I've read every "how to get freelance clients" article on the internet. Post on LinkedIn. Build your portfolio. Cold email. Use Upwork. Niche down.
Cool. But how did you specifically get yours?
A bit about me: I'm an AI Backend Engineer, I build RAG systems, LLM-powered pipelines, and agentic AI workflows using Python, LangChain, FastAPI, and PostgreSQL. I have real shipped projects (a Slack AI Data Bot that converts natural language to SQL, a RAG document assistant with FAISS and contextual compression) and actual work experience at a GenAI startup where I built a prospecting engine that transformed sparse inputs into structured sales intelligence reducing manual research efforts and improving decision making workflows.
But the company closed operations as it got merged with a parent company and we were laid off due to the structural changes
Now I'm freelancing.
I'm not here to be told to "provide value." I want an unglamorous, specific story.
Like:
- Did you slide into a founder's DMs and it actually worked? What did you say?
- Did a random Reddit comment turn into a contract?
- Did you undercharge embarrassingly just to get the first one?
- Did you offer something free and convert it?
I'll go first: I've been reaching out to early-stage SaaS founders and solo operators who could genuinely use AI automation in their workflows.
The response rate is near zero. I clearly don't know something that experienced freelancers know intuitively.
What was the thing that finally broke open for you?