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I Spent Three Years Scrolling Upwork Jobs — Then I Built My Own Tool

Published on March 18, 2024

This article is about my experience over the past few years and how I came to build UpSight.

Scrolling Through Jobs Is Really Exhausting

I've been working on Upwork for three years. At first, I thought as long as my technical skills were solid, I'd never run out of projects. But reality had other plans.

Every morning, the first thing I do is scroll through Upwork.

You need to watch three places: Most Recent, My Feed, and Best Matches. These lists update with tons of new jobs every day, and you have to go through them one by one.

What does this process actually involve? Let me break it down:

  • Check the country — Some countries pay better, some are harder to communicate with
  • Check the client background — How many people have they hired before? How did those projects go?
  • Read the Job Description — A few hundred words to a few thousand — you need to understand what the client actually wants
  • Check the Skills — Compare against your own skill set to see how well you match
  • Determine the project type — Is it a brand new project? An MVP? Or taking over someone else's mess?
  • Check the client Feedback — This is the most important part. You need to go through the client's review history, see if they tend to give freelancers low ratings unfairly, and look at what freelancers rated the client. A low-rated client often means high communication costs and payment difficulties

Going through all this for one job takes at least 10-15 minutes.

Let's do the math: if you review 20-30 jobs per day, how long does that take?

My answer: 2 to 3 hours, sometimes even longer.

But that's not all.

Writing Proposals Is the Real Nightmare

After filtering through jobs, if you find one that looks promising, you need to write a Proposal.

I never use templates. Every client and every project is different — you need to write specifically for their needs and description.

What does a Proposal include?

  • A proper self-introduction
  • Your understanding of the project
  • Why you're the right fit
  • Your solution approach
  • Pricing and timeline

Putting all this together takes at least 30 minutes to 1 hour per Proposal.

And you can't just send one and be done. Usually I apply to 5-10 different jobs.

Time costs keep climbing.

The Most Heartbreaking Problem: No Responses

This is what bothers me the most.

You spend a few hours scrolling through jobs, then another 1-2 hours writing Proposals.

Then what?

A week passes. Two weeks pass. Few clients respond.

You don't know why. Was the price too high? Was the proposal not good enough? Did the client even see your proposal? Or were there just so many applicants that yours never stood a chance?

You can only keep scrolling, keep applying, keep waiting.

I Built UpSight

As a programmer, I couldn't take this inefficient workflow anymore.

I took all the filtering experience I built up over three years, my professional instincts, and all the pitfalls I've encountered on Upwork, and turned them into AI logic.

That's how UpSight came to be.

What it does for me is actually quite simple:

  1. Auto-analyze jobs — Tell me within seconds how well this job matches my profile
  2. Assess client risk — Tell me about the client's history and any red flags
  3. Provide pricing suggestions — Tell me what price range is reasonable for this project
  4. Batch pre-screening — Show recommendation scores directly on the job list, no need to click into each one
  5. Proposal assistance — Generate proposal drafts for me to tweak

It's Not Perfect, But It Actually Helps

I know some people will ask: Is this AI really reliable?

My answer: It's not a magic solution, but it saves me a lot of time.

After analyzing, if a job has very low match score, I just skip it and don't waste my Connects. If a client has low ratings after analysis, I approach them carefully instead of rushing in.

The biggest change: I no longer spend hours scrolling through jobs every day.

Now I can get through everything in about 30 minutes, picking out the jobs truly worth applying to, and spending that time on writing proposals and working on actual projects.

Why I Wrote This Article

I'm not trying to get you to download my extension through this article.

If you're also a freelancer struggling on Upwork, if you've scrolled jobs until you question everything and written proposals until your head hurts, I want to tell you: These problems you face are real. They're not your problem — they're the pain points of this platform itself.

Some people choose to endure. Some choose to leave. I chose to build something myself.

As for how much UpSight can help you — try it and see. If it's useful, great. If not, no pressure.

I just hope we can all spend more time on what truly matters.

Let's Chat?

If you're also a freelancer, or if you're interested in how this tool was built, feel free to reach out.

You can leave me a message through Contact Us — I check daily and respond to everyone.

Tags: #Upwork #Freelancer #RemoteWork #AI #Developer #SideProject #IndependentWork