Fiverr Story: From $200 to $100,000: Ishant’s First-Year Success on Fiverr

In today’s newsletter, we bring you an inspiring Fiverr success story, told directly in her own words. Starting with a single order, she grew her freelancing into a six-figure income within a year. Through her voice, you’ll hear about the challenges, determination, and lessons that fueled her growth. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your freelancing to the next level, this story is sure to inspire!

The Start of a New Journey

Today I surpassed a huge milestone in my Fiverr career passing $100,000 of earnings in my 1st year as a seller. I wanted to share my story with the community to hopefully inspire other sellers and provide some advice from my experience.

The beginning

Back in January 2020 I got my first order for $200, I was so excited at the prospect of earning money during my free time, as I had a fulltime job at the time (more on that later).

I fulfilled my first order and received my first review, my heart was beating so fast waiting to see what my customer would say about me as I knew the importance of customer feedback for continued business. After leaving my review on the buyer, I saw that I received my very first 5 star review, I was immediately hooked and wanted more.All I earned in that month was $200 but the idea of being self sufficient started to develop in my mind and reading other success stories on the forum made me think, why not me?

The next few months I started working with a wide array of customers and several that I managed to secure repeat business from. Creating success for their businesses made repeat business easier and with that came positive reviews helping improve my gig position within the marketplace.

I recall when I also received my first $10 tip, an amazing feeling, not matter the amount.

Level 2 seller & Fiverr’s choice

Reaching Level 2 was a fantastic achievement which took around 7 months of hard work to achieve. This promotion allowed me to add an extra layer of trust & expertise to my gig. My order volume continued to increase month on month however i experienced some new learning curves (both positive and negative) that I will touch on later.

One day I received an order that has a “Fiverr’s Choice” badge, I had not seen this before and turns out that my gig had been selected to be a Fiverr’s Choice service. I was so ecstatic to see that customers and Fiverr recognised the quality of my craft and awarded me this awesome little badge. I felt so proud and continued to ensure i was delivering quality to my customers around the world.

Challenges

Over the last 12 months its not been all “sunshine and rainbows” there have been times that have been extremely challenging (and sometimes out of my hands).

• First chargeback experience. I delivering a 5 star reviewed project, a customer decided months later to file a chargeback on the order which resulted in me losing thousands of dollars.

• I experienced a good few “endless extensions” these happened while working on orders where the customer takes up your time but does not progress the project forward and sometimes even ended up with the customers cancelling the order.

  Losing my gig rank.

  This challenge is possibly the biggest that we see posted throughout the community and often seems to be a lot of conflicting information about this, so here is my experience.

  

  When gig analytics became available once again I was able to see that my gig was averaging a good 1000/1500 impressions per day. As we entered November 2020 I started to notice my gig performance was heading into a worrying direction. I had tested using the promoted gigs feature and this seemed to have an effect on my gig rank or maybe me as a seller subconsciously as I started to update my gig far too frequently (6 times) as I battled to regain some exposure.

  This made everything worse and I ended up going from 1000/1500 impressions per day to only 5–10.
  I made the decision to stop focusing on changing my gig and continue on what I knew works best, providing excellence to my customers. Sometimes a week on fiverr can feel like a long time when your gig has been pushed to the back page but remember if you focus on the quality of your work this will help you in the long run.

My advice

Some may read this story and think this is a short amount of time to achieve “success” but in reality this has been a long road, full of mistakes, learning, developing and pushing myself forward. It has taken me around 10 years of learning a multitude of creative and business skills to be able to succeed in this competitive arena.

Here are some key tips i live by.

• Remember the artform that is business, always overdeliver to your customers, going the extra mile in any walk of life has huge benefits.

• Unbelievable Customer support! I cannot stress this enough even with difficult customers. Remember “the customer is not always right, but they are always the customer” p.s i heard that from a Fiverr seminar (apologies I forgot the name of Fiverr Staff that said this but it stuck with me). Not only does this reflect in your reviews but it allows potential buyers to feel at ease that you will be with them every step of the way through good/bad and challenging situations.

• Be a great salesperson This is a huge part of generating revenue which is being able to sell yourself to clients, I was fortunate to gain these skills through my life (even as a waiter). Selling is the key element that will help you grow, keep learning this skill, you do not need to be an business person, sales are in all walks of life.

• Work hard, sacrifice and be a master of your craft I know this sounds cliché but its a very important element and if your not willing to put in the work, it simply wont happen. Sacrifices are also needed to be made, you cannot burn the candle at both ends and ultimately running a business is very stressful and priorities need to be set.

• Make mistakes learn from them but never make the same mistake twice, i cannot tell you the amount of mistakes i have made but without those i would never be able to grow.

• Enjoy yourself (most important) life is very short, do things that make you happy and breathe passion into your work. At the end of the day a monetary amount is just a number, I am proud of this but being the person I want to be is something that gives me joy.

Thank you for reading this inspiring success story! We hope it motivates you to keep pushing forward in your own freelancing journey. Remember, every challenge is an opportunity to learn and grow. Stay focused, stay determined, and who knows — your own success story might be the next one we share!