I topped the game on Upwork. So can you! Freelancing gets nicely relaxing and very efficient when you can let a good high-end platform do your job hunt for you at a $0 marketing budget. Skip the endless proposal battles and learn how to earn 1000 USD per day — or even more. My Upwork story shows you how!
After I started my first project on Elance, the predecessor of Upwork, I picked my niche right from the beginning and faced little if any competition. I got all the good gigs early on! My earnings accumulated quickly which made my profile easily visible.
I’ve been Top Rated from Day 1 of Upwork in 2015 and bombarded with invitations from high-end clients ever since. That allows me to select between the best couple of gigs that I get without sending any proposals. I’ve changed my niche multiple times over and 10X’ed original rates.
Yes, 10X. From $30 to $300 per hour. 😉
The platform has evolved over the years, but the milestones are still the same. Once you reach about $10,000 of total earnings, you’ll be seen as a high achiever on Upwork. Then things get a lot easier. But to get there is hard work, of course.
My Upwork story: How to earn 1000 USD per day
The full story is available here: How to Start Freelancing and Make It to the Global Top – My First Year on Upwork.
Unfortunately, getting started on Upwork is harder and harder every year, thanks to remote freelancing getting more popular in every country. Almost anything you imagine to offer is already being offered by more experienced freelancers with perfect portfolios and big earnings backing them up. Your sign-up application can even be rejected in case you’re trying to enter a saturated market.
The key is to find a good niche. You must find yours!
Originally, I started with Microsoft Kinect-based Augmented Reality (AR) applications, then went back to my Ph.D. topic of VR training simulators for a couple of years, and now focusing on consulting & patenting for well-funded startups. The current version of my profile on Upwork is still active and very much alive and kicking although I’m not taking more than a gig per year because of other engagements (including this site, obviously). I am free to choose my clients from a continuous stream of high-quality invitations and only focus on the most critical projects.
When you know how to navigate the market, and the mechanisms of the freelance site of your choice, and you know how to make the shift fluently without causing an unexpected interruption, you can top the game every single time.
The good thing is that your track record stays online for life! Use it to your benefit! When you become a recognized freelancer in your field, your reputation precedes you and the work starts to find you without you doing much at all.
Nice, right? 🙂
The birth of CoachLancer: I had to share what I learned
Since 2015, I’ve had several Ph.D. students and first-time startup CTOs whom I have helped as an external advisor… which became a master-apprentice relationship – exactly like that of a personal coach. I can call the process a success as those 3 students of mine finished 5 Ph.D. degrees in total.
Since 2017, I’ve been coaching young talented freelancers I worked with on various projects to increase their income.
Since 2019, I’ve been writing these CoachLancer articles and sharing all my knowledge regarding freelancing for free. There are well over 150,000 words worth of tips, tricks, hacks, and guides that help you become a better freelancer! I also started posting freelancing tips on LinkedIn every week.
In 2020, Upwork named me as one of the Community Gurus and a Community Featured Contributor (after only about 3 weeks of posting Upwork tips). Less than a year later, Upwork renamed their famous Coffee Break forum section Coffee & Coconut Break for a while after my successful petition aimed at inspiring all freelancers on Upwork to not work for peanuts but to go straight for coconuts. 😉
I’m now closing 1,000 posts on that forum and my coconut-powered brand is known to just about everyone out there, freelancers, clients, and community moderators/managers alike. (Special thanks to Mr. Nuts, my Head of Marketing, for his special appearance in this animated GIF. We are a dynamite duo, he gives me so much energy, in every sense of the word, hahah!)
In 2021, I bundled all my articles into a step-by-step self-learning course to make it easier to follow the recommended process of getting onto Upwork. But still, many people sought my support in some way.
That year, the contact form on this site got so many messages that I had to remove it. My LinkedIn profile got completely flooded with requests for help and support in building a good freelance business, reviewing Upwork and Fiverr profiles, improving proposal-writing techniques, etc. With over 20,000 freelancer followers and an insane number of messages received every day, I realized that direct messaging like that didn’t scale up. Not one bit.
As I also learned some SEO, this site started to get loads of visitors every day.
In 2022, Upwork launched a new blog series with my 2-part story as their first content which also lead to an increase in requests for my personal support. This website went completely coconuts at this point!
In 2022, I also started doing some live online events and giving presentations on topics that many freelancers find interesting and educational. And of course, I’ve been “powered by coconuts” even during some of the events, e.g. this Upwork Expert Talent Talk titled ‘Charging 3-Digit Figures Per Hour And Increasing Your Value (Without Breaking A Sweat)‘.
Upwork could only host 300 participants which meant that most people couldn’t join the event. Fortunately, you can see the recording of the full event if you click on the ‘Watch Recording’ button.
Besides the issue of the volume, a more significant problem I faced was this: A big portion of those seeking my help are people who are “thinking about freelancing,” i.e. attempting to secure their starting position and making it as good as possible before taking the big leap – and never actually taking it!
This is where I witnessed my effort go totally wasted when the business impact could not be verified because of the lack of commitment of many of the individuals. The amount of time spent on helping forever optimists, wishful thinkers, and dreamers, of course, was off from the time I could spend helping those truly worth my time. Probably you!
Most people starting a freelance business are “business idiots” in the sense that spending money to build a business is not an option. I know because, at first, I was one! These people embrace help from others that take their freelance business ideas from zero to actual business which benefits them financially, without giving anything in return.
That’s not fair nor morally correct, right?
I soon came to realize that those “business idiots” are seen by others as having dubious business ethics regardless of what freelance business plan they might have! If you make money because of someone’s help, it is fair (and a de facto standard in the world of business) to share the profits!
Everybody gets this except for starting freelancers, it seems… 🙁
How do I start my own freelance business?
When you are trying to figure out how to start freelancing with no experience, think of business first. Money goes out, then it comes in – in larger quantities! It is hard to grasp at first… it took a while for me to fully comprehend it!
I always wished I had had the brains to get a business mentor when I started. I would have gotten to the good money a lot faster… something I later calculated to have brought me tens of thousands of dollars when I compared the income from my first year to those years when I could call my service a high-value business.
Therefore, I started active teaching and coaching to ensure that only those who really need and can use my personal help in building their freelance business will actually get it. I have to skip trying to help all others as it is an impossibility because of the limited lifetime of humans and the number of wannabe freelancers in the world. There are too many!
This is why I only do 2 things:
- Individual coaching to help you get past your business bottlenecks
- Webinar courses that give you a structured way to learn freelancing with my guidance and feedback
All the articles on this site, my newsletter, and my weekly freelancing tips on LinkedIn are and will always be 100% free.
Can you freelance as a beginner? What to expect
The coaching support I’ve given so far is detailed here: One Year of CoachLancer – Here Are Top 5 Freelancing Problems I Helped to Solve. You can also check out the case studies of the most legendary coachees. Some of them learned how to earn 1000 USD per day just like me!
What I do is help and guide you. That means I do not do the work for you! I give you objective feedback on your performance and individual guidance for building your freelance business. I help you understand the basics, I help you to raise your rates, and I help you to scale up once you’ve gotten far enough. I may give you homework to go through specific articles that help understand the problem you are facing. I help you find the way that works for you best. There are many ways I can help you become a better freelancer!
All support I give to you is fully confidential.
Now, shall we get you some coconuts? 😉