Ask HN: How to get client on upwork? (2025)

[teminal]

Hi, I graduated this year and have been contributing to open source and doing some intern work at small and mid sized startups.

I've been on upwork for a little over one and half year but still haven’t been able to get a first client. I've updated my profile, added better project descriptions, even lowered my rate, but nothing has really changed.

I’m hoping to land at least one client before the year ends, so I wanted to ask the community what worked for them when they were starting out. any practical advice would help a lot.

[Nextgrid]

Upwork is trash and saturated by spammers from third-world countries.

You will earn more money applying to your local burger joint.

[NicoJuicy]

Find a problem in your social circle.

Fix it