Intro
I’ve always been employed, not by myself but by others. I’ve done some very casual contracting work in the past to supplement my income but not as a primary source of revenue. That was 8 years ago and now I’m trying to build up my own company for web development. This means more professionalism and learning how to navigate my own company. To get started, I looked into getting short form gigs through Upwork. I’ve recently just finished up my first contract and ended up writing a new contract with the same company to continue working for them! I wanted to share my experience taking my first step into building out Lucas Minter LLC.
My First Contract
First off, what is Upwork? Upwork is a site for freelancers to find contracting work. You create your profile and send a cover letter and you bid on jobs via ‘connects’, Upwork’s currency. You get notified if a client views your proposal then you’ll get an invite to an interview. Here you assess each other and hash out the finer details.
I got my first invite to an interview a few days after applying to 6 or so jobs. Prior to the interview, I asked for more specifics on the job that they wanted so I could prepare. Their job posting was vague but they wanted some small tasks done in Next.js and Vercel. They wanted some embeds and Meta Pixel implemented on their site. We discussed my skills and what I would be able to do for the client and how I would go about their needs.
We were both happy with how it went and he hired me during the interview. Since I was able to prepare for the interview and do some research into the tasks needed, it helped to boost my confidence. Being able to exude confidence and answer all of his questions boosted my perception in the client’s eyes as someone able to do exactly what he needed.
I think a couple of other factors that came into play were it was both of our first times using Upwork for contracting. Plus the fact that we were in the same timezone and spoke the same language played into us both being happy with the situation.
The Client and Site
The client is a Digital Marketing Agency that is used to sites using WordPress. They had a developer create their site using Next.js and deployed on Vercel. The client didn’t know what Github was or had ever interacted with Vercel so there was a bit of setup initially to get me access to the private github and the Vercel account. Most of the groundwork was laid out for me and they knew exactly what they wanted. I was just hired for the implementation.
The Work
Once everything was setup, I created and embedded their forms and added Meta Pixel to their site. Including styling, it took around 2ish hours. They were very happy with how it looked and wanted some more smaller tasks done such as hiding nav buttons on certain pages. During all of this, I would do a little QA throughout the site and brought my finding to the client. They were ecstatic about me finding things that need fixing and were more than happy to pay me to fix these things.
After 4 days and around 8.5 hours of work, we closed the contract on Upwork. We finished up with a call to review the work done and discuss further work. On Upwork, closing the contract allows both of us to write reviews on the other’s profile for potential clients to view. Pre his review, my proactiveness on finding improvements throughout the site and attention to detail resonated well with him. During that same call, we setup a meeting for Monday on the following week to write up a new contract for continuing work.
My Mentality Behind Everything
Going into this, I was extremely nervous. I was laid off 1.5 years prior and couldn’t find work outside of a Barista job. I applied to over a hundred jobs during that time with only 2 companies interviewing me and no offers. I went back to college to get a certificate in web dev so I had at least some sort of schooling to my name as I was a self taught dev. I even got straight A’s, my first time EVER. I was feeling more confident but as I applied to even more web dev jobs, I got 0 hits. My only messages from companies were from ‘noreply’ emails saying they weren’t hiring me. I couldn’t even get feedback on my applications. This, among other life events, really wore down my sense of self worth and made me feel like I didn’t know what I was doing and I couldn’t be a dev.
But the feeling of someone being extremely happy with my work to the point that they wanted me to keep working for them beyond the initial contract… was indescribable. It’s been a 180 for how I view myself and my abilities. I was so excited to be able to get back into doing coding for any sort of work. While what felt like a decent bit of luck, I still worked and learned hard to get here and I couldn’t be more happy.
Conclusion
I’ve been constantly told, “Just keep applying, something will show up” or “It’s a lot of nothing and then everything will happen at once!” which really didn’t help at the time. It took a lot of stubborness and the support and encouragement of my amazing wife to get to where I’m at now. This is just the first step to many more contracts and happy clients. I’m hoping you learned something from my rambling thoughts and have a good day.