Sellers: Share your most memorable Fiverr project

[Kesha]

One of the coolest parts about freelancing is that you have the opportunity to work with several different companies and projects across different industries and sectors. 

What has been the most memorable project that you’ve had the pleasure of working on?

[bsmith0701]

Mine is easy since I have only one project completed at the time. However, I am incredibly fortunate to work with the buyer who chose me for the project. They have been an excellent communicator and have given me a ton of confidence that I can make this dream a reality.

This project has been a goal of the buyer for quite some time - they are an English Educator of over 40 years who wanted to compile all of their knowledge and turn it into a textbook for new English speakers, and I was selected to do the VoiceOvers for all of the video files that accompany the textbook. It's been awesome! 

[donnovan86]

For me, it's anything that has to do with a charity. I have a soft spot for nonprofits that want to help others, and I had a few projects where I wrote articles to promote certain nonprofit initiatives, like gathering funds to feed poor kids. 

[uk1000]

Isn't there a risk that any details of a project someone might give here might go against the TOS https://www.fiverr.com/legal-portal/legal-terms/terms-of-service

Quote

Therefore, Sellers agree to treat any information received from Buyers as highly sensitive, top secret and classified material. Without derogating from the generality of the above, Sellers specifically agree to (i) maintain all such information in strict confidence; (ii) not disclose the information to any third parties; (iii) not use the information for any purpose except for delivering the ordered work;

Couldn't that prevent discussing projects info without the buyer's permission?

[vickiespencer]

27 minutes ago, Kesha said:

What has been the most memorable project that you’ve had the pleasure of working on?

My most memorable project is a buyer rather than an order.

I first met the buyer through Buyer Requests when I made an offer to his request, and he replied. In his reply, the buyer said he wanted unlimited revisions. I answered that he would not need any because buyers like my work that much.

The buyer hired me to proofread a letter, and oh my, that document was very poorly written. I could tell from the repeated thoughts and other indicators that the buyer must have a learning disorder in writing. It took me about three times as long to wade through its content and make sense of it. But as a teacher, I had a lot of experience in doing so.   

What touched my heart about the buyer was that each time he placed an order, his writing improved bit by bit. He was learning to be a better writer by studying my corrections to his writing. I encouraged him by being his cheerleader and telling him I had noticed how his writing had improved. Then, he seemed to improve even more.   

That was six years ago, and this buyer is the one that has stuck with me the longest. We have become friends, and we always chat a bit whenever he places an order. Of course, I send him 25% off coupons because when we started working together I charged one-fifth of what I charge now. 
 

 

 

 

 

[Kesha]

17 hours ago, bsmith0701 said:

Mine is easy since I have only one project completed at the time. However, I am incredibly fortunate to work with the buyer who chose me for the project. They have been an excellent communicator and have given me a ton of confidence that I can make this dream a reality.

This project has been a goal of the buyer for quite some time - they are an English Educator of over 40 years who wanted to compile all of their knowledge and turn it into a textbook for new English speakers, and I was selected to do the VoiceOvers for all of the video files that accompany the textbook. It's been awesome! 

Congratulations on landing that gig! It's always a rewarding experience when you get to help someone turn their dream into reality. 

[Kesha]

17 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

For me, it's anything that has to do with a charity. I have a soft spot for nonprofits that want to help others, and I had a few projects where I wrote articles to promote certain nonprofit initiatives, like gathering funds to feed poor kids. 

This is incredible! To be able to use your talent to do purpose-driven work that helps a greater cause is truly a remarkable feeling. Thanks for sharing. 

[levinewman]

Through Fiverr, I've had the chance to write for an original American Gladiator (Nitro), a Hall-of-Fame baseball player, and one of the biggest tech companies on Amazon (Anker).

[Kesha]

16 hours ago, vickiespencer said:

My most memorable project is a buyer rather than an order.

I first met the buyer through Buyer Requests when I made an offer to his request, and he replied. In his reply, the buyer said he wanted unlimited revisions. I answered that he would not need any because buyers like my work that much.

The buyer hired me to proofread a letter, and oh my, that document was very poorly written. I could tell from the repeated thoughts and other indicators that the buyer must have a learning disorder in writing. It took me about three times as long to wade through its content and make sense of it. But as a teacher, I had a lot of experience in doing so.   

What touched my heart about the buyer was that each time he placed an order, his writing improved bit by bit. He was learning to be a better writer by studying my corrections to his writing. I encouraged him by being his cheerleader and telling him I had noticed how his writing had improved. Then, he seemed to improve even more.   

That was six years ago, and this buyer is the one that has stuck with me the longest. We have become friends, and we always chat a bit whenever he places an order. Of course, I send him 25% off coupons because when we started working together I charged one-fifth of what I charge now. 
 

 

 

 

 

Reading this truly touched my heart! Hearing how your work has had such a positive impact on him and how it turned into a six-year professional relationship is just amazing! I love hearing Fiverr stories like this. 

[Kesha]

17 hours ago, uk1000 said:

Isn't there a risk that any details of a project someone might give here might go against the TOS https://www.fiverr.com/legal-portal/legal-terms/terms-of-service

Couldn't that prevent discussing projects info without the buyer's permission?

Hi! According to our Terms of Service, sellers are prohibited from disclosing any sensitive or personal information regarding a buyer or their order. However, sellers are allowed to share general information about the projects they've worked on.

[Kesha]

 

20 minutes ago, levinewman said:

 

Through Fiverr, I've

Through Fiverr, I've had the chance to write for an original American Gladiator (Nitro), a Hall-of-Fame baseball player, and one of the biggest tech companies on Amazon (Anker).

 

That's an impressive portfolio you've got there! Good work. 👏

[vibronx]

Well, memorable can both be good and bad, right?

Good: I haven't had a really exciting project (please give me a fiction book to work on), but I have a current buyer who always leaves huge tips, so I always look forward to working with him.

Bad: I had a buyer (a company) about four years ago who gave me many four-figure orders. However, they were absolutely horrible to work with. They expected me to read their minds. For example, I would usually be given a list of translations I would be required to work on for a particular month, along with the deadlines. However, they expected me to deliver these translations two days before the stated deadline without even informing me about it because that's totally logical, right? So, they got mad about me being "late" until I learned "my lesson." And that's only one of the many things that were wrong with those people.

I kept working with them for about a year because they totally overpaid compared to my prices at the time. And they are probably the reason I became TRS, so I'm thankful for that. But we also had a really stupid arrangement where I would get paid at the end of each month. Of course, this led to me being cheated out of $400 when they suddenly disappeared from Fiverr. It's my own fault for agreeing to something like that, but I still wish only the worst for that company and the horrible people who work for it.

Edited January 26 by vibronx

[melanielm]

My most memorable earns that title from sheer ridiculousness. The buyer expected me to print out the articles I wrote and deliver them to their office halfway across the country. I thought they were joking, but no. I think that would definitely break Fiverr's TOS about doing business off the platform.

I've been here for 12+ years, and it's hard to pick out the best orders. There have been many engaging and entertaining ones. I really enjoy working on folks' novels. Writing for an Icelandic travel bureau let me explore amazing locations virtually. Although more time-consuming and thus less lucrative, I love projects that require a lot of research. I love learning new stuff!

 

[md_yeakub]

My first project is so memorable

Edited January 26 by md_yeakub
I edited it because it might help me faster

[vickiespencer]

7 minutes ago, md_yeakub said:

My first project is so memorable

You changed this from cute to memorable. I agree with what you said at first after going to your profile and viewing the image of your first delivery. The logo you created was cute! 

[emmaki]

My most memorable Fiverr project wasn't a project, because it was inbox spam from sellers from a country famous for its amazingly corrupt government (I know, that doesn't narrow the field very much) and having lots of oil. And being a hotbed of ne'er-do-wells who pretend to be dodgy princes with cashflow and so on and so forth. 

Anyway, some years ago, I was contacted by someone who wanted a job. I told them in my usual direct way that I would never hire someone with such hideous writing skills, much less a scammer. 

They were, as you imagine, quite offended. I reported them for spam, of course. They were blocked, and that was that. 

Or so I thought. For about a week, a steady succession of people all claiming to be friends of the first (who was sadly banned shortly after our conversation). 

My reporting finger was starting to get quite tired, but my inbox response rate was looking great. It all culminated in an actual witch doctor unaliving threat. Apparently, one of this small crowd of VERY angry people who were remarkably resilient in the face of constant bans, had gone and hired an actual witch doctor to put a hex on me. 

I think I responded with 'lol' and reported them. Then I told CS. The agent was very interested in my case (as she should be) and sadly, after that, I was spammed no more. 

Beat that.

Oh, also, just last year, one former forum regular, whose name I can't quite remember, but he was Romanian and very annoying, thought to inbox me. Turns out he'd made a YouTube video about me and what did I think about it? 

Since I know he's not in my fan club (I may have said some slightly mean things about his lack of eptitude a long time ago), I thought I'd take a look. Anyway, he'd made this very weird video in which he had found some profile with my name on it on Legit or one of those other Fiverr rip-off platforms (might be mine, can't remember). He went at great length about what fantastic value I was compared to Fiverr, and how everyone should hire me on this other place, where I was only $5, because...

...You thought it was going to be value for money, didn't you?

"Never keep all your eggs in one basket" was the reason. 

The video was also shockingly badly produced. Like I said, he's an inept person. I reported it to CS, but he's still floating about on the platform, presumably going "Grr, Emmaki" or something. 

Continuing on the "Romanians are a bit weird based on my sample size of 2 strange people" theme, a new seller on Reddit was very angry that Fiverr had not showered him with all the money, badges, and prizes in his first week. Tragic, I know. He was really successful with his own business though. He did not appreciate me pointing out that perhaps he should wait and that if his own business was so much better, maybe focus his attention there? 

Pardon me for being reasonable. In any case, he decided to come on Fiverr, introduce himself as X from reddit, and then tell me my gigs were not very good. He wasn't that polite. For reference, he had sold one gig at the time. I reported it, of course. He didn't get banned. I just looked at his profile. He's... not doing very well. 

I have plenty more stories, but those are just a few recent highlights of my encounters with Fiverr's finest sellers (all of whom have 5 star profiles, of course). I feel like these are success stories because I win and they don't. I've never really liked my Fiverr inbox. I get far too many strange people in it (and that's just the buyers). 

I've also had some buyer reviews that called me a psycho because I wouldn't refund (CS remove those). I love it when that happens. Mostly because the review gets removed, they get even madder, and the following reviews get removed until oh dear they can't review anymore. I'd been nothing but perfectly reasonable brick wall to them, too. 

Can you please make sure these stories go in the next Fiverr newsletter, Kesha? Thx!

[priyank_mod]

A couple of years back I had the honour of collaborating with an elderly person on Fiverr. This person had battled terminal health issues since their teenage and lived through multiple catastrophes (on personal as well as health front) through their lifetime.😇 

And upon reaching the 60s, this person decided to start a consultancy which would mentor, inspire and support the people battling similar issues in life. My work involved understanding their journey and building a deck from scratch which would bring out the empathy, experience & mental strength from their POV and offer it in the form of services to the prospective clients across different walks of life. 🥰 

[emmaki]

Pft, elderly people. 

Ah, I once had a client who was in a very specific industry that uses very specific words with very specific purposes. Or, jargon. He wanted me to write SEO articles to help him rank. Sounds great so far, doesn't it? And yes, his industry was an absolute jargonfest.

Unfortunately, this client had a phobia of just about all the main keywords/jargon associated with his business. He told me about this on our first job together, and gave me a random, not really related keyword to use rather than more sensible ones. I dutifully wrote the article, avoiding the minefield of terrifying words sent it to him.

It was not a very good article. 

He was mostly happy, except I had accidentally written one of these terrifying words which had made him feel VERY ill. I quickly apologized for my horrible oversight and revised the heck out of that keyword. In the meantime, he was writing out a lot of messages about how sickened he was by what I had written.

Luckily, my mad editing skillz had saved the day and the buyer made a miracle recovery. Just call me Fiverr Jesus. 

Everyone was happy.

Months pass.

He comes back, orders more. I write the article, but he does that vague "remember that I told you..." thing. I do remember, but (this was a long time ago) can't be bothered to look it up, and figure I'll just clean it up in revision. I write the article based on a memory of the terrifying keywords. Unfortunately, this results in a devastatingly terrifying article. The buyer had a rather impressive meltdown, which included sending me cancellation requests saying "you are not my doctor". I may or may not have politely asked why he had chosen this particular industry to work in. 

CS agreed that he wasn't quite all there (CS perk up quite a lot when you come with a ticket that's a bit more interesting than the usual, I can tell you that much) and the order was cancelled but I got paid. 

He didn't come back. I may or may not have accidentally used some terrifying keywords in our conversation to discourage him from reordering like some sort of forgetful Pavlov. I sometimes wonder how he's doing.

The moral of this story is that you shouldn't start a business in an industry full of things that terrify you, unless you're being a big brave person practicing a form of exposure therapy. And even then, if you're just going to melt down every time (perfectly normal) things get said and make no (apparent) effort to adjust to the scary thing and instead put the onus on people you hire to tiptoe around you while actively forcing them to give you inferior work due to your own issues, perhaps don't do that.

This is a success story, because the buyer never came back.