What do you consider your most significant achievement as a freelancer?

[Kesha]

We know you've achieved some incredible milestones on your freelance journey, and we want to hear about them! What do you consider your most significant achievement as a freelancer? 

Share your success with us so we can celebrate your accomplishments together! 🌟

[williambryan392]

Note: I didn’t expect this to be a long post but I just started typing and here it is…

There’s the overarching milestone of replacing my prior FT income with freelancing and now being free to travel/work from where I want to, but the things I’m most proud of are how some of the people I’ve worked with have developed and what they’ve achieved. 

I know this sounds cheesy but it really makes me happy. To be abundantly clear I am only ever 1% (or less!) of the puzzle that has made them successful, they are the ones who inevitably have to take action and do the hard work to make it happen.

Coincidentally I just passed 2000 orders, and all my orders involve meeting with the client so I get to know my buyers quite well, and have therefore got quite a few stories. Maybe I should write a book (that obviously doesn’t break NDA requirements!).

These are two of the stories that make me most proud…

First one…

Had a US buyer that worked in a chicken factory/abattoir. Single mom, 1 bedroom apartment, kids kids, minimum wage. A tough life. Unsurprisingly she wasn’t happy and wanted to do something about it. 

She wanted to do something around high-quality farming (I think her job was the main driver here!) and we came up with a plan. Short version is she created a site showcasing high quality farms/farming, what their story was etc. She initially listed them for free, built some traffic, and then once she had proven she could send their sites visitors from her own she started charging a monthly listing fee. She then added affiliates for some of the farm's products, ads, and got some sponsorship from some other companies. She’s now working with some chefs who are into using premium/healthy ingredients.

2 years ago she did 50 hour weeks and earned minimum wage doing something she hated for about $1600 a month. Now her business does 5 figures a month, she loves her ‘job’ (she quit the abattoir), her kids each have their own bedroom, and they went to Disney 6 months ago (their first family holiday).This makes me happy, and proud of what she’s achieved. She took action and changed her life.

Second one...

About 2 years ago a buyer, mid-twenties, high school dropout called me from his car in a Costco car park before he started his shift. His car had actually broken down there. His job was cardboard-crushing. He’d take the empty boxes of products and put them in the crusher. He sent me a video. It’s the type of thing that would be fun for five minutes, then dull as hell. He rented a room in a house that was pretty cheap, but he wasn’t allowed to have a bedroom door. Weird for sure, and unsurprisingly he wasn’t happy.

Anyway, he was into fitness, photography, and making films. He had a half-decent video camera that he got for his 16th birthday. We made a plan for him to approach independent gyms and offer to do promo shoots for them. Aside from fuel, his costs were nearly non-existent. After 2 weekends of walking into gyms he had 3 clients/shoots booked. This first month he made $2K. He kept doing it, and each month he’d make a bit more. He quit Costco and built some savings. 6 months later he was in his own apartment (hooray, his own door), his car was fixed, and he had $20K in his business bank account. He then moved to LA a little over a year ago, started networking with other filmmakers, got more opportunities, and also a job in tech sales.

His business does around $5K a month (he’s not 100% focused on it and is enjoying making art noir films), and $15K a month from his job. He jokes that he makes more now in a month than he used to in a year. He did this in 2 years, from a broken down car in a Costco car park, to 6 figures a year in LA schmoozing with actors and directors. Hard work pays off.

(Both of these individuals have said before they’d be happy for me to tell their stories).

I’ve also worked with a lot of other businesses that have grown from nothing to something, or grown from something to something awesome. Some have successfully gone through fundraising rounds, or been acquired which has been pretty cool to see. And some have failed of course. That’s life.

If you take anything from these stories let it be that hard work beats talent! You have every chance of achieving your goals, but you have to take action!!

Some other random experiences that don’t necessarily make me proud but I wouldn’t have had without Fiverr…

A President of an African country (yes it was actually the President, he had his camera on and was in a very comfortable setting to say the least).

A US Senator and a Congressman.

Several fortune 500 C-Level execs (I was very surprised they were looking on Fiverr when I got started).

An 8 year old (or thereabouts) YouTuber with millions of subscribers (his mum was also on the call).

A UHNW who just liked chatting about random stuff. He walked me around his superyacht on one call, his garage full of supercars on another call and finally from his plane because he was bored during the flight. He never tipped though 😆 

A Sheikh from the UAE. He did tip generously!

(So let’s dispel the myth that all Fiverr buyers are cheap, sure lots are budget-conscious, but some have money to burn and are happy to spend it on services).

Some Fiverr sellers. Not naming names but I expect some are reading this!

That’s not to say all buyers are great, that’s life, I had one person who didn’t know different countries had different timezones. That was a painful experience. How that person survived until their twenties I’ll never know! Or the 16 year old who expected a 100mUSD investment for 2% of their business which was at the idea stage. Yep, there are people like that in the world.

Anyway, because of the nature of my work I get to know my clients quite well, I get to know their back story, and also where they end up a lot of the time. You might not have the same visibility of what happens with/to your client, but whether you create logos, make videos, write copy, whatever, you have almost certainly helped someone else achieve their goals or even their dreams. I think that’s pretty cool!
 

[momaidi]

 

In less than a year since joining Fiverr in August 2022, I've accomplished a significant milestone as a freelancer. Despite seeing others struggle with finding projects, I managed to complete 56 orders and earn over $2000 within these nine months. This success has allowed me to reach Level One status, and I'm on track to achieve Level Two soon.

[collinsconsult]

One of my greatest achievements was knowing about Fiverr since July 2017. It changed my life. The rest is history. 

[emmaki]

My greatest achievement today is that I'm not giving up. This is the kind of thing that people support usually. Grit. Determination. Against all the odds. 

But this isn't a Hollywood movie, is it? 

It's a place where the biggest achievement to celebrate is apparently "I signed up to Fiverr".

Tell me, does anyone dare tell the dear leader that he's wrong sometimes? I get the impression he's a man who doesn't like being told no. I mean, I've met him. 

 

[Kesha]

13 hours ago, williambryan392 said:

Note: I didn’t expect this to be a long post but I just started typing and here it is…

There’s the overarching milestone of replacing my prior FT income with freelancing and now being free to travel/work from where I want to, but the things I’m most proud of are how some of the people I’ve worked with have developed and what they’ve achieved. 

I know this sounds cheesy but it really makes me happy. To be abundantly clear I am only ever 1% (or less!) of the puzzle that has made them successful, they are the ones who inevitably have to take action and do the hard work to make it happen.

Coincidentally I just passed 2000 orders, and all my orders involve meeting with the client so I get to know my buyers quite well, and have therefore got quite a few stories. Maybe I should write a book (that obviously doesn’t break NDA requirements!).

These are two of the stories that make me most proud…

First one…

Had a US buyer that worked in a chicken factory/abattoir. Single mom, 1 bedroom apartment, kids kids, minimum wage. A tough life. Unsurprisingly she wasn’t happy and wanted to do something about it. 

She wanted to do something around high-quality farming (I think her job was the main driver here!) and we came up with a plan. Short version is she created a site showcasing high quality farms/farming, what their story was etc. She initially listed them for free, built some traffic, and then once she had proven she could send their sites visitors from her own she started charging a monthly listing fee. She then added affiliates for some of the farm's products, ads, and got some sponsorship from some other companies. She’s now working with some chefs who are into using premium/healthy ingredients.

2 years ago she did 50 hour weeks and earned minimum wage doing something she hated for about $1600 a month. Now her business does 5 figures a month, she loves her ‘job’ (she quit the abattoir), her kids each have their own bedroom, and they went to Disney 6 months ago (their first family holiday).This makes me happy, and proud of what she’s achieved. She took action and changed her life.

Second one...

About 2 years ago a buyer, mid-twenties, high school dropout called me from his car in a Costco car park before he started his shift. His car had actually broken down there. His job was cardboard-crushing. He’d take the empty boxes of products and put them in the crusher. He sent me a video. It’s the type of thing that would be fun for five minutes, then dull as hell. He rented a room in a house that was pretty cheap, but he wasn’t allowed to have a bedroom door. Weird for sure, and unsurprisingly he wasn’t happy.

Anyway, he was into fitness, photography, and making films. He had a half-decent video camera that he got for his 16th birthday. We made a plan for him to approach independent gyms and offer to do promo shoots for them. Aside from fuel, his costs were nearly non-existent. After 2 weekends of walking into gyms he had 3 clients/shoots booked. This first month he made $2K. He kept doing it, and each month he’d make a bit more. He quit Costco and built some savings. 6 months later he was in his own apartment (hooray, his own door), his car was fixed, and he had $20K in his business bank account. He then moved to LA a little over a year ago, started networking with other filmmakers, got more opportunities, and also a job in tech sales.

His business does around $5K a month (he’s not 100% focused on it and is enjoying making art noir films), and $15K a month from his job. He jokes that he makes more now in a month than he used to in a year. He did this in 2 years, from a broken down car in a Costco car park, to 6 figures a year in LA schmoozing with actors and directors. Hard work pays off.

(Both of these individuals have said before they’d be happy for me to tell their stories).

I’ve also worked with a lot of other businesses that have grown from nothing to something, or grown from something to something awesome. Some have successfully gone through fundraising rounds, or been acquired which has been pretty cool to see. And some have failed of course. That’s life.

If you take anything from these stories let it be that hard work beats talent! You have every chance of achieving your goals, but you have to take action!!

Some other random experiences that don’t necessarily make me proud but I wouldn’t have had without Fiverr…

A President of an African country (yes it was actually the President, he had his camera on and was in a very comfortable setting to say the least).

A US Senator and a Congressman.

Several fortune 500 C-Level execs (I was very surprised they were looking on Fiverr when I got started).

An 8 year old (or thereabouts) YouTuber with millions of subscribers (his mum was also on the call).

A UHNW who just liked chatting about random stuff. He walked me around his superyacht on one call, his garage full of supercars on another call and finally from his plane because he was bored during the flight. He never tipped though 😆 

A Sheikh from the UAE. He did tip generously!

(So let’s dispel the myth that all Fiverr buyers are cheap, sure lots are budget-conscious, but some have money to burn and are happy to spend it on services).

Some Fiverr sellers. Not naming names but I expect some are reading this!

That’s not to say all buyers are great, that’s life, I had one person who didn’t know different countries had different timezones. That was a painful experience. How that person survived until their twenties I’ll never know! Or the 16 year old who expected a 100mUSD investment for 2% of their business which was at the idea stage. Yep, there are people like that in the world.

Anyway, because of the nature of my work I get to know my clients quite well, I get to know their back story, and also where they end up a lot of the time. You might not have the same visibility of what happens with/to your client, but whether you create logos, make videos, write copy, whatever, you have almost certainly helped someone else achieve their goals or even their dreams. I think that’s pretty cool!
 

Wow! Thanks for sharing these, @williambryan392! I enjoyed learning about these experiences you've had. You certainly had a rewarding career, I see. 👏

[Kesha]

13 hours ago, momaidi said:

 

In less than a year since joining Fiverr in August 2022, I've accomplished a significant milestone as a freelancer. Despite seeing others struggle with finding projects, I managed to complete 56 orders and earn over $2000 within these nine months. This success has allowed me to reach Level One status, and I'm on track to achieve Level Two soon.

Congratulations on the swift success! 

[Kesha]

12 hours ago, collinsconsult said:

One of my greatest achievements was knowing about Fiverr since July 2017. It changed my life. The rest is history. 

Love that! FIverr can definitely be life-changing. 💚