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From Freelancing into Fastlane - Progress Thread

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

awanrmb

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Hi, my name is Awan from Indonesia :)

I got into freelancing world by accident.
On my teenage, I played a basketball a lot.
One day I played on a game and got injured on my knee.

I thought it was just usual injure that will heal quickly.
But after that my knee is not feeling normal.
Years and years later after I graduated university and already getting a job,
finally I met one doctor who told me that I lost my Anterior Cruciate Ligament.
On 2010 I had to do knee reconstruction surgery.

After the surgery I have to stay in the bed for 6 months to let my knee heals.
I don't want to become burden to my family so I try to find a way to support myself.
There's only two things that I can do at that time: reading and browsing as the tv is full of junk show ;p
Then I read Thomas L Friedman book called The World is Flat.
On that book I heard about crowdsourcing and online freelancing site like odesk and elance.

It's like a goldmine to me because that way I don't have to get up from my bed to get money.
But I have problems: my english is not too good and I don't have technical skill required.

After thinking sometime, I decided to choose to go for it.
I learnt about wordpress, themes development, plugin, designs and all related things.
Then I applied for job on odesk , failed, sent again failed again go on and on.
I decided that if I got rejected once then I will applied 10 more :D

Finally I got my first client from Australia, really happy about that.
I do my best to satisfy him, while I learn more and more until I received my first testimonial from him:
I highly recommend this guy. He's hard working, enthusiastic and a constant communicator. I will defiantly hire Awan again and again, however I will have to wait in a que as others begin to realize his attributes. Speak to you soon my friend. Karl

My heart is full with joy when I read it just to know that I can benefit others from my services :)

Then partner up with my friends to be able to give more diverse services.
My next client was from Switzerland, he first order logo, then he order stationary design, then he order website, and from there all of his clients was being handled by our team.

After that I got scholarship to study in Netherlands.
This is one of my dream because as an Indonesian who are not grow up in rich family I always dream about studying abroad.
After 6 years got rejected from many scholarship opportunities, finally I got Netherlands Scholarship Award to study on program Master of Information System Development.
Netherlands and Europe is really interesting. I was living up my dream there by meeting lot's of different people, tasting different music and dance style, backpacking to Czech, Belgium, Slovak, Germany and other countries.

I got back to Indonesia in late 2012 and continue again my freelancing activity.
Now I'm serving clients mostly from Canada.
On my second freelancing edition I started again as wordpress developer/designer, but then I always focusing not just on technical work but also on how I can serve more on the clients business side.

Then slowly my client started to discuss about their business process and I'm no longer only doing the technical task but also conducting interview, screening contractor, hiring and also leading team and become project manager to make sure that every projects went smooth.

I'll do my best I can to satisfy clients and few weeks ago I'm hitting 1000 logging hour on odesk http://bit.ly/12y0zQo
This is quite an achievement for me not because of monetary reward but also because I'm able to push myself from lazyness, head full of ideas stagnation, and forcing myself to think about what's the best action for my clients.

MJ book is one of the books that opening my mind about FastLane business.
I'm really thankfull for his creation and I pray that he will be blessed with knowledge, health and inspiration so that he can have more and more opportunity to share it to all people.

I also learn a lot of people on this forum and really thankfull for all of you guys that sharing your minds, ideas, thoughts, wisdom, actions in here.

Now I'm creating this thread to keep track of my progress from Freelancing to Fastlane.

The creation that I'm focusing right now is to develop website that consist of great services from freelancers. The USP of this site compared to odesk is: all the services and freelancers is already verified. The client doesn't need to do job post and screening 50-s candidates.

I want to built this website by start on helping one client at a time, with one services at a time, done by one freelancer at a time.

For now, I will try to offer this services:
- Wordpress Installation
- Wordpress Fix/Help/Troubleshooting

I will use this thread as a way to record my journey that might be benefit to others, and give value to this community in return of what I have received from all people that has sharing on here.

I'm sorry if my english is not too good as it's not my mother tongue, but I'll keep learning it time to time :)

If any of you happen to go to Indonesia, please hit me up.
I'll be glad to show you many exotic places as we have more than 18.000 islands https://url.odesk.com/~7801vk
That mean if you go to one island at one day, you'll need more than 49 years, so you'll better start now! :D


Cheers from sunny Indonesia,
Awan :)
 
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TedM

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Great story, great start - good luck!
 

awanrmb

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Great story, great start - good luck!

Thanks TedM, I met with one guy from Israel guy on Lindy Hop festival on Amsterdam.
He is really crazy about that dance, and surely can dance great! :D



Welcome aboard!

Hey Tincho, thanks for stopping by.
I read about your Progress thread and it's really energizing!

Hope we can chat sometime :)
 
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H. Palmer

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Hello Awan,

Welcome and I'm happy you enjoyed your stay in the Netherlands.

How is your mastery of the Dutch language? Would you be able to do outsourcing work in that language, like, say, writing articles?
 

awanrmb

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Hello Awan,

Welcome and I'm happy you enjoyed your stay in the Netherlands.

How is your mastery of the Dutch language? Would you be able to do outsourcing work in that language, like, say, writing articles?

Hi Amschel, Hoe gaat het?
Yeah, I love there :) Netherlands is full of smiling and friendly people!
I remember that even on the bus, I can have small talk with friendly people there :)
Also I felt very safe even though I go home by walking/biking past midnight.

My dutch is limited on daily conversation, like example "Dank u well" or "alstublieft" when I buy grocery Aldi :D

Have you thought of getting the resources from odesk?
I can help you on hiring and screening if you like, it's free for you! :D

Or perhaps I can reaching out local people here, I think I have few contacts that I can ask.

You can pm me or reach me on skype if you interested: riang_mentari

Bedankt!
Awan from Sunny Indonesia :tiphat:
 

awanrmb

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Welcome Awan and best of luck on your path to fastlane! Great intro!

Thanks much for your wish FastNAwesome, I wish you'll be riding your own Ferrari in the near future :)

Cheers,
Awan from Sunny Indonesia :tiphat:
 

FastNAwesome

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Thanks man, freelancer also here, had very similar path to yours, so hopefully we're well on our way now to success:)
 

awanrmb

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================
UPDATE 14/07/2013
================

So after I have finished taking care of my clients,
I tried to lay out the game plan and also taking some actions about this business.

So basically I'm going to make ecommerce website where I sell hand picked services.
The services will be limited on three areas for now: wordpress/website, graphic, seo.
It will be fulfilled by people that I know have good qualities to provide it (we can call it Service Provider).
The focus for now is not making the most money possible from the business,
but how to connect this services with the client who need it as effective and as efficient as possible.

Here are the overall steps:
1. The website will list out the services, so the client can choose which service that he need.
2. The client pay for the service, the money goes on me.
3. I will invite the client into project management tool so that they can meet directly with the Service Provider
4. When it's done, I will transfer the money to the Service Provider
5. Service Provider ask for feedback on the website.

Here are some of the traffic sources that I want to try:
1. Reaching blogger on that niche that having mailing list
2. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads
3. Social bookmarking
4. Affiliates

I will keep the investment low, but I have some budget to spent from my freelancing income.
That is for:
1. hosting (already got shared one, but if you new then it's $39/year)
2. domain $9
3. wp affiliate plugin
5. logo: free
6. themes (still trying to decide whether to go with premium or free one)

What I have done:
1. Buy domain
2. Setup wordpress
3. Put a fast logo design

I will keep summary of my expense and income:
Total investment: $ 9
Earning : $ 0.00
Net Profit: - $9

See you on the next update guys!


Cheers,
Awan from Sunny Indonesia :tiphat:
 
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andyredsox

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This is such an inspiration for freelancers who want to finally start their own online BUSINESS.

We can also say, he's an inspiration to most people in the community.

A lot of us, struggle to start but once started, the growth is definite!

The only constant thing that should never change is PERSISTENCE.

Cheers!
 

Bigguns50

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WELCOME !

Great story...great plan and execution. You'll do very well.

I awarded my 1st job to a company through Elance. Do I understand correctly, with your service, the client doesn't have to write the proposal ? If this is true...I love it ! It was a challenge for me to write the proposal with all the needed details. If I had an option to pay someone to take my idea and write a good proposal, I would happily do this.
 

awanrmb

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Hi Guys,

It's been a super awesome week for me.
The work from freelancing keep coming.
Also I move forward with my business.

I have created the site Products « Zuperr.Com and this is just a beta version (or mvp you might say) to test the assumption.
So bear with me if you see some things not right ;)

I listed several services (with info about the services that I have sold so far):
1. 8 Sizes Amazing Banner, Done For You!
2. Best Infographics That Drive Traffic!
3. Need to Fix Your WordPress Site? (2 SOLD)
4. WordPress Migration Hero! (4 SOLD)
5. Your Business Deserve Professional Logo! (2 SOLD)

Basically the idea is like Fiverr but with more quality service, verification and escrow payment.
The value that I bring is that the client doesn't have to do hiring, interviewing and managing.
I found hiring, interviewing and managing is a tedious task.
Zuperr created to help the client save their time and headache (no need to interviews 50 candidates that can't even speak english right! yes I experienced it on my early time as hiring manager :rofl:)
Zuperr has listed good quality service provider who are reliable and having good communication.

Next plans:
Adding more great services,
Setup affiliate account so that people can register and can re-sell this services on their local place!

This is so exciting :D


Cheers,
Awan from Sunny Indonesia :tiphat:
 
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awanrmb

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Hi Andyredsox, nice to meet you :)
I learn a lot about the term PERSISTENCE.
I used to be quitter, but at some point there's an urge to succeed.
Can't wait to hear your story my friend :)

Cheers,
Awan from Sunny Indonesia :tiphat:

This is such an inspiration for freelancers who want to finally start their own online BUSINESS.

We can also say, he's an inspiration to most people in the community.

A lot of us, struggle to start but once started, the growth is definite!

The only constant thing that should never change is PERSISTENCE.

Cheers!
 

awanrmb

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Jun 24, 2013
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Hi Bigguns50 :)

I'm on Elance too, both as freelancer and recruiter.
I agree that writing job post can be challenging.
Based on my experiences, it's really important to list everything in detail and weed out the freelancer who are not reading and analyze the task/job/project. It shows someone character from canned application or one liner.

At this moment I haven't got service to write it up, but I can share you the tips and trick that I used to get a good freelancer.
PM me your skype man and we can chat :)

Cheers,
Awan from Sunny Indonesia :tiphat:

WELCOME !

Great story...great plan and execution. You'll do very well.

I awarded my 1st job to a company through Elance. Do I understand correctly, with your service, the client doesn't have to write the proposal ? If this is true...I love it ! It was a challenge for me to write the proposal with all the needed details. If I had an option to pay someone to take my idea and write a good proposal, I would happily do this.
 

awanrmb

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Jun 24, 2013
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Hi Wealthyliving,

Thanks, I'm doing my best here... still got far way ahead, but I'll keep fighting :)

Great job Awan! Such an inspirational story! You're actually out there and doing it!
 

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