Instead, I was going to create my own income and freedom. I was going to freelance!
So I went straight to Upwork, thinking I could offer my basic web design skills online and make a good living as a freelancer.
But, like most people, I had no idea how to actually attract clients, land deals or sell my services.
In fact, my main strategy for getting clients in the beginning was to massively underprice myself so much that clients would literally have to hire me.
And it "worked". I was now getting clients for multi-page website projects... for $80 to $150 each.
The problem? Well, apart from the fact that I was barely making any money and quickly going broke... my clients were also terrible to work for.
They would change their mind several times a day and then expect you to work around the clock to implement each new project change or idea.
That is, until I was hired by a 14-year-old kid for $120 to build a website for his new app idea...
Like many of my previous projects, I spent weeks working on his website idea. Only to have him change the plan over and over again. Each time forcing us to start from scratch.
Finally, I had had enough and told him I needed to move on and land some other UpWork projects.
"I'll let you know when this project is finished, and if you quit, I'll leave you a 1-star review and destroy your profile," he replied.
And that was the breaking point. I was 26, almost out of money and working for a 14-year-old for about $2 an hour. I couldn’t understand how I ended up like that…
So I deleted my entire Upwork profile and committed to doing better.