How to crush your first 99design like an expert

The logo above is the result of a 99design crowdsourcing project from June 2017. I paid about 1000€ in total for 800 designs of which I picked the winning design from designer RockPort. Through the project, I learned a lot about outsourcing, people management, marketing and communications. These insights are worth more than 10x the money I invested which a similar management course would have cost me. I got real life experience and a logo on top of it. One of the best self-development investments I ever made beside a speed reading course.

Why did you even bother?

That was my son's question when he heard that I was about to spend 1000€ on a Logo design. I was rather taken aback by that question as I was enjoying myself in the project so much. I started Marathon-Crossfit in 2014 when I joined Hubspot as an employee. For the first year I did not do a lot with it, but then I got ambitious to learn about Online Marketing and practice what I preach.

My personal strength is communication and numbers. Design and aesthetics have never been my favourite traits. This goes back to elementary school where I struggled to draw, built or do anything else with my hands. The process of making a painting from scratch or sewing a little doll was exhausting for me. It never turned out like I wanted. The thing I loved most about art was when the class was over. The only exception were mandalas. I loved colouring in mandalas.

This exasperation with design is reflected on my website. The original logo was a disaster and ugly. I got quite a few negative comments from friends & coworkers about it and they were justified. It even became a running gag in the sales training I did for my agencies.

On the contrary, the performance of my website in terms of visitors and generated leads outperformed the agencies I coached. When I got close to 10.000 organic visitors for the first time I had reached the mark where I wanted to do something about my design.

In 2017 I started to look more into Tim Ferriss and bought his book Tools of Titans, which is still one of my favourite books. In his podcast, he recommended 99designs for needs like mine to save time and get a good result. The quote " If you have a ten-year plan of how to get x, you should ask: Why can't you do this in six months?" was a wake-up call for me that I needed to source services to get to my goals quicker.

So I wrote my brief and got started.

What was your biggest win from the project?

The biggest win from this project for me is that I improved my skills to be a leader. For me, it was the first time to pay a team of people to deliver a certain result for me which I could not obtain myself. It was very interesting to learn how unclear communication impacted the entire project. Which characters blossomed through the process and how favourites were sidelined while underdogs rose to the challenge.

The other big learning was that I can exchange the money I earn against time of others to become faster. This is also a big leap for me that it is not necessary that I do everything myself. The myth that "If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself" has been busted for me. Delegation is something which separates the successful from the ones who do not scale their life up. This insight alone was worth the investment, never mind the logo I got on top of that. If you want the leadership of your company to hone their skills, this is a great boot-camp.

What bugs you most about it?

Crowdsourcing platforms like 99designs and Fiverr leave the bitter taste of slave labour in my mouth. Most of the designs I got have been submitted by people who seem to be from India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore. It just left me with the feeling of taking advantage of people and underpaying them. There is a lot of frustration on the internet about these platforms among designers which I am the benefactor of.

One of my coworkers has a different view on things and also for me there are two hearts beating in my chest. If I live in a part of the world which enables me to earn more than 100€ a month and somewhere else in the world a person is very happy to work for 10€/h as they can go far with it, what is the harm in keeping them employed as a freelancer? I did not build this gap of wealth and I might even be helping the economy the freelancer currently sits in by creating the job in the first place.

Books like Price of Inequality shed a further light onto this, but it is a dilemma of the world of outsourcing I am not ready to solve yet.

What is 99designs?

99designs headquarter is located in San Francisco California US and is one of the biggest service platforms for designers on the internet. They have further offices in Berlin, Melbourne, Paris, London and Rio de Janeiro. The company was founded in 2008 by Mark Harbottle and Matt Mickiewicz in Melbourne. Headquarters was moved to the US in 2010. In 2012 they bought 12designer to enter the German market which opened their race for Europe followed by France, Spain, Benelux and Italy. In the same year, they went to acquire Logochef to get into the Brazilian market.

How does 99 designs work?

99designs provides access to an international pool of designers which will compete for your business. You can choose whether you guarantee the money or if you want to make use of their money back option. The project will run for a week with a qualification phase, a final round and a finalisation phase.

The platform provides you with the necessary tools to stay in touch with all of the competing designers during the process to comment and rate their work. In addition, you can create polls to get the public to vote on the submitted designs and gain further intelligence. You have all in one place to go through many iterations and steer this project very conveniently. Wherever you have internet access you can delegate and create your favourite design for whatever your need.

Here is the overview at 99 Designs for you to go through

What can I book with 99designs?

You have many options to choose from of which I listed most below so that you have an overview. Make sure that you pick the right package for your needs as I made the mistake to book the Identity package rather than Logo and social media pack which would have better suited my needs. Do some research here before you go in like me. I am still happy and I think could have gotten the same or an even better result If I had made better use of the 99design services to guide me in the right direction. That is entirely my fault as I went full steam ahead.

3D $449
App Design $599
Business Card 199$
Banner Ad $49
Book Cover $199
Brochure $299
Car, Truck or van wrap $349
Card or Invitation $199
Character or Mascot $349
Clothing or Apparel $199
Cup or mug $199
Email $299
Facebook Cover $79
Flash Banner $49
Icon or button $199
Illustration or graphics $349
Infographic $599
Landing Page design $349
Logo & Brand Identity Pack $599
Logo and Business Card $449
Logo and hosted website $599
Logo and social media pack $399
Logo design $299
Magazine Cover $299
Menu $199
Merchandise $199
Postcard, Flyer or Print $199
Poster $199
PowerPoint Template $199
Product Label $299
Product Packaging $449
Signage $199
Social media page $79
Stationery 199$
Sticker $189
T-Shirt $199
Tattoo $299
Web page design $599
Word press theme design $599

For details on their website, you can follow this link to their overview of services

How many finalists can I pick?

Your project starts with a three-day qualification phase. In this phase, you can invite 50 designers a day and they can pitch as many designs as they like. You will rate their designs or decline them depending on how much you like them. After these three days, you will be asked to pick six finalists and other designers are not longer allowed to put in new designs. All of the designs of the winners which you picked will be kept in the race and carried over to the final.

If you guarantee your prize, make sure that you promote your project so that you can get as many entrants as possible. If you do not do the marketing for your own project you will be left with having to pay for something you are not happy with. Guaranteeing prizes brings up the quality and quantity of the delivered entries. After my first day, I had already 300 designs.

How to pick 99design finalists?

The mechanics are pretty simple on the platform. Just click the ones you want and confirm. Depending on your contest it can be harder who to pick based on what you want to achieve.

I personally took four of my favourite designs which I had polled within my social media channels via the 99design functions with me and two others who stood out by thinking out of the box. In the end, the more conservative design won the race, but that was also what reflects my values and the brand best.

I'd say you would be best advised to get a wide array of different good ideas into the final. The smart designers keep their good ideas for the final so that no one copies them. If you see potential, take it with you. There is enough time for detail work and iterations with the design of your choice in the final round. Avoid wasting time on clean up jobs in the qualification phase. Be pedantic once you have picked the finalists.

How did you hear about 99designs?

Tim Ferriss blog was the first time I ever heard about 99 designs. I got his book Tools of Titans which I keep with me at all times to inspire me to be better. The logo project was my first try at outsourcing and buying time from others to save my own and I am entirely grateful to him for providing valuable insight through his books 4 Hour work week, 4 Hour body and 4-hour chef. Please do the following to make your life a lot better

Commit to meditating 10 minutes each day
Wish two people a day that all their dreams come true
Get a self Journal and use it
Exercise daily

And you will see that your happiness and productivity will go through the roof. Tim is a great facilitator on that path.

Which package should I pick at 99 designs?

I can not answer that question for you as I do not know what you want to achieve. What I can do though is tell you what I could have done better before I hit the purchase button and got my contest started.

Have a clear idea what you want

I needed a logo. I bought the identity package because I am a fan of value for money. I should have bought the online package for my needs. Marathon-Crossfit does not send any letters or hands out business cards yet but is highly active on YouTube, Twitter and on the blog, you are reading right now. That was not smart. Therefore do more research what the packages include and have a clear idea of what you want when you open the Design contest.

Why did I buy this package then? Basically, because it was top of the list and the first bundle. I am a sucker for bundles. Good product placement I guess. If you are a marketer or business owner reading this pause and think a second here.

I would have fared better if I had reached out to 99designs customer service before I picked anything from their portfolio. They are nice, experienced and provide you with spot-on feedback. Only little pity was that I started my contest on a weekend and did not get a reply there. I understand that, as I also like to avoid work on weekends to pay attention to my wife and kids. Here are two examples of my Email exchange with Nick from Oakland 99designs customer support.

-----------------------------------------

Hi Pascal,

We don't enable the blind feature for first-time users because there's a lot more to it than meets the eye.

Designers will often ask to make a contest blind because designers enjoy the sense of security they get knowing that no other designer can see their designs and make a copy.

While that may seem all good at face value, we find that more often than not, the more experienced and confident designers on our platform will not care whether a contest is blind and will not request it, because they are confident enough in their ability to produce good quality original artwork. You also give up a bit of protection when you make your contest blind because since designers can't see each other's work, they won't be able to report a design if they see that it's too similar to an existing design. The reporting feature is a protection that helps us keep all the work on our site original and safe from copyright exposure.

You may also find that as the contest holder, you have a greater degree of control over regular contests than blind contests, because since designers can see each other's work, and your ratings, you can steer the results in a certain direction by rating positively designs that are closer to an aesthetic you enjoy, and archiving everything that's farther from your vision so that no designers can see it. I would caution you not to rate designs too highly because you'll lose variation; most new designs will just be different takes on the first four or five-star design.

If, however, you find that most designs are homogenising towards a single concept, it can be really useful to run your contest blind to encourage variety from the design pool.

There's no right or wrong answer; we see successful blind contests and regular contests all the time, and copies on our site are prohibited and rare, but I wanted you to be fully informed before making this decision. If after considering the information in this email you still would like your contest to become blind, just call or chat in and we would be happy to do so.

Hope that clears things up! Please feel free to get back in touch if you need anything else.

Cheers,

Nick

Customer Support

--------------------------

Hey Pascal,

I think you may have some success being a little more discerning with the "delete" button. At the end of the contest only a single design will win, so you can remove a LOT of designs from your contests. Anytime you see a design that too closely resembles an earlier one, you can just get rid of it. I'd heartily suggest that you get rid of anything and everything you're not feeling pretty darn solid about; you've got over two hundred designs still active in your contest so it will help you to narrow the field a bit.

Apologies for the slow turnaround, by the way, we try to respond as quickly as possible but the weekend makes it a little wonky and it just so happens we got hit with really high email volume this weekend for some reason... not really sure why that might have been...

Anyway, let me know if I can help out further!

Regards,

Nick

------------------------------

If you are going for a bundle price which is north of 500€ I would recommend to also book the marketing options 99designs provides. The package I chose was 95€ to amplify my reach. That was roughly 10% of the project cost. I would not advise this for smaller items in the 200€ range based on economics. Depends on whether you are spending your own money or got a big corporate budget. With a big budget, I would optimise for reach so that as many good designers as possible enter your project.

What were your biggest concerns with 99 designs?

I had no experience with crowdsourcing so I was terrified. In total, i spent roughly a 1000€ on this and just took the leap of faith on my first experiment in this realm. It paid off. The biggest concern for me was that I would waste my money. In my research, I, therefore, focused on how to ensure that you get good value for money out of 99designs while overlooking the detailed mechanics of the product portfolio of the platform. 2 or 3 more hours of research would have done me well.

I eliminated most of my concerns by not being cheap about my brand. It paid off.

Concerned that you won't get a good design? --> Pick the market leader platform
Concerned that you won't get a good design? --> Make sure they get paid
Concerned that you won't get a good design? --> Put a big carrot in front of them (bundle)
Concerned that you won't get a good design? --> Provide professional feedback
Concerned that you won't get a good design? --> Spent time on a good brief
Concerned that you will waste your money? --> Don't build a brand and make yourself a cup of tea and watch others get rich and work for them

My other concern was that I would be not knowledgeable enough to write a good brief as I am not a designer. For this, I did the following

Emulate others who already have good designs (Apple, Google)
Read "Webs of Influence" to know the basics of web design
Read "Pre-Suasion" to understand ways of influencing
Read "Thinking fast and slow" to understand impulsive and deep thinking decision making of your audience

In essence, do a mini Bachelor/ Information blast on how human brains tick so that you know what your logo should achieve and how to communicate this to the designers.

Would you recommend 99designs to a friend?

No, because most of my friends are not building a brand. If you are seriously concerning to build your own business and you are bad at design, drawing and picturing a vision on paper but very good with words and giving instructions... what are you waiting for? Get a bunch of people to do it for you and pick the best (or the one you like most).

Which other options would I have to 99designs?

Is 99designs any good?

As mentioned before their support was friendly and professional. The platform itself is easy to use and intuitive. I never felt lost and I was nudged at the right time by their setup to read the right articles and consider different aspects of the project. The tone of voice in the communication is friendly and not too technical. Even if you have not studied design you will find easy access to the concepts which are outlined to you.

During the contest, I was able to access the platform while travelling in Ireland and Germany remotely. I approved and declined designs from three different rail stations and in the train itself. Mind boggling stuff as I am only now training myself into being independent of my desk. I urge you to get all of your vital functions onto your mobile and being comfortable with accessing them via your phone. The times of doing your job from your desk are long gone.

Regarding performance and getting what you want my project has been a fun ride from start to finish. After the first day, I already had 300 designs in my portfolio which went from 500 to 800 in the end. Do not hesitate to invest the money, especially if you have never done anything like this before. For the next round, i might try some other platforms just to compare and to see whether I can achieve the same for less money.

99designs did what it says on the tin and helped me feel comfortable on the journey.

Benchmark your logo in the industry

Before you write your brief research your competition.

What do they have in common
What do they miss
What are their logos like
Which cliches do they play to
Who is their audience

If you are a small player like me think really hard if you want to compete with the big guys or find your own little niche. Being everything to everyone with little resources is a good way of running yourself down. I made following decisions for my logo

No animals
No barbells
No muscle
No aggressiveness
Connect with mind
Keep it short and simple
State the value of the brand
Use blues to convey professionalism and wealth

The first four points were excluded because there just too many cartoon characters out there bending a barbell. There are also a tonne of brands out there playing to the warrior image and competitiveness. That is not what Marathon-Crossfit is about. It is about using extreme physical activity to build discipline and improve oneself for any life situation. Not just to win a match or a Stanley Cup. The other points were taken out of everything I had read about Marketing up to the point I wrote my brief.

Write a detailed brief

A good brief is essential to get what you want unless you like creative chaos. Only opt for creative chaos if you do not have a problem with potentially spending your money on something you are not happy with. Otherwise be as precise as you can about what you want and leave the door open for creativity to improve within the lines you have drawn rather than opening up five football fields at the same time.

Include your website in the brief so that the designers get a chance to get a feeling of what you are already doing. Also, include your social media channels for further detail and explain what each of these components achieves for the brand and what the strategy for it is. So put a link in the brief to

Your website
Your Twitter
Your Facebook
Your Instagram
Your Youtube channel

The next step is to describe your target audience as detailed as possible. To do that you can

Use your Google Analytics Account
Provide Client feedback
Write a buyer persona
Provide briefings from any previous design projects you have done

These were all points I had in my initial brief and I like to think that helped. Here are some things which I overlooked and became apparent during the contest as I had to point them out to designers again and again. Once you identify reoccurring stuff include them in the brief (you can update while the contest runs). If new designers submit designs which clearly run against your brief decline all of their designs and write them a personal note that you do not appreciate that they have not read your brief. Of course, Karma is always out there to bite you, so only do this if your brief is actually good. Here are things I overlooked:

state how slogan and logo should be positioned against each other unless you want to experiment
Describe what the logo will be used for and where it will be placed
Inform designers in which time zone you are and when you are online for feedback
Point out whether you want your design to be symmetrical

Writing these things down will save you a lot of time declining designs you do not like and explaining what you want. It will also help you to clearly think about what you actually want to achieve with the new design.

Make use of the invite option

In the qualification you can make use of 50 invitations a day to get designers into your contest. Focus on Gold and Platinum designers and make use of the 99design search function to see whether they have already won related contests to your brief before. Browse the designers and create a list before you even start the contest to maximize the time in the qualification phase. I spent roughly a day preparing this to find 150 designers to invite to my project. Once the list is ready create an Email template to invite them. I attached the template I used and you can come up with whatever you see fit for your specific needs. Out of this I got 3 of the better designers to enter the competition of whom one actually won.

----------------------------

HI [Designer Name],

I would like to invite you to my design bid for [Name of your company or contest] which I have just opened. You will find detailed instructions and your work will be exposed to [reach of your company] a month if you succeed.

I will place the name of the winner of the contest into my about page and also write a blog post about the interactions with the winner to be used as a reference and case study.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Link to Project:

[your contest link goes here]

Link to website:

[Link to your website goes here]

All the best

Pascal

---------------------------------------

Give a lot of feedback

I have learnt a lot about giving feedback in this project. The first thing is to differentiate between group and individual feedback. Avoid sending out each instruction to every designer as this will only confuse them and also steer the entire project in a certain direction creating a bias for the entire group as you are the leader (yes you have just been promoted to manager by investing 800€ if you have not realized yet, way easier than climbing the career ladder).

Use individual feedback with designers who

Bring something new to the table and explain it
Generally executed on the brief, but overlooked little details
Asked you for feedback (in the beginning, until you get too many to reply to each)

This is being polite and professional to ensure that you will get the maximum out of each designer. If you do not give them any feedback they are less likely to make further iterations to the current designs and invest brain power into your project. Remember the next project is only a click away for them on a crowd sourcing platform. The smartest and best designers will hedge their bets and invest their time wisely. Show that you are worthy of their time or be prepared to only work with amateurs.

Avoid using individual feedback for

Designs you hate
Designers who blatantly ignored the brief and provided no reasoning for it
Copy cats

If you already got a bad design in the beginning from a designer it is very unlikely that they will considerably improve in further iterations. At least that was my experience with the roughly 80 designers in my project. In addition also ignore opportunistic bids which just threw in a design to be part of it and blatantly copied other ideas which are already in the portfolio. These guys and ladies are wasting your time and also annoy the good designers which spent time to sit down, read your brief and deliver against it. To be strict and fair will pay off in the finalist round as you will get more out of the designers you pick when they get the feeling you are upright. Individual feedback to negative and lazy people usually only begets more laziness and negativity.

Special items

Keep ratings to three stars as long as you can
Say thank you for first entries
Use #no. of design in individual feedback
Use the function that you can click into the design to put a comment anywhere
Have scheduled feedback windows
Use reply all at end of each feedback round
Write personal feedback to good contenders who do not make it to the final

Keep your star ratings as long as possible between 1 and 3 as advised by 99designs to leave you room for the really outstanding designs with 4 or 5 stars. You also want to wait as long as you can to give any four or five star rating. The reason for this is very simple and yet has very significant impact on the project.

The 99design platform will keep all of the 1-3 star designs in one folder. It takes therefore more time and effort for copycats to find the designs you like already and just put in another copy bid. I am positive that there is some blog post out there who recommends to designers who are only in it for the money to throw in a copy of four star designs in as many competitions as they possibly can. Protect yourself against that by not opening an additional folder in the 4-5 star bracket which can easily be skimmed and scanned. Maybe even wait until the final to give any ratings higher than three. Believe me when i say that these copies do not add any value and only make your life harder. Avoid encouraging them.

This also ties into using the decline button often. I was hesitant at first and therefore clogged up my portfolio (see also the feedback from 99design Support earlier in this article). This will put you in a state of nausea and confusion when the copy cats start streaming in. All the logos will look alike and this will even get worse when you nominate your first four stars too early. Therefore weed out anything you do not like or is a copy. This will provide clarity and also do not lead anyone to believe that they are doing promising work when they are not.

If you find a first entry of a new designer always say thank you that they decided to enter your project even if they are a copycat. You never know what they might have in stock and it is also the decent thing to do. If they are a copycat remind them of the brief and that there are already similar designs in the race by using the # function and that you will preferably work with the ones who brought the idea to you first. For me this technique yielded some surprising quantum leaps based on the resubmitted designs.

When I started I did not know that you could point and click into the designs to provide a comment exactly at the spot you wanted for changes. A lot of time and brain power went into explaining what I wanted which could have been easier achieved by just pointing. Especially as I felt there was a language barrier with most of the designers. Same goes for the # function to point to other designs as outlined in the first paragraph. I wasted my first day until I figured this out. Live got better afterwards.

Out of my own experience I also recommend that you write in your brief on which time zone you are and when you will provide feedback. For me it worked best to do this during lunch and dinner for an hour. Otherwise you will be constantly checking the updates and do nothing but 99designs. If you have the time for that, be my guest. For me it was more effective to inform the designers when to expect feedback and batch it. Before you move on to the next round send Feedback to all designers based on what you generally observed in the project and say thank you for the time they invested. I started these emails with "HI Team" rather than "Hi Designers". Choice is yours.

Once the qualification is done take the time to write a personal note to the designers you liked but who did not make it. Always remember that at the other end there is a human being who might have hoped to get a three months paycheck out of you. At least make them feel like you care about them. You may need their services again. At the same time do not get too attached. You are there to achieve your goal, not to provide hand outs. For that you can give money to your favorite charity (seriously that is fairer because than no one has to work hard).

Get a lot of feedback

Use the polls as often as you can (AB testing)
Use Evernote to keep track of feedback
Have twitter lists ready for your polls
Reach out to relevant people in your industry
Talk to your loved ones about the logos
Tag people in your facebook posts

While giving Feedback to the designers is very important it is equally important to get feedback from others on your designs. If you stay in your ivory tower you will miss blind spots and in the end you are designing your logo for your target audience and not for yourself. Therefore make the target audience a part of the process and progress.

99designs provides a poll tool to achieve this which is easy to use. Share the links provided with your social network and get them to vote and comment. In preparation for your project read up on A/B Testing to ensure the best results out of your polls and what to watch out for.

In addition I prepared twitter lists of key people in the fitness industry and strength coaches and promoted the polls directly to them. Not all of them reacted but the ones who did provided valuable insights and I raised the awareness for my brand in the process. Talking of killing two birds with one stone. To get the most out of your Facebook posts for the polls tag everybody out of your friend list you would like to comment. This makes sure that it wont get overlooked in overcrowded feeds.

I also visited friends in person and showed them the designs and asked for feedback. I also gained a lot from that in our personal relationships and for the design itself.

Make the bid guaranteed and open

You have to sell your contest, dont just think of "money back guarantee"
Guarantee the bid
Avoid being cheap
Make use of the promotion packages
Get a shutterstock and gettyimage account to check for copies
Keep the bid open and reassure the designers you like most
Make clear that you can be used as a reference
Book a package

If you want to be successful and get a good design remember that the designers also benefit from having access to fresh projects which are submitted every day. You are competing for their time just as they are competing for your business. Therefore take care that your project stands out in every possible way. This starts with picking a meaningful name for the project. Mine

"Design the most meaningful fitness logo you have ever designed"

instead of

"Design my logo"

which one would you rather enter if you care about your job? Also take care that as many people as possible see your bid. This is why I booked the promotion package. If you struggle to find a good headline for your project use the coschedule headline analyser.

Same goes for guaranteeing the bid. Would you like to work for someone who says "ok i will look at what you have, i might even copy it and then I will CONSIDER to pay you for the time which you have already invested". Any smart person who makes a living out of designing and wants to be taken serious will stay away from this. The desperate and greedy will get attracted.

Same goes for being cheap. If you enter crowdsourcing because you lack the skills and time to do it yourself you are on the right track. If you enter to squeeze people for every dime that is what you will get. Cheap depressing designs. Another way of making yourself more appealing is to put a bigger prize money in by using a bundle. Most projects are below 500€. If you book a bigger package you will be more visible and attract more designers.

How to evolve your design

To choose the winning design will be brutal because it also means to decline all of the other options you had. In my case that was saying yes to one and no to about 799 designs. Also be prepared that once you decide there will also be a period in which you will regret your choice. Be ready for that and avoid to doubt yourself. You have done well if you followed all of the advice I outlined.

During the time of the project keep an open mind and look for trends. One of the quantum leaps for me was to go from a triangular to a circular design. In one of my polls circular designs outperformed triangular ones. So do not only look for the winner, but for the trend of the losers and winners in the polls. What do they all have in common? What sets them apart?

The other quantum leap I made was to let go of the abstract design I preferred. I was not a fan of the literal letters you see in the new design and would have preferred it to be more abstract. I actually got hooked on one of the first designs which my son preferred and got blind to all of the other data at play. In the end I overcame my attachment for the better, because just one day after finishing the contest I saw a logo which was very similar to my preferred, abstract on a t shirt for a mountain climbing company in Dublin City Center.

Conclusion

My experience with 99 designs was positive from beginning to end. I might have overpaid as I did not compare platforms against each other but the time I saved in research I reinvested into getting things done (read up on Decision paralysis to dig deeper on this). I labored with the idea of redoing my brand design for two years and could have done it in a week by outsourcing it. I know this now and it will change my life. If you have not crowd sourced yet I highly recommend it to get to your goals quicker. 99designs made it easy for me to crowdsource to get a new logo for a reasonable price where I lack the skills to step up to the plate myself.