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- Be aware that there are clients who will ask for help debugging code they're writing but (for some reason) don't know how to check the documentation for the libraries they're using, and/or don't know how to ask for help on Stack Overflow.
- One guy I helped with a single line of code I found with a few minutes of searching Google.
- Another guy asked for help with Pandas and I spent a ton of time trying things and writing up a non-Pandas solution, and then after he accepted my answer I asked for help on Stack Overflow and got a 1-liner working answer in about 5 minutes. So I should've just immediately asked on Stack Overflow once the client had given me a minimal example.
- This kind of "be the middle-man for people who don't know better" was basically the entire basis of the business of Westlaw Court Express.
- These clients probably also make good first clients for people just starting on Upwork.
- If you're starting out and bidding low to build up positive reviews, don't waste your Connects on job postings that are asking for "Expert" developers.
- Taking on Upwork clients who don't have a history is risky because they may give you an inappropriately-low score, which can mess up your job success rating, and force you to take low-paying jobs to get your job-success rating back up.
- My standard (generic) proposal:
Hello,
I'd like to be considered for this position. You can learn a lot about me at my website (which has links to my various online accounts), and my resume has links to some videos in which I explain work I've done for past clients.
I'd also like to highlight some Stack Overflow answers I've written, which--as far as I can tell--are the best sources of information on these topics currently available online:
How do I implement social login with GitHub accounts? - https://shorturl.at/lvQUZWhy use OpenID Connect instead of plain OAuth2? - https://shorturl.at/brwD7
- Someone on Hacker News wrote this about my answer: "Wow, this is the first comprehensible documentation on OAuth (post 1.0, which I actually did understand) I've ever seen. If the author of the StackOverflow post is on here, please publish a book, I'll buy it." (Source: https://shorturl.at/cjpsK)How do I read NPM dependency-conflict errors? - https://shorturl.at/qR137
Nathan Wailes
www.nathanwailes.com
Cover letter
- Start the cover letter with something a little formal like "Hello," to signal that you mean business.
- (As opposed to saying "Hey," or "Hi,")
- After two line breaks say something that inspires confidence in the client, like "I can do this." or "I can do this quickly."
- (As opposed to hedging yourself by saying something like, "I should be able to do this" or "I think I can do this").
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- Having an agency is the only way to have another freelancer submit proposals on your behalf without needing to give them access to your account (which would be risky and apparently also violates the Upwork TOS).
- "The benefit of agency ownership that I think is rarely talked about is being able to hire a VA to submit bids on your behalf without violating the TOS. Even a small agency (yes, even solo ones like you) can benefit from this since ROI is potentially so high. I did this in the AI/data science area and it works very well so long as you have a high quality profile to submit. It’s a numbers game at the end of the day." (source)
- You As of the time I'm writing this, you have to pay $20/mo to have an agency with other people in it. There's a "free" tier but you can't do anything with it (you can't add team members and you can't submit proposals).
For clients
Job description
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