Back in 2015, the then 24-year-old Alexandra Fasulo was looking for new opportunities to advance her career in public relations. She was working at the New York State Assembly in Albany at the time and decided moving to Manhattan would be the best next move.
Fasulo applied to hundreds of jobs and ended up landing at a PR agency in the city. She started out with an annual salary of $36,000; just enough to get by.
But after four weeks, Fasulo says she “crashed and burned” and quit her job.
With no plan in sight for her next steps, she turned to Fiverr, the online platform her mom had suggested to her, where freelancers from around the world can offer their services to customers.
And it wasn’t too long after that things started really taking off for her.
“I opened up my Fiverr account to press release writing, blog writing, and I believe website content writing at the time, and it only took a couple days for me to get some interest on these different services I was offering,” Fasulo says. “Over the next three years, I added more services and I slowly raised my prices from $5 to $10 to $15 to $25. I had a pretty good thing going, I was making around $65,000 a year there, which I was happy as can be with that. No complaints.”
Her clients range from large corporations to people managing their influencer dogs on Instagram. All different projects and topics, which she says keep her from getting bored.
Fasulo adds that her income never plateaued on Fiverr. It just continued to grow year after year. She started out making about $40,000 the first year and reached about $65,000 by her third year.
But it wasn’t until 2017, when Fiverr launched Fiverr Pro, a service that highlights a curated group of professional freelancers, that things changed drastically for Fasulo.
“After I joined Fiver Pro, I went from charging $25 for a press release to $100 for that same press release. My jaw dropped because I’m no mathematician, but I was obviously able to see that I was going to be making 4 times what I was making at the time,” Fasulo says. “I was going to go from $60k a year to $240k a year and that was definitely the shocking, defining moment for me.”
So what did Fasulo do with that substantial bump in income ? Buy a ferrari ? Go to Vegas ? No. She saved every bit of it she could and made sure she set aside a rainy day fund that could last her several years.
“In my shock, I just saved it. I didn’t go buy a fancy sports car; I didn’t do anything,” she says. “Because there’s always that feeling of when you work for yourself … is this all gonna end? Are these clients all gonna stop buying my writing tomorrow? And that feeling is why I save so much of it.”
Eventually, however, the 28-year-old did make some significant investments. In September 2020, she bought a yellow Jeep Wrangler in cash for $50,000. And in 2021, after living in New York for six years, she moved to Florida and purchased a home.
“It’s funny how when you leave New York City, all of a sudden you can buy a house and a car and still afford everything,” she says. “It’s a huge change. You’re no longer dropping $100 every time you go out for dinner. Instead, you’re able to invest more of your money into your own business. That’s what living in Florida has enabled me to do.”
Moreover, Fasulo adds that despite the ongoing pandemic, her business accelerated because so many other businesses pivoted online and required her writing services to convert their leads and make money. Fasulo says she’s now earning about $378,000 a year.
Is freelancing on Fiverr the key to gaining financial security then ? If you ask Fasulo, it definitely can be if you’re willing to put in the hard work.
“This isn’t a get rich quick scheme. I’ve never said it was,” she says. “But it is something that if you put just one or two years of really hard work into, no days off, it’s absolutely something that can provide you with a really nice salary. It can also give you the ability to do whatever you want, travel the world, be home with your kids. The flexibility that comes with it is incredible.”
So with all the success she’s had, you might be wondering, what’s next for Fasulo ? Well, it’s safe to say she plans to keep busy for the foreseeable future.
“Right now, I’m actually working with my web guy to develop the first of its kind news site about freelancing where people will be able to share their experiences,” she says. “I would love to make it into its own brand. It’s a dream of mine to normalize freelancing for people.”
But that’s not all the 28-year-old has planned.
“I also want to hop around the U.S. and go to different cities, sit down with someone and help them get started with their own freelance business. I plan to document it all and share that journey on YouTube,” she adds. “And then long term, I have about 10 books I want to write. Just not yet.”
You can find Alexandra Fasulo on Instagram @alexandrafasulo and on her website study.mentorcamp.io.