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I've seen this play out firsthand on Upwork.
I studied for a freelancer on how she wins job as a VA freelancer. Instead of quitting, she teamed up with a few people from her country and started an agency.
The agency ended up winning more work than their individual profiles ever did, and eventually every member benefited from the growth.
That's the power of agencies. One person opens the door, others walk through it too.
This is one thing Indians have figured out. They build agencies, create opportunities, and many of those people later go on to start agencies of their own.
Meanwhile, many of us prefer the solo route. And flaunting how much we earn like myself included. When we can dominate and be known for something.
Out of every 50 agency on Upwork 0.5 is probably African and most likely Nigeria.
and majority is Indian, Pakistan & USA.
If you're skilled, reliable, and interested in building something bigger than yourself, reach out. I've already started an agency and I'm open to partnering with people who want to grow together.
In the video we watched, he still landed jobs at different intervals. More importantly, if someone spends $500 on connects without getting a single job, that usually points to a strategy problem, not an Upwork problem.
Upwork is no different from LinkedIn or social media. Just as you don’t randomly apply for every job on LinkedIn or post content without a strategy, you shouldn’t buy connects and apply for every job you see on Upwork.
Success comes from understanding your strengths, identifying the right opportunities, and positioning yourself correctly. The developers and freelancers who do well on Upwork are usually very selective about the jobs they apply for and how they present themselves.
It’s not about how many connects you spend. It’s about how strategically you use them.
I saw this video on TikTok today.
He spent 800k naira and he got no job, someone 6 months salary.
lol 😂 imagine a newbie trying this.
Hence why I don't encourage buying connect.
The best thing to do is to reduce your price.
And you will make your money back.
Running a startup has taught me that potential is often more valuable than perfection.
I would rather work with someone who is eager to improve than someone who believes they already know everything.
Make money in the most lazy ways
- using AI as your knowledge base (this means it will be built on your domain knowledge)
- online reputation management
- GMb SEO (the maps on your phone works well for this)
- Getting a niche (redpill, politics, finance and mostly controversial niches), get the most viral videos (hot topics. For instance, the Monaco billionaire videos, World Cup teams and their issues with Visa stuff, the behind the scenes political negotiations) and clipping them. You can do these with AI
- AI influencer for niche-based brands
I ran an experiment on Upwork last week, and the result was genuinely shocking.
I applied to two similar jobs. For the first one, I boosted my proposal with 79 connects just to outbid the top bidder. For the second, I simply wrote a strong proposal and submitted it normally without boosting.
Less than 30 minutes later, Upwork sent me an email saying they had refunded my connects because someone else outbid me.
This system isn’t sustainable, especially for new freelancers. We need to start teaching people how to build a successful freelancing career without becoming dependent on these traditional platforms
There is one reason I often recommend developers spend time working with agencies. Agencies expose you to different industries, business models, and technical challenges almost daily. In just 2 years, you could gain experience across multiple major niches and build a problem-solving skill set that would take much longer to develop elsewhere.
The variety is where the real growth happens.
There is no timeframe to this, if the pay is good, and you get an Increase occasionally, there is no need to move, if an offer comes that’s better, you can move but if you are moving make sure the company you are moving to is not a new startup cos your eye go peel. nothing Dey outside trust me.
That’s not really how NDA works for some firms, if you work with agencies you are strictly not allowed to share any project built for them as yours, I have lost a very serious gig because of this, if not because I am Nigerian maybe they for sue me.
The whole NDA excuse is even stupid because NDA doesn't prevent you from showing a project you built for a client, as long as you don't disclose any confidential information, internal architecture, source code, customer data, e.t.c.
If someone says they don't have a project to show you because of NDA, there's a 99.99999999% chance that they're bullshitting.