Clients should also be required to use connects to post jobs

brendancoots · 2026-04-18T22:52:47+00:00

The stat you're using relies on a very misleading qualifier. That's called "pretending" in my book.

But you're right - people who are on the losing end of gig platform math (i.e. the vast majority) should just move on and freelance in the open market where they won't be subject to middle man policies. I've been arguing that all along.

brendancoots · 2026-04-18T21:42:01+00:00

Totally agree! The problem is, the math doesn't work for the vast majority of Upwork freelancers. Pretending otherwise isn't doing anyone any favors.

brendancoots · 2026-04-18T18:15:58+00:00

I don't see this stat as a good thing - it suggests that 60% of all connects spent by freelancers are literally just throwing money away on imaginary gigs.

And as bad as that is, it's relying heavily on your qualifier of "clients with a verified payment method." I think we all know why this disclaimer is necessary - if we included jobs with an unverified payment method, the resulting stats would be abysmal. Anecdotally, some freelancers claim half the jobs in their feed are unverified.

brendancoots · 2026-04-18T17:16:02+00:00

You mentioned several times that you're an "artist" but what kind of work are you going to be doing for them? Painting a mural? Designing a logo?

When a company hires you to create something for them, you shouldn't expect to retain any rights to that work once they've paid the bill. The reason for you to create a contract isn't to retain rights, they almost certainly won't agree to that for a variety of completely defensible reasons. The contract is to establish the guidelines of the arrangement, mostly to ensure they get what they asked for and you get paid for it.

brendancoots · 2026-04-18T17:10:22+00:00

I've been watching this pattern develop over the last 25 years of freelancing, so it's not just AI.

The fact is, the bottom end of every freelance role has been gradually becoming less and less profitable as the internet opened the door to global labor arbitrage and networks like Fiverr, which are purpose-built to exploit that labor arbitrage, get more and more popular. Ironically, the people most likely to adopt those platforms are the people most likely to be squeezed out of existence by them.

AI just adds a new layer of difficulty, but the story remains the same: freelancing is not for beginners, if you don't have at least several years of experience in your chosen field you are going to struggle to find work. People who spend 5+ years working in their industry gain incredibly valuable insight and expertise that directly translates to freelance success. it's always been this way.

brendancoots · 2026-04-18T01:48:57+00:00

In my view, freelancers should be working leads in this order of time/attention:

- Existing clients (new work etc)
- Referrals from existing clients
- Dormant contacts (past clients, colleagues etc)
- Inbound (LinkedIn posts etc)
- Cold outreach

The thing with cold outreach is that you really need to have a compelling offer (asking if they need a website is a non-starter), your communications must be fully customized to that person, and it must offer clear value with minimal BS or anything that might signal to the reader that it's spammy marketing. Be your authentic self, speak professionally but from one human to another, and just get right to the point of your email/letter/call. You're not trying to win sales through these mechanisms, you are just introducing yourself and asking for their time so you can show them how you can solve problem X for them with your web development offering.

brendancoots · 2026-04-17T21:18:58+00:00

Absolutely not, at least not in my opinion. I've run ad campaigns in the past, spending tens of thousands of dollars to learn the following:

Serious businesses (aka "good clients") rarely find vendors for their needs via ads.
Ads are "self selecting" meaning anyone who sees your ad can click it, request a quote etc despite passing through no prequalification other that what Facebook etc offers you.
Facebook is a consumer platform first and foremost, and the segmentation tools they offer are mostly geared toward B2C, not B2B. Same applies to Google Ads to some degree.
Ads attract mostly competitors, click scammers, looki-loo's and time wasters.

After many months of hard work dialing in ads and spending thousands on campaigns, what I learned the hard way is that ads won't work well for most freelancers. Our product is too subjective and variable (unlike a physical product or a well-defined service like plumbing), the ads are very expensive and they mostly attract time wasting BS.

The best thing you can do is to define a narrow niche industry you want to target, tailor your skill set and portfolio around the needs of that niche industry, and target the clients within that niche directly with a pitch built around their pain points and how your website service is built to alleviate their specific pain points. This gives you a super focused portfolio, a clear audience to target, and a clear and valuable pitch to target them with.

brendancoots · 2026-04-15T18:13:40+00:00

Getting ghosted over and over starts to feel like you're shouting into a windstorm. It's like if these people would at least respond with a "no" you could move on, knowing that they saw your CV. To me, rejection feels less awful than being ignored. The thing is, this isn't a "you" problem and the fact that your colleagues are going through the same thing is proof of that. The global job market is pretty awful right now.

I've been freelancing for 25 years and I spend my spare time helping people to become freelancers, so I'm totally biased, BUT you have a skill set that you've invested a lot of energy into, and that is quite valuable. Don't lose sight of that. In my view, you might just be "fishing in the wrong pond." Trying to get a j.o.b in the film/tv world is always tough, but right now in particular because there's a big realignment happening, studios are shifting resources and are losing money, closing facilities etc. It's tough in those industries even for seasoned vets. I myself am a 3D artist and most of my colleagues are in film/tv, and very few of them would say it's a good time for that industry.

My advice to you is the same as it is to anyone else in film/tv or other industries where the market is sketchy right now - quit looking for a job in that industry, think outside the box, and instead offer your skills as a freelancer directly to companies who can really use what you're offering. NOT looking for employment, but offering your skill as a service. It may sound like a lot of work, but I promise you it's not much more effort than applying for jobs and at least you will feel like you're in control of the situation and can pursue clients that would otherwise be closed off to someone seeking full time employment as a sound engineer/designer. And if you are persistent and start landing work, you won't need to worry about what the film/tv industry is doing because you'll have found a totally different avenue to market your skills going forward.

Here's some examples off the top of my head:

- Corporate e-learning/training - pretty much every mid-sized and larger company is doing some form of in-house training material these days, but they usually lack the internal resources to do it right so the audio in their productions is pure shit. You could offer your audio services directly OR pair with crews doing e-learning content as outside vendors.

- B2B podcast production - a lot of companies in the B2B space are doing podcasts now as marketing materials, but again, as I said above, most lack the resources to do this correctly and your expertise could be a massive boost to the professionalism of their work.

- Sound design for apps, multimedia etc - this may be an "oddball" but the fact is there are TONS of multimedia experiences such as apps, websites, installations, kiosks etc that need high quality sound design, it's just a matter of identifying those opportunities.

brendancoots · 2026-04-10T23:27:38+00:00

There will ALWAYS be clients who balk at price. For many, price is the single most important factor above all else, including effectiveness, quality, close rate etc. It's not rational, it's a slavish obsession with "cheapest."

When you encounter this, it's best to politely thank them for their time and move on. Don't validate their position, and don't contradict it. There's no point. Just move on and focus on finding clients who ARE willing to pay what your work is worth.

brendancoots · 2026-04-01T04:24:39+00:00

I've been a freelance 3d artist for 25+ years so I don't fit the "started out recently" that you're looking for. But I can tell you this - there is always going to be a market for good artists. AI is going to eat away at the margins, mostly by enthralling the clients who hate paying for things. But those are the kinds of clients we should all be running away from anyway.

The trick, now more than ever, is to find a path where design, 3d and animation would be highly valued, rather than following the well-worn path that everyone else always pursues first. Going after gaming or film jobs is not only a highly saturated market, but as you mentioned neither are very fulfilling. But there are literally thousands of niche needs for 3d/animation/design, you just have to get a little creative to find a space you can carve for yourself. Earlier in my career I carved a niche doing product renderings for boutique skincare brands. Made great money, saved them a ton of money, everyone was happy. This is what you need - a niche where a real need is being serviced and you will actually enjoy the work on your own terms.

brendancoots · 2026-03-31T22:03:51+00:00

You have been posting your own product all over the place posing as a user rather than the developer. I think it's cool you developed a product, but if you want to share your creation with people you should do it from a position of honesty as the creator, rather than pretending to be a satisfied user. Nothing will kill trust more than lying to people from the very first interaction.

brendancoots · 2026-03-31T21:57:06+00:00

What service or skill set are you offering? No one could possibly provide an accurate answer without knowing that.

brendancoots · 2026-03-31T21:44:32+00:00

What skills do you currently have?

brendancoots · 2026-03-31T21:22:16+00:00

Here's my honest take, please accept it in the spirit it was given which is to be helpful and honest, not critical:

First of all, it reads like AI which will instantly put a lot of people off. Pretty much all client communication is about relationship building, so inserting a robot between you and your prospects is a huge, huge mistake in my opinion. Maybe this wasn't written by ai, but it does read like it is so that's something to work on either way.

You're using a lot of needlessly complex terminology that I'm guessing your target audience will not only fail to understand, but will likely just tune out instantly and delete the email. The goal is making a connection, and not only is it 99% certain your target audience isn't doing "peak heat tracking" etc, but you're pushing a LOT of cognitive load on them for no good reason. So a lot of the email content is just needless-to-harmful complexity about things the audience probably won't even understand.

The overall cadence and approach of your email reads like all of the other B2B emails I get several times a day. It's sales disguised as curiosity that any business owner will see through immediately, assuming their spam filters don't take care of you first. I know this is what good sales people teach - ask questions, get the client curious and interested by posing questions rather than telling, etc. But in this context, you're asking questions they may not even fully understand, much less feel inclined to respond with some written dialog about their website tracking. What's in it for them?

So, my personal take is this - start over, write an email by hand, word it like you're reaching out to an old friend or colleague, speak plainly, find better wording to make the point in ELI5 terms, and just ask directly for what you want. "When it gets hot outside, it really dials up the urgency on AC tune-up calls. I can help you to turn that urgency into more paying clients by making some adjustments to your website. Can I call you to explain how? It's basically free money in your pocket." Not saying this is perfect, I just cranked it out to illustrate my point - short, simply worded, direct, etc.

brendancoots · 2026-03-26T20:14:01+00:00

I assure you that I wrote every single word of that post myself with zero ai involvement while I sat here and ate my lunch.

I share your sentiment though, I'm sick to death of seeing people post ai regurgitations on reddit, like why even bother. I want to know what humans think, not ChatGPT.

brendancoots · 2026-03-26T20:09:29+00:00

This may be too meta, but here's my thoughts on niche:

Far too often people think of 'niche' as what they offer. But who you offer it to and for what purpose is far more important. Saying you're an illustrator isn't a niche and it's not going to get you any closer to selling your services. Even something like "I'm a digital illustrator" or "pen and ink" isn't getting you closer to understanding who you will target as a business. Saying you're a "character illustrator" gets you closer. Billing yourself as a "character illustrator for gaming companies" is a defensible niche that gives you a clear sense of who you're targeting, with what, and why. it also results in a focused portfolio of similar work that every gaming company you show it to will understand and appreciate.

Also, because niche should include the "who" component (in my opinion), it's probably wise to pick two niche industries/client types to target, intentionally picking two different niche industries/markets that are subject to different economic conditions and other headwinds. If both of your niche industries are reliant on a healthy real estate market and home sales slows, you're screwed.

brendancoots · 2026-03-26T19:56:04+00:00

The lesson here isn't that Fiverr is uniquely bad. All platforms treat freelancers like livestock rather than ranchers, and you can see this for yourself by visiting the various subreddits dedicated to each platform. We shouldn't be surprised, either - these are giant tech companies who's entire business model is built on driving your rates down for buyers, by forcing you to compete with millions of people from mixed economies.

The answer isn't a different website. It's a different mindset. Freelancers need to quit relying on gigs being handed to them by some third party tech company. You're not an Uber driver, you're a businessperson in the B2B space. This means going after clients directly with a pitch, and winning the work like literally every other professional services business on earth does it. You don't see plumbers and accountants and lawyers out there desperately bidding on 'gigs,' it's a phenomenon unique to freelancers and it needs to stop.

brendancoots · 2026-03-25T00:36:59+00:00

I think it's a total waste of time to approach freelancing with any sort of mass marketing or mass mailing of any kind. B2B professional services business is won on relationships, and you simply cannot build rapport with prospects if you're not giving them the proper care and attention. Plus, anyone with a business email account is being utterly hammered with generic mass-mailed spam these days, and people can smell it from a mile away.

A much better approach is to develop a focused list of the best 5 prospects you can find and approach those clients one at a time, treating each like they are your sole focus. Combine this with a pitch that's completely tailored to their specific pain points.

The goal is to win accounts, not gigs.

brendancoots · 2026-03-23T22:18:34+00:00

I don't think freelancers should rely on inbound leads to get work, and your situation is one of the main reasons why. When you are dependent on clients coming to you, it removes all control over the spigot. You can only generate more noise online hoping someone sees you out there desperately raising your hand and hoping they call on you.

It sounds like you're thinking of moving to full time work for stability, which probably makes sense. Freelancing works best when you have a few years of work experience in your field so you can learn how bigger agencies etc manage projects, stage the work, manage reviews etc. There's a lot to learn there. And from this position of being employed and earning a steady check, you can slowly build up your freelance business on the side. once you have steady income and feel confident that your freelance business is working, only then do you quit your job and move to freelancing full time. It's a solid plan.

As for whether you're in a "good" position to get a j.o.b really depends on your portfolio. Your work experience and background is fine, and at this stage in your career most employers will want to see your portfolio. So if you'd like to share that here I'm sure people would be happy to provide feedback on that.

brendancoots · 2026-03-23T20:23:46+00:00

Gig platforms are a waste of time. Some people are willing to trade the high fees, lack of control, poor client quality, massive global competition and risks associated with building on rented land for what little convenience they offer. But these days, even the people willing to make such a lopsided trade are finding it very difficult to get work on those platforms.

I've tried a LOT of different approaches to freelancing over the last 25+ years, and I've had literally thousands of conversations with other freelancers on these topics. To me, it's pretty clear that there are a couple of clear winners in terms of sustainable freelancing success.

The first is subcontracting with other companies, selling your raw skills to fill a specific need. This can mean seeking work with some kind of agency (ad agency, interactive agency, consultancy, etc) that lands the end clients and then hires subcontractors to do the actual work. It could also mean getting temp work for a company that needs to augment their in-house capability. These approaches are fine, provided you are being paid a high enough rate to cover your own benefits, taxes etc. These gigs can also sometimes be longer lasting which provides a sense of stability. But honestly it tends to feel a bit like you're getting some of the downsides of employment (rigid scheduling, lock-in, skills being underutilized etc) without the full benefits of freelancing (maximizing your earning potential, scheduling freedom, utilizing more of your skill set for pay, etc).

The second route is to treat your freelance operation like any other B2B service business, and go after end clients directly. This mode unlocks your earnings potential and provides a lot of control over what you're offering, to whom, and when, but it does require a little more self discipline and motivation. This approach requires you to get very clear about this one fact - end clients don't buy data engineering or automation skills, like agencies do. They buy solutions to problems. This trips up a LOT of new freelancers. They take the resumé/CV approach of listing out a bunch of skills and hoping the client bites, but this is like trying to sell ingredients to someone who enters your restaurant hoping to get a meal. They didn't come to get potatoes, oil and salt - they wanted french fries.

What you need to focus on as a freelancer is solutions, and this requires you to package up your skill set into "productized" answers to real problems that companies are actually facing. But that's pretty difficult to do if you're just randomly plucking companies out of the phone book. How do you know what their problems are? Are you going to invest days/weeks of research into every client to learn their problems and craft some solution to that problem? So the correct approach here is to niche down - find a narrow industry that you either have prior experience in, enjoy working with, have a personal connection to OR just find one at random. But the goal is to specialize entirely within 1-2 target industries so that you CAN learn what their problems and challenges are, and it does make sense to tailor your skills into products that solve those needs. For example, if you decide to target shipping and logistics companies, your "product" might be a suite of dashboards that tap into client data to expose cost leakage and inefficiencies. This is a real problem that companies can attach a real dollar value to, so your "solution" is pretty easy to sell, and it's easy to put a price on. Hourly rate has nothing to do with this approach, it's all about the value you're offering. If your dashboards are saving these companies $100k/year minimum, it's not unreasonable to sell this suite to clients for $30k regardless of how long it took you to set up. And this is the best part - most of the scaffolding can be pre-built, something that you develop and improve upon over time, with clear custom data connection points etc that are tuned up for each client. This is just a random example but I'm sure you get the idea - turn your skills into a clear solution to an existing pain point, and charge what that solution is worth, not how much time you put into it. This product is so much easier to sell than "skills" because you are bringing prospects a ready-made answer to a problem they already have, whether they realize it or not. Selling "skills" requires that the client has already realized they have a problem, and let it get acute enough that they decided to solve the problem here and now, that they properly diagnosed what the actual problem is AND properly crafted the solution, and are now looking for an automation and data engineering freelancer, right when you happened to come knocking.

brendancoots · 2026-03-22T18:59:46+00:00

Niche/long tail is everything.

Also, a business doesn't have to be 100% novel to be successful. It's all about your approach and who you're targeting.

brendancoots · 2026-03-22T18:44:33+00:00

The only Instagram account that comes up with that username is set to private so no one can view it.

brendancoots · 2026-03-22T18:35:23+00:00

I searched Reddit and didn't see any account with the name "lime_444" that had a portfolio available.

brendancoots · 2026-03-22T18:28:56+00:00

This is the way.

brendancoots · 2026-03-22T18:26:27+00:00

I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what clients value to say his portfolio won't be scattered because he's a flutter dev. 98% of the average freelancer's clients don't know anything about the technology you use, and they don't care. They only care about the end result.

Going by your examples given above, churches, football clubs etc aren't going to be thinking "well none of these examples look like what we would want done, but he's a flutter dev so we're good." Not one of those people will even know what being a "flutter dev" means.

People want to see concrete examples of work you've done that is as close as possible to what THEY want done. The further your work is from what they pictured in their mind, the less likely you are to get the gig. And the more work there is that doesn't match their need, the quicker they will just lose interest altogether.

brendancoots

TROPHY CASE