It's going to be a long blog post but I will try to explain everything I have experienced and how it was and how it is now... Buckle up.
Before we begin: becoming a Fiverr Pro changed my life as a developer, and I'm grateful for that. But it was a journey full of ups and downs that I'd love to share with you.
The Beginning: A New Freelancer Looking for Clients
My journey started 6 years ago with Fiverr when I was a new freelancer and tried different freelancer portals to get more clients - it was really hard for me as no one knew me. I stayed with Fiverr and after a couple of years I was determined to "Fiverr Pro Seller" because I felt lost among countless freelancers who do everything for less due to different tax rates (thanks Germany).
So silly me just applied without any degree in WordPress, added a couple of finished projects and of course got rejected. This was something like a wake-up call – maybe I wasn't ready to be a pro? So I started the investment: in myself! (since I wasn't able to post another pro submission for 180 days)
The Turning Point: Investing in Myself
I learned a lot in that time and because of COVID I had the time for it. I published a 20+ hour course on Udemy which now has around 3000 students, I did some webinars for various Turkish university groups... So 6 months passed and I applied again. This time I had much better experience in WordPress and I had more to show in my application. And I got accepted! This was the milestone that changed everything for me...
Success and Its Dark Side
I started to spend a lot of time in Canva creating my gigs in the best way possible and started to get some attention. I was getting messages almost every day from big companies all around the world... It got a little problematic from that time until the end of that year.
Because of my own issue, I was always trying to be there for every client, jumping on calls, giving webinars, working day and night just to deliver on time. I am a millennial, so I do not know what burnout was, I thought it was just another Tuesday... But slowly it was taking over me.
Some of the clients started using that "being always there for them" feature of me which I still cannot get rid of (this bothers my wife the most). So 2023 was fruitful in terms of workload and money-wise but it broke me around the end of the year. I took a step back and read some articles from solopreneurs and how they deal with these kinds of situations.
The Realization: Redefining Value
Then it hit me! I still had the same pricing since 2020... maintenance, building websites, hourly rate... but I know more, I can fix things much faster, I can provide better quality feedback on client requests, why don't I charge more for this knowledge! Yes, that was it.
I reevaluated my pricing and contacted all of the clients that starting from the new year there will be new pricing. Some of them didn't even flinch since they know "being always there for them" is a quality not found a lot right now.
So I went from having 35-40 clients, down to 15-20 clients. As a bonus point, I was also able to work on my own projects, publish plugins, web apps that helped others.
The AI Revolution: New Challenges
Back to Fiverr, I was still getting messages daily until the middle of 2024. Most of the time my goal was and always will be to build relations with companies or solo clients that need help and most of the time I did small edits, fixes for nothing. And most importantly I had this luxury of "saying no" to clients where I did not feel the chemistry.
But since mid 2024 getting messages became less and less. What was the reason? Yes, you guessed it right: AI. More and more company owners are building stuff with pre-made templates, using AI instead of paying 4-5 figures for a company website. I can totally understand it.
How do I know that? These days most of my messages go like this "hey, I made a website with AI and wanted to know if you could fix xxx" and then follow up with "it took me about an hour to get this far, it shouldn't take much to fix this problem", yeah right! And after I mention the price point (which has also gone up because thank you Germany), they immediately jump off.
Where I Stand Today
Where does this leave me? Or any other solopreneur who is having a hard time finding new clients? Easy, I keep learning, I adapt and keep on investing in myself.
My Key Takeaways
My key takeaways for anyone in this situation who is afraid of what comes next:
- Build long-lasting relationships with customers
- Invest in yourself, expand your horizon in terms of services you provide
- Use AI to your advantage, don't be like the developers who still ignore "yeah AI is not gonna make us lose our jobs as developers"
- Don't act like you are just a developer. You are marketer, project manager, accountant, designer (if you have to do it yourself), and many other shoes that you need to fill
- Last but not least: Build relationships with clients. Oh I said it twice, well this is important
I still help people on Fiverr, getting messages twice a week but I am not relying on Fiverr or any other platform. I am relying on myself...
