling points (USPs) in order to compete with existing recruitment platforms and freelance marketplaces like ODesk (now UpWork), Guru and Freelance.com. Thus, to give a reference overview of their USPs, both Behance, and Dribbble primarily focused on the following USPs.
1. Dedicatedly Developed for Designers
In the past, several freelancing marketplaces and recruiting platforms also existed where designers could sign up and showcase their work. However, none of those platforms were as dedicatedly developed for designers as Behance and Dribbble. Due to this, the entire interface of these platforms looked highly focused and concentrated towards digital artists. These two platforms became more relatable for designers as they got a clear idea of what the platforms were and how they could help them advance their careers.
2. Trust Factor
On Behance and Dribbble, digital artists and clients benefitted from a trust factor. Both these platforms allowed designers and digital artists to upload broad portfolios of their work. Due to this, the designers were able to showcase their skills and expand their online presence. The leads attracted through Behance and Dribbble were also high-quality and more likely to convert. Additionally, the widespread presence of Dribbble and Behance professionals on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram further created credibility for these platforms and their users.
3. Buy and Sell Artwork
Through Behance and Dribbble, not only could designers showcase their portfolios but also sell their creative artwork in different digital formats, such as images, illustrations, videos, animations, PDFs, and more. Being a global platform, Behance and Dribbble could help designers attract big-ticket clients from all across the world and do off-shore operations. To promote safe and secure transactions, Behance also partnered with Stripe which provides online payment processing in over 135 currencies.
4. Connect and Hire
Behance and Dribbble acted as a proper social media network for designers. Meaning, users could follow their favorite artists and view updates on their new work. Likewise, corporations got a search portal where they could search for designers and explore thousands of profiles for hiring purposes. In fact, after a while, both Behance and Dribbble included a dedicated hiring module on their marketplaces.
5. Inspiration
As Behance and Dribbble gained global recognition, they started to become an inspiration for existing and aspiring artists. The diverse artwork available on these platforms received social acknowledgement and talented artists started getting the praise they deserved. This encouraged fellow artists, including students, young professionals, and working mothers to share their artwork as well. This is also one of the primary reasons behind the huge popularity of these platforms.
6. Live Workshops, Design Courses and Competitions
Along with acting as a platform to share artwork and hire digital artists, Behance and Dribbble started providing their design courses and live workshops. Because of these platforms’ global recognition, their design courses gained immense success. These courses can also be directly accessed through the official websites of Behance and Dribbble. Additionally, the competitions organized on these platforms further increased the engagement rate for digital artists and winners also received a career boost.
Revenue Model of Behance and Dribbble
For revenue generation purposes, digital art marketplaces like Behance and Dribbble can rely on the following channels:
1. Advertisements: Professionals can advertise their artwork on these platforms.
2. Pro Memberships: Digital artists can sign up for special membership plans that provide them with extra benefits.
3. Job Board: Platforms like Dribbble and Behance have a job-board where different companies can pay for uploading a job. This helps them find good talent in a minimum time frame.
4. Courses and Live Workshops: Dribbble is also selling design courses and conducting live workshops on the platform. These are some potential means of revenue generation.
5. Sales Commission: Just like Behance, you can charge a small commission fee on every digital art sale that takes place on the platform.
6. Contests and Competitions: Like Dribbble, you can organize different design competitions on your digital artists marketplaces where you can charge money from both designers (registration fee) and sponsors.
7. Featured Profiles: You can charge designers to feature their profiles in the most viewed sections of the platform.
Launch a Designers Marketplace with Multiple Revenue Streams
Building a Platform like Behance and Dribbble
To capitalize on the growing graphic designing and digital art industry, entrepreneurs can launch their own Behance and Dribbble like platform. This way, they can help the digital art communities of their target regions grow and establish a name in the market. However, developing such a platform may require rigorous efforts, including identifying the required features, creating user workflows, preparing the source code, configuring the platform and running marketing campaigns.
In the following sections, we have included the technical aspects of the launch that include the key features and development approaches. For proper consultation on the launch strategy, technology and marketing, we recommend reaching out to our business experts.
1. Key Features Required
To build a Behance and Dribbble alternative platform and conduct smooth business operations, you will require the following features:
Admin Dashboard: A centralized interface for the platform owner from where they can act as an admin and manage the entire platform. The admin can use multiple features to see all transactions, users, and posts on the platform and also manage multiple webpages. Basically, all admin features and options are provided on the admin dashboard.
User Dashboard: Similar to the admin dashboard, the user dashboard is made for designers and other digital artists. Through this dashboard, they can upload their artwork, check likes and comments, access the chat messenger, apply on jobs and keep a track of all completed jobs.
Homepage Personalization: Both Behance and Dribbble enhance their homepage from time to time. This helps them accommodate the diverse digital artwork on their website and also provide a user friendly interface to visitors.
Homepage Slider: The homepage slider is the most highlighted section of a website. It serves just like the front page of a newspaper. You can use the homepage slider for multiple purposes like promoting any events & campaigns, showcasing top artworks, featured profiles and also any news and updates.
Collections Management: The wide majority of artwork needs to be categorized and distributed into multiple collections. These collections are displayed on the homepage and other places. Your platform should allow you to create and manage these collections.
Category Management: While collections can be displayed directly on the homepage, for simplified navigation, you can show the multiple categories on the navigation menus.
User Management: Being a digital artists and freelance designers’ platform, thousands of users will register on your website as you grow. To manage their profiles, you require user management options that will allow you to view user details, send important notifications and alerts, and also approve or reject user registration requests.
Direct Hiring: To help designers get hired, both Behance and Dribbble allow companies to view registered designers. Companies can browse those profiles and send a direct inquiry to artists in order to hire them.
Post a Job: Along with direct hiring, Behance and Dribbble have a job board as well. This is where companies can directly upload detailed jobs along with the required skill sets. Designers can browse these jobs and send a job proposal.
Bidding Module: Going one step further, you can provide a bidding module on your platform. This will allow designers to place their bids on the job and you can give more price flexibility to the companies.
Search Module: The search module can be used to search all types of artworks and even designer profiles and uploaded jobs as well.
Payment Gateways: To enable transactions on your platform, you will need to integrate a few payment gateways. The selection of these payment gateways can vary on their regional recognition, transaction charges, supported payment methods and security features.
Buy Feature: Along with the option to hire artists, you can provide a direct buy button on the platform so that interested people can purchase digital art. As the platform owner, you can charge a small commission fee on every sales transaction that takes place on the platform.
Content Management: For on-page marketing purposes, you need a content management system (CMS). This will allow you to manage different published blogs on the website and also the different landing pages.
Reports and Analytics: These options will provide you with an in-depth overview of what’s going on the platform. This can include the total number of users, sales, artwork, companies, sales, most liked artwork, and more.
Get all These Features in your Behance Alternative Platform
2. Development Approaches
Software development approaches have been improvised throughout the years. What used to be a time and cost-intensive approach has now been replaced by ready-made no code and low code software. As per a study conducted by Gartner, nearly 70% of all software applications will be developed with no code or low code software by 2025. Additionally, these readymade software also reduce the entire development time by up to 90%.
Below are the major differences between using the bespoke development approach vs no code and low code software:
Bespoke Development
Using No Code and Low Code Software
Requires you to conduct a thorough feature analysis first. You may miss important features.Come with all essential features. Require minimum customization in case of any additional requirements.
The development time is very long as everything needs to be developed from scratch.The development time is short. In case of no customizations, the software can be deployed within 1-2 business days.
Highly cost-inclusive. Include hourly development charges for every developer working on the project.
Cost-effective. The software has already been developed by the provider and is available as a readymade package.
Not tried and tested for market scenarios. This may create any problems later.
Tried and tested for all major market scenarios.
Will require you to track the development progress and take follow-ups the entire time.
Progress tracking and follow-ups are only required for any additional customizations. The rest of the software is already developed.
Data migration is difficult, as the software developed using this approach are made to use as a lifetime software.
Data migration options are available so that entrepreneurs can easily migrate from their existing software. Meanwhile, lifetime licensing is also available.
Selecting the Right Software to Develop Behance and Dribbble Alternative
To provide you with a factual and more transparent opinion, low code solutions seems to be your only reliable option. This is because at the moment, there are no no-code software available in the market that come with 100% support for developing a Behance and Dribbble alternative marketplace.
However, there are a few low-code software available that can be used as a base for this business proposition. These low-code software meet 80%-90% requirements of a digital artist marketplace and will immensely decrease your development cost and timeframe. Out of the several low-code software available in the market, Yo!Gigs service marketplace software best matches your requirements.
About Yo!Gigs
Developed for all service marketplace models, Yo!Gigs is a readymade solution that helps you connect thousands of freelance service providers with seekers. It has in-built support for digital artists including graphic designers, UI/UX designers, animators, voiceover artists and more. Furthermore, it has already been tried and tested to conduct freelancer service marketplace operations and can help you deal with numerous business use cases.
Some key features of Yo!Gigs that will be helpful in developing your Behance and Dribbble like platform are:
Homepage Personalization
Discussion Forums
User Management
Custom Task Categories
Collection Management
Theme Management
Job Board
Direct Hiring
Bidding Module
Job Cancellation Window
Pre-integrated Payment Gateway
Content Management System
Chat Messenger
Other Reasons to Select Yo!Gigs
Unlike SaaS software, Yo!Gigs is available at a one-time cost. This makes it highly cost-effective in the long run.
With unlimited listings and transactions, Yo!Gigs is fully scalable. It will accommodate your business growth at all stages, right from startup level to enterprise level.
To meet all your additional requirements, Yo!Gigs is also fully customizable.
Yo!Gigs is a self-hosted software. Meaning, you can install it on any server of your choice. This also means that as the solution provider, we cannot impose any usage restriction or features or limit any transactions.
It is very easy to migrate from other solutions to Yo!Gigs with its in-built import/export options.
Lastly, to ensure uninterrupted business operations, Yo!Gigs comes with one-year of free technical support.
Book a Live Demo Session for Yo!Gigs
Conclusion
The graphic designing industry has an invulnerable nature that makes it resilient against all types of economic downfalls and turbulence. Due to this, this is an evergreen industry. However, it is the corporate designers who face job uncertainties during any economic crises and thus have to resort to freelancing. By launching a marketplace like Behance and Dribbble, you can not only help such individuals but also assist the entire digital artists community grow. You can help budding designers to showcase their talents and existing professionals create captivating portfolios and find high paying jobs.
The post How to Launch a Website like Behance and Dribbble? appeared first on FATbit Blog.
Behance and Dribbble are portfolio-sharing and recruitment marketplaces for designers and digital artists. Here’s everything you should consider to launch a similar marketplace.
The post How to Launch a Website like Behance and Dribbble? appeared first on FATbit Blog.
Amazon’s Foray into Entertainment: From Prime Video to MGM Acquisition
Amazon’s journey from a humble online bookstore to one of the world’s most powerful companies is a well-known story. However, its foray into the entertainment industry, which began with the launch of Amazon Prime Video and culminated in the acquisition of MGM, is a compelling narrative that illustrates the company’s ambition to become a dominant force in every aspect of modern life. This article delves into Amazon’s entertainment strategy, exploring how it has evolved, the significance of key milestones like the MGM acquisition, and the broader implications for the entertainment industry.
The Genesis of Amazon Prime Video
Amazon’s entry into the entertainment sector was a calculated move, born from a desire to enhance its ecosystem and drive customer loyalty. The launch of Amazon Prime Video in 2006 was initially part of the Amazon Prime subscription service, which offered members faster shipping for an annual fee. The addition of streaming video content was a strategic decision aimed at increasing the value proposition of Prime membership, thereby encouraging more customers to sign up and stay within the Amazon ecosystem.
At its inception, Prime Video was a relatively modest offering, featuring a limited library of licensed films and TV shows. However, Amazon quickly recognized the potential of the streaming industry, especially as competitors like Netflix and Hulu were gaining traction. The company began to invest heavily in acquiring more content and, crucially, in producing its own original programming.
The Rise of Amazon Studios
The establishment of Amazon Studios in 2010 marked a significant turning point in the company’s entertainment strategy. Initially, Amazon Studios took an unconventional approach to content development by inviting aspiring filmmakers and writers to submit scripts and project ideas. This crowdsourcing model was innovative but ultimately unsustainable, leading Amazon to pivot toward a more traditional production model.
In 2013, Amazon Studios made its first major splash with the release of Alpha House and Betas, two original series that were well-received but did not achieve widespread popularity. The real breakthrough came in 2014 with Transparent, a drama series that received critical acclaim and won multiple awards, including a Golden Globe. Transparent established Amazon as a serious player in original content production, paving the way for future successes like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Fleabag, and The Boys.
Amazon’s investment in original content has been substantial, with billions of dollars poured into production each year. The company’s willingness to spend big on high-quality programming reflects its commitment to becoming a leader in the entertainment space. However, content production is only one piece of Amazon’s broader entertainment strategy.
The Acquisition of MGM: A Game-Changing Move
Amazon’s $8.45 billion acquisition of MGM in 2021 was a bold and significant step in its entertainment journey. MGM, one of Hollywood’s most iconic studios, boasts a vast library of content, including the James Bond franchise, Rocky, The Handmaid’s Tale, and thousands of other films and TV shows. The acquisition was not just about adding content to Prime Video’s library but also about gaining valuable intellectual property (IP) that could be leveraged across Amazon’s various platforms.
For Amazon, the MGM acquisition provided a treasure trove of content that could be used to attract new subscribers, retain existing ones, and compete more effectively with other streaming giants like Netflix, Disney+, and HBO Max. The move also underscored Amazon’s broader strategy of integrating its entertainment offerings with its other services, creating a seamless ecosystem that keeps customers engaged and loyal.
The acquisition was met with a mixed response from industry analysts. Some viewed it as a savvy move that would strengthen Amazon’s position in the highly competitive streaming market. Others, however, questioned whether the price tag was justified, especially given the challenges of integrating a traditional studio like MGM into Amazon’s tech-driven corporate culture.
The Broader Implications for the Entertainment Industry
Amazon’s aggressive push into entertainment has had significant implications for the broader industry. The company’s deep pockets and willingness to spend have forced traditional studios and other streaming platforms to rethink their strategies. The rise of streaming has already disrupted the traditional film and television business models, and Amazon’s entry into the space has accelerated this transformation.
One of the most notable impacts has been the escalating “streaming wars,” where companies are competing fiercely for content and subscribers. Amazon’s willingness to invest in original content and its acquisition of MGM have raised the stakes, prompting other companies to make similar moves. Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox and WarnerMedia’s merger with Discovery are examples of how traditional media companies are consolidating to better compete in the new landscape.
Moreover, Amazon’s integration of entertainment with its broader ecosystem—ranging from e-commerce to cloud computing—represents a unique approach that other companies are beginning to emulate. The ability to cross-promote content across multiple platforms, offer exclusive deals to Prime members, and leverage data analytics to tailor content to individual preferences gives Amazon a competitive edge that few can match.
However, Amazon’s growing influence in entertainment has also raised concerns. Critics argue that the company’s dominance in multiple sectors, including retail, cloud computing, and now entertainment, could lead to antitrust issues. There are fears that Amazon’s expansion into entertainment could stifle competition, reduce diversity in content, and concentrate too much power in the hands of a single corporation.
The Future of Amazon in Entertainment
Looking ahead, Amazon shows no signs of slowing down its push into entertainment. The company continues to invest heavily in original content, with upcoming projects like the highly anticipated The Lord of the Rings series, which reportedly cost over $1 billion to produce. Amazon is also exploring new ways to integrate its entertainment offerings with its other services, such as bundling Prime Video with other Amazon subscriptions and offering exclusive content for Alexa-enabled devices.
Additionally, the MGM acquisition opens up new possibilities for Amazon to expand its content offerings, including potential reboots, spin-offs, and new franchises based on MGM’s extensive library. The acquisition also positions Amazon to be a major player in the licensing and distribution of content, giving it more leverage in negotiations with other studios and platforms.
In conclusion, Amazon’s foray into entertainment, from the launch of Prime Video to the acquisition of MGM, is a testament to the company’s ambition and vision. By investing in original content, acquiring valuable IP, and integrating its entertainment offerings with its broader ecosystem, Amazon has positioned itself as a formidable player in the entertainment industry. As the streaming wars continue to heat up, Amazon’s role in shaping the future of entertainment will be one to watch closely.
