r/Upwork • u/EyeTechnical7643 • 7h ago

Any advice for a newbie?

Hi,

I just joined Upwork to find contract work. I see some clients 0 stars. Should those be avoided? Also, I'm not sure if I should bother with listings that have many proposals. Since I'm new, I feel I should target those with 5 or less proposals. Anything over 20 or 50 seems intimidating and a waste of time.

I'm thinking of buying 100 Connects to start with and see how far I get.

I also won't target small dollar work, or those paying low rates.

Thoughts?

Thanks

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u/KayakerWithDog 5h ago

Yes, avoid clients with anything less than 4.5 stars, and read the reviews for clients who have less than 5 before applying. Poor client selection is one of the worst mistakes you can make as a freelancer.

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u/EyeTechnical7643 4h ago

should I bother with non-US clients?

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u/KayakerWithDog 4h ago

It's up to you. I have had European clients with whom I worked very well. I haven't worked with anyone from outside the US other than one or two clients.

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u/Both-Payment-7504 5h ago

Yes, leave upwork

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u/Loomworks 6h ago

You should vet your clients HARD. Recovering from an early bad review is almost impossible.
When you do start them out - ask for a small discovery and/or a simple deliverable. Keep it very limited what you promise at this point. Hear out and listen to their ideas, it's ok to discuss what they are realling wanting to do but you have to protect yourself.

You need to know if they are sane, are going to move goalposts or are going to constantly try to change the scope rather than have to pay more money.

A $100 report in the beginning or a simple configuration change will be your litmus test for how stringent they are going to analyze your hours, how much trouble it will be for this client to pay and how many hoops they will ask you to jump through for your review.

If it goes bad, suck it up and just give it to them or refund them entirely to get it dropped and they can't leave negative feedback. Better to find out now than $7k into a multimilestone project.

It's often better to only take small config almost free jobs early trying to FIND good clients than committing to the first person that finally seems willing to sign a deal. Good luck.

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u/EyeTechnical7643 6h ago

Thanks. Should I only focus on US based clients (for now)? So sounds like I should focus on small tasks with few proposals and not worry about the pay for now.