Giving an 18 year old his first chance
If I was to describe the Preferred Freelancer Program in one word it would be stability. I left school at 18 with no plan. I had no idea what to do with my life apart from being drawn to making money online. I had no marketable skills and was generally lost. I looked online, found Freelancer.com(at the time GetAFreelancer.com), signed up and completed my profile. Problem: I had nothing to enter under skills.
From zero to hero
Young, inexperienced and with nothing to offer, I decided to learn how to build websites, because after all, that’s primarily the type of projects that were popular on the platform. It was a learning curve and eventually I became good enough where I was bidding on and winning projects. Money was rolling in and I was able to freelance full-time and make a living. When I decided to venture out and build my own startups using the skills I learnt out of necessity, Freelancer.com projects were there when I needed to pay the bills. When I exited one of my startups for 6 figures, I could have accepted a number of job offers, and yet I decided to keep my freedom and continue working through Freelancer.com.
Being accepted into the Elite
Fast forward a few years and Freelancer launches the Preferred Freelancer Program and sends me an invite. Gone are the days of searching out projects for ones that match my skill set. Now, recruiters that I’ve built relationships with send them directly to my inbox every single day saving me endless amounts of time and money. I went from having no skills and no way to make money online to having a team of Freelancer.com recruiters sending me projects. That’s stability to me.
