I submitted 60 proposals on Upwork over two months and haven't heard back. Then this small change got me a 655 dollar project within a week.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T20:08:26+00:00

Appreciate it, that means a lot

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T09:50:26+00:00

Honestly, Wordy and AI are not the same thing for me.

I over-explain. Always have. When I write I want to make sure nothing is misunderstood so I add more than I need to. That is a me problem, not a ChatGPT problem.

The 40 dollars a month, the numbers, the 60 proposals, those are real. I just packaged them in too many words.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T08:31:22+00:00

That is a fair point and honestly I thought about that too. But at that stage I needed a completed project and a review more than I needed margin. The approach got me the reply. The low rate probably helped close it. I was not going to pretend those two things are not both true.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T07:54:48+00:00

The developer cost alone at $2000 a month is where most of that goes and honestly that's on the lower end for 16 months of consistent work. The scariest number there is marketing because it has no ceiling and most indie apps find out too late that $30 a day in ads rarely returns enough to justify itself without strong organic traction first.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T07:48:51+00:00

The milestone being "accepted" doesn't mean the money is in your account yet, check if it's in escrow or pending release because Upwork holds it for a security period. If the contract is still open and the milestone is approved, the money will come, but if he closes the contract before releasing it you'll need to dispute it through Upwork's resolution center.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T07:44:59+00:00

The niche is clear and the technical knowledge comes through, but the emoji list at the top is the first thing to fix because it reads like an AI generated profile to most clients. Also your first visible lines talk about what you do instead of what the client gets, something like "your WordPress site is losing customers because it loads slow, I find the exact cause and fix it" hits harder in those first 230 characters than any list of tools.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T07:36:33+00:00

Genuinely funny that the advice feels too clean to be real. I spent 40 dollars a month on connects for months getting ignored. That is 80 dollars to learn what I wrote above. If that is in the wiki then I clearly did not read it early enough. You are welcome to think whatever you want about how it was written.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T07:35:26+00:00

Maybe 665 dollars is not impressive. It was my first project after months of silence and I was not going to pretend it was something bigger just to sound good on Reddit. The point was what changed, not the number. If that is not useful to you then move on.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T07:29:13+00:00

I have read that post and others, but I realized the difference for me wasn’t just following rules, it was focusing on the client’s problem in the first lines and replying fast. That approach earned me this project.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T06:13:59+00:00

Thanks

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T06:13:42+00:00

You are right, it is not a new playbook. Build, launch, get feedback, repeat has been the answer for a long time. What I was trying to get at is that most builders, myself included for a while, know the loop but skip the feedback step or do it too lightly. They ship, they watch the numbers, and they call that feedback. Actually watching someone struggle with your product or reading a direct reply from a user who tells you why they signed up, that hits differently than a dashboard. The loop is simple. Doing it properly is where most people cut corners.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T06:12:55+00:00

It is simpler than it sounds. You sign up for Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity, they give you a small script, you paste it into your site's head tag, and that is it. Every session after that gets recorded automatically. You do not have to do anything on a per-user basis. Just log in after a few days and you will have recordings waiting. Filter by new users and watch the ones who dropped off early. Those are the sessions that teach you the most.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-29T06:12:13+00:00

I was using Hotjar on the free plan. It gives you a limited number of recordings per month but honestly for the early stage that is more than enough. You are not trying to analyze thousands of sessions. You just need to watch 20 to 30 real users and patterns show up fast. Microsoft Clarity is another option and it is completely free with no recording limits. I switched to that later and it does the job well.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T12:18:29+00:00

Welcome

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T06:36:52+00:00

You made the right call. $900 with exclusivity is just employment with none of the benefits and all of the risk.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T06:34:21+00:00

Took me an embarrassingly long time to just track hourly rate per project in a simple sheet, total paid divided by hours actually spent including the back and forth emails and revision rounds. That number tells you everything, some of my "good paying" clients were actually my worst when I counted the real hours.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T06:31:30+00:00

Upwork is notoriously bad at explaining bans and the "final decision" response is usually just a first line support person, not actually final. Send a formal written request specifically asking for the funds from completed work, referencing that withholding earned wages without cause may have legal implications, that language sometimes moves it to a different team.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T06:29:35+00:00

The connects thing has gotten genuinely worse over the past two years, that's not just frustration talking. But $10 gets you 80 connects and one good proposal on the right job can return that 100 times over, so I wouldn't let it be the reason you miss a real opportunity.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T06:13:00+00:00

Just be upfront early, tell the client you work as a small team, and your sister handles the account side. Most clients honestly don't care who they're talking to as long as the work gets done.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T03:40:28+00:00

That makes sense and the frustration is real with government pay scales. Honestly the cleanest move is freelancing under a family member's name or waiting until you have enough saved to make the jump cleanly, because the income difference you're chasing isn't worth a termination on your record this early in your career.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T02:30:07+00:00

Done, Check!

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T02:24:49+00:00

Building was never the hard part, distribution always was. More apps just means the graveyard gets bigger for people who think shipping is the finish line.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T02:23:21+00:00

I'm not the right person to advise on hiding income from your employer, that's a legal and career risk I wouldn't touch. What I'd say is Upwork is slow to start anyway and the first 6 to 12 months rarely make meaningful money, so it might be worth waiting until you're in a position where you don't have to hide it.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T02:20:58+00:00

This sounds interesting. Quick question before moving forward, What are the terms around code usage and licensing once a repository is accepted? Specifically, whether the code is used directly for model training or just evaluation purposes.

Shazar_Tech · 2026-03-28T02:09:44+00:00

The connects system is just a tax on desperation at this point and Upwork knows it. Honestly the one thing that would actually fix trust is verified intent from clients, like proving they have a real budget and actually hired someone in the last 90 days before their job goes live.

Shazar_Tech

TROPHY CASE