Disney Employee Quit to Freelance; Made Over $900K in 5 Years

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Cameron Gurr, a 33-year-old former Disney employee who lives in California. Business Insider has verified Gurr’s employment history and earnings with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I started at Disney in 2011 with an eight-month internship as a cast member. My end goal was to go back after finishing my degree and rise through the company’s ranks.

When I was young, my parents took me to Disneyland. I was wearing a pair of Mickey ears, and I remember seeing Mickey Mouse go by on his train float. He pointed at me, then at his own ears, and then back to my ears. It became a core memory, so for the longest time, I felt a strong personal connection to the Disney brand.

I was dedicated to Disney, and I rose through the ranks into a senior manager position in an HR-type role.

In 2020, I got furloughed when the park closed during the pandemic, and I decided to fill my time freelancing for fun on Fiverr.

Within a year, my earnings on Fiverr began exceeding what I made monthly at Disney.

When I left Disney, my salary was over $60,000. So far in 2025, I’ve made a net of over $100,000, and overall, I’ve made more than $900,000 on Fiverr since 2020.

Did you quit your job or pivot to freelancing? Reach out to this reporter to share your story at mhoff@businessinsider.com.

I was furloughed from Disney in 2020

At Disney, there were many options we could pivot into internally. My final role was an operations-based role, focused on employee experience.

I did onboarding, training, and partnering with recruiters to make sure we were getting people into the right spaces. That became a passion of mine.

After I was furloughed, I signed up for a Fiverr account in May 2020. I posted a gig for résumé writing because I thought that was likely the closest thing to HR that I could do on that platform, and it played to my writing strengths.

When I got my first order with Fiverr that summer, I was like, Oh, no, what am I supposed to do? Some random person on the internet found a stranger — me and my profile — and trusts me to write their résumé?

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My first year on Fiverr was slow

The first year was very low volume, and I made no more than $5,000 a month in revenue. It didn’t really start picking up until January 2021.

I wrote an average of two to three résumés a day in 2021 and write about three to four a day now. During peak periods — January and August — it can be up to 10 or more résumés a day, whereas summer is sometimes slower, so it balances out.

Each résumé takes me anywhere from one to five hours, depending on complexity. In 2020, I started by charging $5 for a résumé, $15 for a résumé and cover letter, and $20 for a résumé, cover letter, and LinkedIn optimization. Now, my average order value is around $140.

My expenses are low: Microsoft Office subscriptions, Zoom, LinkedIn Premium, and equipment like a laptop and office furniture when I first started my LLC. Also, Fiverr takes a 20% cut.

It wasn’t my goal to get rich on Fiverr; I wanted to expand myself during the pandemic and keep busy. But once I saw the money potential there, I was like, This aligns with what I like to do. If I get called back to work, I’m going to say no and continue to grow this.

It was one of the most difficult choices of my life. I’d sacrificed a lot to get to where I was, and I loved the people I worked with. It felt like I was giving up my seat, which I worked so hard for, to someone else, with no guarantee that my business would succeed. It was a true leap of faith.

My boss called me in March 2021 about returning to work

She was so ecstatic. She was like, “I have the best news. The park is reopening. You’re coming back to work. Get excited.”

I was so nervous. I told her I wasn’t coming back to work. It completely took her by surprise, but she was sweet and understanding.

Then I thought, OK, now the rubber meets the road. I’m a freelancer now, and every day I wake up, it’s nobody else’s responsibility but mine to make things happen, make money, and support myself.

It was scary, but here we are.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate. I’m not a sales guy — I don’t like to sell to people, and I haven’t had to; people just kind of come to me. I make sure that we’re a good fit, and then I help them if I can.

I enjoy this over a typical W-2 job

The pros of freelancing include time and location freedom. I can take my laptop and work from anywhere. I’ve worked in Seattle, California, and Texas. If I decide to take an international trip, I can work on an airplane.

Disney was very much in a bubble; everything happened within the company, and it was very traditionally structured.

With freelancing, I’ve been exposed to so many different people, backgrounds, localities, regions, roles, positions, levels — everything from entry-level shrimp farmer to the sugar plum fairy with the touring Nutcracker to executive-level CEOs.

One con is that freelancing is very time-intensive in the beginning phases in terms of ramping up, figuring out your rhythm, and setting work-life boundaries.

Fiverr has many metrics that drive success, such as the success score, which measures customer satisfaction, communication, timeliness, and on-time delivery of orders. While freelancing gives you a sense of freedom, you also have to make sure you’re balancing these expectations accordingly.

That gets easier over time, but, in the beginning, I definitely had to sacrifice a lot with friends and family, saying no to things that I would’ve otherwise said yes to in order to prioritize this and grow it to where it is today.

My advice for other freelancers

If someone is looking to freelance on Fiverr, I would say make sure that you do a couple of things.

First, play to your strengths. Ask yourself, “What do I do better than anyone else?” “What are my competitors doing, and how can I beat them?” Or, “How can I introduce something that is differentiated into my niche and is not currently being offered?”

Secondly, make sure that you’re focusing on the outcome. For me, my deliverable is a résumé. It’s just a piece of paper, but the potential outcomes are a salary increase or helping someone accelerate their job search.

Did you quit your job or pivot to freelancing? Reach out to this reporter to share your story at mhoff@businessinsider.com.