I'm Coming Back to Freelance From Early Retirement

Covid times have gone too weird. I decided to take a break from work and focus more on the things I love to do and spend time with people I love.

I called this period an early retirement beta test.

However, my early retirement beta test was never planned to be endless, and in December 2020 I started to casually return to a normal work-life rhythm.

Upwork Downgraded My Account

First of all, funny guys at Upwork downgraded my account from Top Rated 100% Success Score to a Rising Talent level. Rather weird for an account with 1200+ billed hours.

At least now we know that it takes a little more than 1.5 years of almost zero activity to kill a top-rated Upwork account.

What Has Changed on Upwork Marketplace (December 2020)

My fresh impressions from Upwork were awful. Tons of spam-like job publications. Inadequate budgets and enormous amounts of bids for every more or less worthy job post.

Has always been.

But honestly Upwork job market has never smelled so bad.

That Was Tough

It was so disappointing that almost gave up Upwork altogether with freelance and went to look for a remote job on LinkedIn and AngelList like normal people do.

I've got some folks on the internet whom I follow for inspiration purposes. Typically independent contractors or freelancers and that are doing exceptionally well. Probably just showing off online, but I don't care. When I feel upset I visit them to make sure freelance is not dead, lol.

I've Finally Landed a Contract

I've finally landed a contract at Upwork. The whole process took me about 3 weeks and I consider it to be a rather good result.

The contract is not too big. It will probably take 2-3 months of work for the first milestone: to build the MVP and release it to the store.

Feels like a good starting point for a proper warm-up after a long break.