I’m considering doing some freelance work as a backend dev. I have around 8 years of experience as a full time employee, but I’m not entirely sure how to get the ball rolling as a freelancer.
What are some good platforms to find clients? The only one I know of is searching job postings on LinkedIn.
Are platforms like Upwork and Fiverr good? I’ve heard that they’re a bit of a rat race, and honestly looking at Fiverr ads it does seem that way.
I’ve had good luck with Upwork, moved two of my clients off Upwork. Worked with them for a few years after. One went out of business, one was paying a lot and demanding a lot, eventually I wasn’t able to keep up for personal reasons.
I also had a professional website and ran Google Ads (at a time it was still relevant), got many small gigs and one long-time client this way. I should mention I also wrote and sold a small software addon there, mostly as a way to acquire new clients - tried to make the support top-tier and lure clients into giving me other work.
After that, I haven’t been actively looking for more work and eventually shut the website down as the software became irrelevant and I had work by word of mouth.