My Big Idea: creative marketplace Vecteezy

Hi! What's your elevator pitch?

I'm Shawn Rubel, founder and CEO of Vecteezy, one of the world's largest creative marketplaces. We provide millions of high-quality vectors, stock photos, and 4K videos that designers, marketers, and businesses can use for free or through affordable Pro subscriptions. By serving more than 20 million users each month, we're democratizing access to professional creative resources while ensuring our contributor community gets fair compensation for their work.

Why does the market need it?

When I started as a designer, quality creative resources were prohibitively expensive. The major stock photo companies charged premium prices while paying contributors poorly. Small businesses, freelancers, and emerging designers were essentially locked out of accessing professional-grade imagery. We solved this by creating a centralized platform offering both free and affordable premium content with transparent, fair licensing. Unlike most other free photo/video/graphics platforms, we pay contributors for free downloads. We also share revenue from our Pro content 50/50 with contributors.

Where is the business today?

We're experiencing phenomenal growth. We're approaching $20 million ARR with 40% year-over-year growth in Pro subscriptions. We’ve made the Inc. 5000 list as one of America's fastest-growing private companies four years in a row (2021-2024),which is a testament to the hard work of our team and our talented community of contributors. We're fully bootstrapped, profitable, and positioned to continue growing.

What made you think there was money in this?

The "aha" moment came when my former boss at a major internet retailer looked at my side project's Google Analytics and said my little website was getting nearly as much traffic as their established multi-million dollar e-commerce site. I realized I'd stumbled onto something huge. As a designer myself, I intimately understood the pain points: expensive resources, poor contributor compensation, and fragmented availability. I saw friends contributing to major stock sites getting terrible deals while users struggled with high costs. The market was ripe for disruption, and my design background gave me familiarity with both sides of the marketplace.

What's your biggest strength?

Our biggest strength is authenticity. I'm a designer building for designers. This isn't some venture capital-backed company trying to extract maximum profit; it's a bootstrapped business built by someone who genuinely understands the creative community's needs. We've maintained this authentic relationship by consistently providing value first, paying contributors fairly, and keeping our "why" front and center. Plus, being bootstrapped means we can make decisions based on what's right for our community, not what satisfies investors.

What is the secret to making the business work?

Focus relentlessly on one thing and provide value first. Early on, I made the classic entrepreneur mistake of spreading myself thin across multiple projects. I dabbled in a lot of different things, and everything suffered. The breakthrough came when I doubled down exclusively on Vecteezy and stopped chasing shiny objects. We also learned to hire smart people and get out of their way. Building the right team with diverse skill sets has been crucial.

How do you market the company?

Our marketing is built on providing genuine value and organic growth. We offer millions of free vectors, photos, and videos, and that’s how many users find us. The free content allows them to try Vecteezy before paying anything. When they see the value we offer, many of those users become Pro subscribers. Word-of-mouth has also been massive. Designers naturally share good free resources with colleagues. But the real secret is our content quality and search functionality. When someone finds exactly what they need quickly and easily, they become evangelists for the platform.

What funding do you have? Is it enough?

We're 100% bootstrapped with no outside funding at all. I started with a few hundred dollars and we've been profitable basically since month one. Being bootstrapped gives us incredible freedom to make decisions based on what's best for our users and contributors, not investor demands. It also means we've had to be disciplined about growth and cash flow management. Frankly, we've never needed outside funding because we've grown organically and maintained strong margins. The business model is sustainable and self-funding.

Tell us about the business model

We operate on a freemium model with multiple revenue streams. Users can download millions of free resources (supported by advertising), purchase individual items with credits, or subscribe to Pro for unlimited downloads for a low monthly or yearly fee. 

What were you doing before?

I studied Visual Arts at Brock University in Ontario, then worked as a graphic designer before moving to Bowling Green, Kentucky in 2004 for an internet marketing job with an ecommerce business. 

Are there any technologies you've found useful?

We use Slack for team communication across our global remote workforce, and Google Meet for video calls. For data analysis, we use Metabase, and BrainTree handles payments. Most importantly, we've built our own proprietary technology for our search engine and content management, which gives us a competitive advantage in helping users find exactly what they need.

What is the future vision?

We're always working to grow our creative marketplace while maintaining our commitment to community. We just launched editorial photos, which we’re really excited about. We’ve also launched some AI tools like a background remover and reverse image search, and new ideas are always in the works. The goal is to simplify the entire creative process, from finding resources to creating and editing. Ultimately, we want Vecteezy to be the go-to destination for creative assets, whether you're a solo freelancer or a Fortune 500 company.

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