10. Making Money Online on Fiverr
How Lauren Gouws 10Xed her income in three years
Lauren Gouws was a terrible employee. Commuting daily from Pretoria to Joburg, earning the same salary monthly regardless of workload and the inflexibility of her eight-to-five job was demoralising.
An evening online sifting through the Google search results on ‘How to make money online’ Lauren discovered the world of the gig economy. “I couldn’t quit my job because I had bills to pay and needed an income, but I also knew I wanted to be my own boss,” says Lauren, who now does just that on Fiverr.
Leveraging Fiverr to Make Money Online:
Fiverr is an online marketplace for freelance services. “Basically, if you have a skill that you can offer digitally, you can sign up to these websites and offer that service — it’s McDonald’s for services, you place your order and get it within a day or two,” Lauren explains.
Gig economy sites cater for web developers, consultants, coders, designers, writers and more. “Fiverr is the website I’ve found success on. Within a few hours work started coming in,” she recalls. Sites like Fiverr work on reputation, so getting good reviews, delivering quality content timeously and staying active on the site improve your search results and boost your business.
How this entrepreneur used Fiverr to Earn Money Online:
Lauren’s Fiverr journey started while she still worked full time, so she spent her evenings working on her orders, only sleeping two to three hours on some nights.
“I couldn’t quit immediately, it was too big a risk. I needed to match my salary before I could quit — that was the deal I made with myself,” she says.
It only took three months for Lauren to double her salary, and six months later she quit her job to focus only on her Fiverr clients. Today, her income is ten times what it was three years ago. She’s realised her goal of working on her own schedule and reached a level of flexibility that was impossible as a full-time employee.
“When you sign up to a gig website, you create your profile and gigs. For example, my profile says, ‘Hi, I’m Lauren, I’m a copywriter — if you need a script you can place your order’. My gig is $5 per 25 words, and clients can order as many of the gig as they need.”
Lessons learnt in establishing an income with Fiverr Online:
The secret lies in product differentiation. “I joined Fiverr at a good time when it was still being discovered by many people and companies. While it’s a little more challenging to master now, it’s certainly not impossible. You just have to think out-the-box. Think of something you can offer that is in high-demand and set yourself apart. Why should people choose you instead of the person in the gig next to yours in search results? Flaunt your credentials: Passion. Skills. Tenacity.”