7 Freelancer Community Success Stories [2024]
A freelancer community offers a platform where independent professionals can connect, collaborate, and find work. Imagine a dedicated space where freelancers from various fields—writers, designers, developers, and more—can network and grow their careers.
This business idea centers around creating an environment that supports freelancers by providing job listings, project collaboration tools, and professional development resources.
It's an excellent opportunity for anyone passionate about building and nurturing communities. You’ll need to invest time in moderating the platform, curating valuable content, and engaging with users.
If you’re driven by the desire to help freelancers succeed and are ready to foster a connected, thriving community, starting a freelancer community could be the path for you.
In this list, you'll find real-world freelancer community success stories and very profitable examples of starting a freelancer community that makes money.
1. Solar Staff ($6M/year)
solar-staff //s3.amazonaws.com/www.starterstory.com/story_images/images/000/021/326/original/open-uri20221009-25-vx9a2y?1665301493 We used business networking and personal connections to attract and retain customers, along with themed conferences and context advertising. Our promotional budget accounts for 20-25% of our revenues.
How much money it makes: $6M/year
How much did it cost to start: $1.5M
How many people on the team: 77
Solar Staff is a profitable fintech solution that helps businesses work with cross-border contractors, making interaction with freelancers 5 times faster and optimizing business productivity, with a YOY growth of 92% and plans to expand into the UK, India, Mexico, and Brazil.
2. Virtudesk ($6M/year)
Pavel Stepanov, the Founder and CEO of Virtudesk, came up with the idea for his business after experiencing the dramatic results of hiring a virtual assistant for his own real estate business. He realized the power of delegating tasks and saw that other agents and entrepreneurs faced the same time constraints. With connections in the Philippines, he was able to start sourcing virtual assistants, and within two weeks of launching, he had already gained paying clients.
How much money it makes: $6M/year
How much did it cost to start: $2K
How many people on the team: 367
Virtudesk provides virtual assistant services to entrepreneurs and business owners, helping them to scale and automate their businesses with highly-trained virtual assistants based in the Philippines, resulting in over $500,000 in monthly revenue and experiencing greater growth in 2020 than in previous years.
3. Social Media Manager Society ($240K/year)
In her previous career as a social media manager, Amanda Shepherd developed a strong reputation in her niche and realized there was a gap in the market for aspiring social media managers who needed guidance on starting their own businesses. After conducting extensive market research, Amanda created the Social Media Manager Society, offering a program that teaches women how to run successful social media businesses. In just one year, she made nearly $100,000 while working an average of four hours per day, and continues to attract new students to her program.
How much money it makes: $240K/year
How much did it cost to start: $0
How many people on the team: 1
A social media manager turned entrepreneur created a program that has brought in almost $100,000 in one year, designed to teach women how to run successful social media businesses in less than 30 days.
4. Refrens ($120K/year)
Naman came up with the idea for Refrens after struggling to find and engage with freelancers for his previous startups. Recognizing the challenges freelancers faced in payment collection, he saw an opportunity to address these issues.
In 2018, he launched Refrens.com, focusing initially on streamlining invoicing to reduce delays and inefficiencies. The platform expanded beyond invoicing to include features like quotations, expense tracking, and tax reporting, aiming to support freelancers comprehensively.
I met a lot of good freelancers during my course of growing multiple startups but finding them and interacting with them was tough. It looked like a good market to solve problems for. — Naman (Source)
How much money it makes: $120K/year
Discover how Refrens, a billing platform that facilitates seamless payments and client acquisition for B2B service providers, grew from a basic tool to generating $120K annually through targeted SEO, email marketing, and user-centric design improvements.
5. Codemap ($84K/year)
Sasa Janicijevic, the founder of Codemap.io, came up with the idea for his business after experiencing the frustrations of traditional coding and software development while working on his previous startup. After discovering the world of no-code development, Sasa saw an opportunity to create a marketplace that connects founders and organizations with pre-vetted no-code experts, allowing them to build their products faster and at a lower cost. Since launching in October 2020, Codemap has attracted dozens of expert applications and client projects, proving the strong demand for their services in the rapidly rising no-code industry.
How much money it makes: $84K/year
How much did it cost to start: $1K
How many people on the team: 3
Codemap.io is a freelance & agency marketplace for no-code, low-code, and automation, enabling anyone to hire no-code experts to build their products, MVPs, and apps up to 10x cheaper and faster than with traditional development, with 900+ clients, close to $2,000,000 in created projects, and 110+ hires made, all achieved in less than 6 months.
6. Merrative ($24K/year)
Harshala Chavan, the founder of Merrative, came up with the idea for her business after noticing a lack of dedicated spaces for people to discuss literature. After attending a book club meetup, where she had a great discussion with others who had read the same book, she wondered if she could bring this experience online at scale. She validated her concept through participating in BPlans and growing her Instagram page, which eventually led to the launch of Merrative as a community-led marketplace for publishing talent.
How much money it makes: $24K/year
How much did it cost to start: $100
How many people on the team: 0
Merrative, a community-driven marketplace for publishing talent, generates an average of $1,500 per month in marketplace transactions from their 5,000+ strong community of readers, writers, journalists, and scholars.
7. FVA Business Consultancy ($12K/year)
Julmar Grace Locsin, founder of Filipino Virtual Assistance, came up with the idea after experiencing the challenges of transitioning from office jobs to freelancing. Recognizing the potential for freelancing to improve the lives of individuals and families, Locsin and her husband launched FVA to provide training, coaching, and services to empower freelancers. Since its inception, FVA has trained over 25,000 students and aims to become the top online academy in the world.
How much money it makes: $12K/year
How much did it cost to start: $500
How many people on the team: 14
Filipino Virtual Assistance by FVA Business Consultancy, founded by Julmar Grace Locsin, offers online and offline training to empower marketers, enable businesses, and equip freelancers which has trained 25,000 students from their 31 courses, has 16 coaches assigned from different territories, and fifteen in the FVA team for global digital leadership that will impact the world through digitalization, one life at a time.
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
