100 Videos Led to Being Acquired by Fiverr

In 2016, Lior Pozin emailed his list and said he was going to create 100 videos in 100 days all on the topic of dropshipping. All because no YouTuber would talk about his all-in-one dropshipping platform, AutoDS.

There's a lot more to AutoDS's story and growth than just YouTube videos and thankfully, I had the opportunity to chat with Lior about his journey with AutoDS.

We talked about how he started AutoDS as an internal software tool to start, how it becoming the "secret" dropshipping tool was key to growth, and how they were recently acquired by Fiverr.

To understand the full story of AutoDS, let's start at Lior's journey of becoming a dropshipper:

Before AutoDS

Lior got into dropshipping pretty early - he started his first dropshipping business at 14 in 2009. Eventually he became a software developer, did some freelance work for startups, but kept his dropshipping business going on the side.

That side business led him to build an internal tool in 2014 to help scale things up. Nothing too fancy - just software that could sync with suppliers, track prices and inventory, and handle orders automatically.

At a dropshipping conference that year, Lior was chatting about how he managed his business and kept getting the same question: "why aren't you sharing this software with others?" Sure, there was other software out there, but it was built for the big players with high volume. Most dropshippers were left without good options.

Lior saw an opportunity. He started collecting WhatsApp numbers from interested dropshippers at the conference, and AutoDS was born.

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The Start of AutoDS

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Lior took that internal tool and developed it a bit more so others could use it. It started as what Lior calls a "secret dropshipping software." It was a "secret" because AutoDS couldn't handle a lot of users to start and customer service was only one person: Lior.

Turns out being a "secret tool" creates some buzz. When you're actually solving a problem for people and it feels exclusive, people talk. Word spread so much that Lior had to shift away from his dropshipping business to focus on AutoDS full-time.

Of course, running a real software business wasn't as simple as sharing out a tool. Problems popped up as more people started using AutoDS. For one, Lior was letting people use the software before paying - he'd just send an invoice at the end of the month. Not exactly the best way to run a SaaS business.

Running a growing software company was new territory for Lior, so he took an interesting approach - one you usually see in venture-backed startups, not bootstrapped companies. He started bringing on advisors.

Typically, venture-backed startups give advisors small equity stakes. But for bootstrapped companies like AutoDS, giving away stock is trickier - especially if you're an LLC where stocks aren't even a thing. Instead of equity, Lior paid his advisors monthly retainer fees.

His strategy was pretty clever. Lior recognized he was inexperienced and needed people around who'd solved these problems before. He'd start tackling an issue himself to understand it, then bring in an advisor to help fill the gaps. These advisors would help spot problems and find the right people to solve them. Once they hired someone to handle that area, Lior would move on to the next challenge.

They started with customer support, then software development, then finance - solving one problem at a time. This approach worked so well that it helped position AutoDS for its eventual acquisition.

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AutoDS Gets Acquired

In July 2024, Fiverr acquired AutoDS. While the amount wasn't public, the numbers tell an interesting story: AutoDS was profitable, had over 130 employees, and their revenue was doubling every year. During 2020, with everyone at home, their growth really took off.

Fiverr wasn't their first acquisition offer either. They'd said no to another company before because Lior didn't believe in their leadership team. But Fiverr made sense - AutoDS had used Fiverr for their first logo, and dropshipping was one of Fiverr's top industries.

For AutoDS, the deal made sense beyond just money. Joining Fiverr meant access to resources and reach they couldn't get on their own.

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Growth Strategies

From the start, Lior focused on helping beginner dropshippers and growing alongside them. Interestingly, he mentioned they targeted beginners because it was cheaper to attract them compared to experienced dropshippers.

Building Community

As mentioned earlier, Lior shared the initial tool of AutoDS at meetups and conferences, collecting WhatsApp numbers along the way. The AutoDS team turned that into a Facebook group. This was back when Facebook groups were a bigger deal.

They got clever with how they engaged their community too. They'd regularly poll members about what features they wanted to see next, using that data to guide their product roadmap. They would also track down specific suppliers when community members requested them. Once added, they'd go back to the original post and let that person know.

It seems like a small thing, but for someone to request a supplier and eventually get it, that definitely builds trust and good will with that person, but it also shows people that may be newer to the community that "hey, this AutoDS team is actually listening".

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Courses

So people were talking about AutoDS in dropshipping communities, but that carried over to another place the community was: courses. Course creators would add AutoDS as a recommended tool in their programs.

If you're someone who is a beginner in dropshipping, the chances are that you're going to watch a YouTube video or get a course for how to become a successful dropshipper.

This worked incredibly well, especially on Udemy for AutoDS.

If you go on Udemy, one of the largest course selling marketplaces, you'll notice that AutoDS eventually built up their own successful courses on Udemy. To date, over 160,000 people have signed up for the AutoDS courses just on Udemy. That's not including dropshipping courses recommending the tool on Udemy that are not owned by AutoDS.

I find this strategy of getting in front of audiences that aren't yours incredibly clever. Go where the beginners are.

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YouTube

If you're a beginner, you're either getting a course or looking at YouTube videos, so the natural transition was for AutoDS to also get involved with YouTube.

Interesting enough though - not many YouTube creators would work with Lior in the beginning of AutoDS to promote the tool. Course creators and other people who do affiliate marketing would, but Lior mentioned to me that they never had any significant traction with YouTubers.

That's why Lior ended up starting the AutoDS YouTube channel himself eventually.

Within about a year or so, Lior ended up emailing the AutoDS audience that he was going to publish everything he knew and learned about dropshipping on YouTube with 100 videos in 100 days. To his credit: it has become one of the largest growth strategies for AutoDS to this day.

In November 2024, AutoDS now has over 250,000 subscribers, 1,400 videos published, and 10,000,000 total views.

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These three growth strategies are some of the most diverse I've seen with bootstrapped companies to date, but they've expanded even further than these today. It's now been 10 years of AutoDS and according to Lior, their top three growth strategies are now refer a friend (with no incentives for this interestingly), SEO (who says SEO is dying?), and YouTube (it just never goes away).

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