Cleaning House in 2025

Vladimir

Hey all!

Apologies for being offline for so long. We're close to the end of 2025 and I feel it's time to take stoke of what we did and achieved in 2025.

I'll start first. As you know, we started this forum near the end of 2024, effectively being active since the start of 2025.

Freelancer Forum

Metric-wise, we have 295 registered users, 267 discussion threads and 2.4K posts.
Quality-wise, we have users with big hearts and community regulars who are selflessly and transparently sharing their own experience and advice with fellow freelancers. That can't be quantified and expressed numerically.

I did pause events in April in hopes of finding a strategy for better engagement, which I did find but honestly it requires financial support which I'm not currently able to cover. Hopefully this changes in 2026.

I'm still thinking about transitioning the Community over to Circle or another platform which would be free for all members. Let me know if you have any ideas.

When it comes to my personal experience as a freelancer, I joined a startup that is developing a basketball-related device. I started Shamgodcode web dev studio with Djole from the Community Team. These are going well but both initiatives aren't financially viable yet. That's why I'm on the lookout for any available job opportunity.

As for my experience on Upwork, I started sending a few proposals biweekly when the jobs market changed on Upwork and the influx of jobs started at the start of the summer. I increased the volume in the last two months and here are my personal stats:

As you can see I boosted a lot of proposals and it sort of worked. The interviews happened earlier in the year, for example I submitted almost a third of my proposals in the last two months and got 11 proposals viewed and just two interviews.

As for invites, I'm getting invited but mostly to blockchain, crypto and gambling-related jobs, which aren't my target industries even while looking for a new role.

So that's me in a nutshell, hope you had a more productive and successful year. Feel free to share your experience, ups and downs, and takeaways that might be useful to others. Thanks for being part of the community and hopefully we find a more stable harbor in 2026. I'm still convinced there's a lot of value in this Community and we have just scratched the surface.

Cheers!

Andrea

Hey Vladimir ! Yeah I feel you on the invites part. So much of the community work out there seems to be focused on those topics and it's all in Reddit/Discord/Telegram communities. It’s not much like the experience we actually have. Hope the new year brings more oppportunities!

anovikov

Vladimir So Vladimir, your belief is that Upwork is about to resurrect from the dead? You think it still makes sense bidding on projects there?

Alexandra

Vladimir Heya! It's great to hear from you and learn of your experiences and your start-up. Unlike some doom mongers, I still believe in the power of innovation and enterprise -- which never comes cheap (see the AI scene for examples).
As to Upwork, it's still a wolf pit of promises and disappointments. A new client whose hilariously erratic subtitles needed fixing soon reached budget limit, so my mainstay is still quality at rock-bottom prices.
What will 2026 hold in store? My guess is that radically new roles and functions (or existing ones "re-packaged") are needed to get things moving along again.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all friends of Alexandra and Witinall Language Services!

Vladimir

Andrea Ola! Agreed, fingers crossed!

Vladimir

anovikov Hey, hope you're having a nice weather in Cyprus!

I get your point and it is valid. I have to clarify that this is true for the niches I'm interested in and it's also possible that my proposals/profile/rate is partially to blame. Finally, this is all coming from a non-US based freelancer, with the location being an important factor for clients for some time now.

I do see some freelancers are able to find legit clients and jobs on Upwork, so I can't say it's a waste of money to bid on jobs, since others are finding more success than me. But it does cost a lot to regularly submit proposals and/or periodically boost proposals or your profile. In that respect it is an investment and I'd love to see other freelancers' stats.

Also, I've been submitting proposals on LinkedIn and results are abysmal to say the least. Again, I might be to blame for those outcomes but unlike Upwork, I've yet to see freelancers sharing that they are finding new jobs via LinkedIn job posts.

The job market on Upwork has had weird trends this year. I've seen some new platforms and agency-like companies growing but from perspective and experience, even with all the shortcomings Upwork still has the highest amount of jobs posted compared to others. I love Contra but I can't find clients there for my specific skillset.

If you found an alternative I'd love to hear about it.

Vladimir

Alexandra Hi!

Start of the summer looked promising as job posts started coming after the silence in Q1 and in part Q2. However, in my experience the quality jobs are still too few and far between. Budget issues... 🙂

It'll be interesting to see how things unfold in 2026. I personally expect the AI focus will shift a bit and while AI will be trending for the foreseeable future, some clients might start considering hiring freelancers for some of the roles they experimented with AI agents.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, to bigger budgets, better opportunities, less noise and more peace of mind.

JessicaKay

Vladimir I've tried pitching on LinkedIn with no results, too. I think it's been less than 10 messages that I've sent, so I haven't given it my best effort. BUT from what I've seen from other freelancers, it's a little more of a longer-game to get to projects. I've seen people call it "warm pitching" and it's like networking on the Internet by leaving comments on peoples' posts and engaging with other people. THEN at some point you can pitch your offerings or be first in mind when they have a project or position available.

A freelancer named Lizzie Davey has a free course on her website about warm pitching if you want to check it out!

Also, FYI, 2025 is the year of the Snake where we're shedding old habits and old parts of ourselves. 2026 is the year of the Horse, so it's supposed to be a year of energy and sprinting forward in our lives. I'm feeling optimistic!

anovikov

Vladimir So, your opinion that Upwork market is in better shape than market overall? That is, that it's not that there's something in particular bad about Upwork, it's about the market in general, and Upwork is holding up relatively well comparatively to the rest of it?
And no i haven't found an alternative. I mostly retired for now. Thankfully, ZIRP days especially Covid and Post-Covid, provided a lot of freshly printed cash, and stock market was in good shape.

Alexandra

Vladimir And just for some seasonal fun, a sample of how I "get my own back" when I am feeling frustrated. (Don't copy/try this, though!)

The client vented his frustration in the job posting as follows: "Looking for a copywriter that actually has talent & Value,, i haven’t found anyone yet. Don’t waste my time show me one thing that proves you’re talented and tell me how long or how much it cost to make it. I’m not gonna read a bunch of AI created content."

My response (venting my own frustration and not viewed by client): "You sound very frustrated, which is why I would like to invite you to look at some funny texts I've written for my blog on the Witinall website. If I'm wasting my connects, fine by me. If, on the other hand, you consider my writing worth your time, reach out to me on Upwork."

Vladimir

JessicaKay I've met some really great people on LinkedIn that offered great insight and were real people (homage to Jenn's saying people on the internet aren't real). However, posting regularly isn't something that I feel would be as impactful there as it would in a more focused space, like a community forum, and also I'm not feeling it personally. I do contribute but honestly it's not something I could be doing regularly.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll follow up up on it. As for the year, let's see, hope you're right.

Vladimir

anovikov I think it's more of a lesser evil type of analogy, in which the market in general isn't doing well in my experience, nor is on Upwork, but I still found a bit more opportunities on Upwork than on other platforms.

I'm definitely seeing a trend with the majority of clients not being US based, and an increase in job posts coming from clients based in countries that weren't as represented in the past. I can premise on this and other data that a portion of higher-value jobs are being outsourced in a different way than before, and have seen agency-type of companies offering remote talent directly to US clients. How this practice is widespread I'm not sure and also not sure if and how it's impacting the whole freelancing market, since this isn't an Upwork trend.

Hope you're enjoying your time away from the hustle and bustle of freelancing and running an online business.

anovikov

Interesting! Can you clarify it more?
Also how do you feel about meeting for a drink sometime like, this weekend?