Starting Out On Upwork as a Web Developer

[Jeko]

This will be my first time attempting to build any form of online business. My motivations for choosing Upwork to start out on is to build a skill that can be used towards creating a value driven fastlane business. I also hope to get hands on experience in marketing myself, my services and my products while earning more than I currently do.

The purposes for this thread are to:

1. Document my goals and the actions I take to meet said goals.
2. Hopefully inspire anyone in a similar position that they can do this too.

Now a little bit more about my starting point before I go into my goals. I currently work a minimum wage job making $10/hour. I have $5,000 in student loan debt. My monthly expenses based on last month's spendings are $560 + $200 + $64 + $60 for rent, food, bus passes, and loan payments respectively. My monthly earnings are roughly $1000.

Now onto the goals.

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Goal #1: Get a paid gig on Upwork by November 30th, 2017

This will be the first time I will have made money online. Or as MJ might put it, It's the first time I will have provided value in exchange for value vouchers online.

Goal #2: Earn $1000 online by December 31st, 2017

Earning $1000 on Upwork means that I can now quit my minimum wage job and focus full time on developing skills as an Entrepreneur.

Goal #3: Earn $2000 in a single month by March 31st, 2018

$2000 is double what I currently earn in a month. In other words, at $2000/month I will earn enough to cover me for 2. It represents a little taste of freedom. I could technically sit on my a$$ listening to J Pop while scarfing down oreos for an entire month without having to worry about working to pay rent. Not saying I would, just that could!

Goal #4: Be out of debt by May 31st, 2018

My debt isn't massive. The loan payments I make don't break the bank. But as long as I have debt that means I am shackled to having a job. Therefore my goal is to be rid of it in 6 months. I chose 6 months because it seemed the most realistic to me. Perhaps if I really hustle I can get this done a month or two sooner!

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My immediate course of action for these next few days are to make my personal site live, fancy up some personal projects to show potential clients, and to start applying to Upwork jobs.

Thanks to anyone who has read this far. Cheers!
-Jeko

 

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[Azure]

Check out SinisterLexs youtube channel. Lots of great resources for UpWork freelancers

 

[Jeko]

Thanks for the tip! Reading one of SinisterLex's threads is actually what inspired me to choose Upwork to start out on. Great stuff!

 

[Lex DeVille]

Thanks for the tip! Reading one of SinisterLex's threads is actually what inspired me to choose Upwork to start out on. Great stuff!

Cool, I just closed an $8k website deal a few days ago. Sent off a $2500 retainer proposal a few hours ago. There's others in the chat in my signature that are closing similar big numbers in different areas. One is almost up to $5000/mo recurring and has only been on Upwork about 2 months. Still plenty of opportunity. Take action, make it happen. It can be you too.

 

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[Azure]

Cool, I just closed an $8k website deal a few days ago. Sent off a $2500 retainer proposal a few hours ago. There's others in the chat in my signature that are closing similar big numbers in different areas. One is almost up to $5000/mo recurring and has only been on Upwork about 2 months. Still plenty of opportunity. Take action, make it happen. It can be you too.

Just seen that 5k a month in the chat. 5k a month in recurring revenue on any channel is amazing and shows the dedication and hustle she? has. Great work

 

[Jeko]

Cool, I just closed an $8k website deal a few days ago. Sent off a $2500 retainer proposal a few hours ago. There's others in the chat in my signature that are closing similar big numbers in different areas. One is almost up to $5000/mo recurring and has only been on Upwork about 2 months. Still plenty of opportunity. Take action, make it happen. It can be you too.

I have no more excuses to keep me from pursuing my dreams. I'm guilty of making the excuses you shattered in your threads. Like you said, there is still plenty of opportunity on Upwork. Your Upwork from Scratch thread convinced me that it is something that anyone can do as long as they go above and beyond in providing value. That thread is awesome. Link to thread for anyone who hasn't read it yet:

Notable - I Deleted My Upwork Profile & Started Over From Scratch

Just seen that 5k a month in the chat. 5k a month in recurring revenue on any channel is amazing and shows the dedication and hustle she? has. Great work

Further confirmation on what one can do if they just put their head down and do the work. I need to keep hustling.

As for today's hustle, I vomited out a page of unedited copy for my Upwork profile. I didn't get off work until late and I'm not at my most creative at night, but I needed to get moving on writing it at some point. I'm leaving the editing for the morning when I'm a bit more creatively inclined. I'm now off to finish up a project to show clients when I start applying for gigs.

 

[AfterWind]

I need to keep hustling.

I needed to get moving on writing

Stop thinking that you need to do X. You don't need to do anything, you don't need to become financially free you don't have to do the work on UpWork to have some income and pay your debt. It looks like it's a chore that somebody else is forcing on you. Just stop thinking like that. Instead:

Own it!
You will keep hustling. You f***ing chose to keep hustling. There's purpose to continue hustling.

That is your GOAL, you CHOSE this pain upon youself for this greater GOAL, and when you realise that, there are NO EXCUSES and you start becoming INVINCIBLE.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

I'm not at my most creative at night, but I needed to get moving on writing it at some point.

When I used to work a full-time job I started going to bed earlier so I could wake earlier. I found my creative abilities were much better in the early morning hours vs. after a long day of work. Did this in 30 minute increments. Today I wake around 3am and get several hours of writing in before any clients are awake. Everything flows easier for me that way. Might be worth a try.

 

[Readerly]

When I used to work a full-time job I started going to bed earlier so I could wake earlier. I found my creative abilities were much better in the early morning hours vs. after a long day of work. Did this in 30 minute increments. Today I wake around 3am and get several hours of writing in before any clients are awake. Everything flows easier for me that way. Might be worth a try.

Totally agree. Early morning, when the rest of the house and the neighborhood are asleep, is a fecund time to write.

 

[Jeko]

Stop thinking that you need to do X. You don't need to do anything, you don't need to become financially free you don't have to do the work on UpWork to have some income and pay your debt. It looks like it's a chore that somebody else is forcing on you. Just stop thinking like that. Instead:

Own it!
You will keep hustling. You f***ing chose to keep hustling. There's purpose to continue hustling.

That is your GOAL, you CHOSE this pain upon youself for this greater GOAL, and when you realise that, there are NO EXCUSES and you start becoming INVINCIBLE.

Interesting way to think about. I'll try reframing my thinking this way, and see if it helps.

When I used to work a full-time job I started going to bed earlier so I could wake earlier. I found my creative abilities were much better in the early morning hours vs. after a long day of work. Did this in 30 minute increments. Today I wake around 3am and get several hours of writing in before any clients are awake. Everything flows easier for me that way. Might be worth a try.

Totally agree. Early morning, when the rest of the house and the neighborhood are asleep, is a fecund time to write.

I'm going to do this! My brain is always fried after work. Let's see if I can't hustle harder with a sleep schedule adjustment.

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Now on to updates.

Didn't edit the profile copy yet. I'll have to dedicate a day where I wake up early to doing editing it.

I refactored an example project so that it is modular and easier to expand. I would like to add a few more features later, but It's in a good enough spot functionality wise to show clients. I also added some basic CSS styling to it. It still don't look very good IMO, but I'll fix that once I have my personal site up and running.

Now onto my personal site. I'm spending a good amount of time on designing the look and feel of it. I decided to do some ideal client profiling and write user stories. I want to make sure my site establishes me as a professional developer with a flair for modern design. Good design isn't something that can be thrown together in a matter of minutes unfortunately. I'm now in the process of making a detailed mockup. My goal is to have the mockup done by Tuesday night. Coding the site should only take a day, so I'll do that on the 29th. I'll also tweak the example project. That leaves November 30th for finishing up my Upwork profile copy and writing proposals.

With this schedule I won't reach my original goal of getting a paid gig by the 30th. But I should still land pretty close to the mark.

I'll write my next update on the 28th to share the site design, and most likely the next after that on the 30th.

Thanks for all the advice offered so far guys!

Cheers!

 

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[DamienRoche]

Seems like a great place to start, but don't stay there for long. Build a portfolio site on YOUR OWN DOMAIN and start marketing your skills to the wider world, not people looking for bottom-of-the-barrel prices.

I have 90+ projects on Upwork (before the oDesk/Elance merge), mostly 5 star ratings, earnings of over $60k. Ok, not THAT impressive, but certainly notable. I threw A LOT of grind into my profile.. and for what? I've outpriced myself from most projects because I'm asking for a shockingly low $40/hr. I have 8 years programming experience across the entire stack. I can shit out MVPs in my sleep. I had one client INSIST on increasing my rate by 100% from $25 to $50/hr because freelance marketplaces taught me that my time wasn't worth much. That's STILL too low. I could be earning $80/hr easy.

I then got a full-time Ruby job for about $70k/yr (UK), and have given that up to do part-time freelancing while I build my own software business.

I'm sure you can make a decent living through freelance marketplaces, but don't make the foolish mistake of building your primary reputation on a domain somebody else owns. Think about how stupid and reckless that is - they could close your account at any time, a single project failure could lead to a bad rating that could affect many other prospects - your income can be turned off OVERNIGHT. I'm not trying to scare you away from investing time into it, but you should just through common sense. It happened to me - I had a major dispute with a shitty client and they temporarily suspended my account. Done. Took me 3 weeks to fight for it back. Why the hell am I begging someone else to not wrongfully destroy my reputation?? That's what happens when your reputation is contained on someone else's domain. Same goes for this forum or any forum.

Anyway, point is - go build a portfolio website on your own domain. Document any work you do and put everything on there. Maybe even start writing a blog about the development work you're doing. Put a prominent link or something up top showing you are available for work. Put a link in your sigs, go find other business forums, maybe get into FB ads.. whatever.. just invest in your own domain and build your reputation that way.

Have I done any of that myself? No, not really. Freelancing is just another J.O.B and hardly passive in any way. If you really want to build something fastlane out of it, get into the business of outsourcing. I did that for a while once my reputation took off. Found a really good, cheapish developer and worked closely with him. Was a good experience, but more headaches than it is was worth for the money involved (again, work was sourced from freelance marketplaces).

Bottom line: do not build primary assets on other people's domains and expect to have control over them. Just like property, focus on OWNING data, not renting it.