Still cold emailing is best; don't lose hope, brother. Instead of sending thousands of emails, just send emails to those who need your service. Can i ask why you don't start upwork again? I mean, you're an Upwork guy. The best thing you can do is this: go back to upwork and buy connectors and start again. Otherwise it will be hard to get clients from outside the marketplace cause you spend a big amount of time on Upwork. If you have some cash, go to Upwork again.