Ask HN: Without Upwork, what's the best way to find clients remotely?
Pretty much what the title says.
If you're living in India, and want to find clients in USA, how do you go about it?
Upwork seems broken, and traveling isn't possible.
If you're living in India, and want to find clients in USA, how do you go about it?
Upwork seems broken, and traveling isn't possible.
1. Have a basic website describing who you are, what you do and Most Importantly: why someone should hire YOU
2. Create and share quality content in your area of expertise. Full Stack Web Developer ? Create a simple tutorial on a topic that explains a small project. Anything. The idea is to show that you can communicate. It is not everything but it adds up.
3. Open Source participation. You don't have to create something of your own necessarily but be active in open source communities. A lot of good freelance jobs are referred through other freelancers whom you may meet through these communities.
4. Write about topics that you want to work on. A blog. One quality post a month will do. Drive traffic. Yes, you need to get your marketing hat.
The overall point is that anyone can become a freelancer these days (at least call themselves that). You have to try and differentiate yourself from others and the only way to do that is by actively doing and building things. Remember, you could do great things but how do people know about it ? Let them know. Learn to sell yourself.
Also - you can actually use upwork for finding leads - contact the job posters outside upwork, in case they provide contact details (many do).
And as a bonus, you'll probably find that the rates there are higher than what Upwork has converged on.
I haven't taken it a second time yet, but its enough to show that you have to be good to get on their platform.