danielxarocho
New member
I have made a lot of goals in my life. I have also fulfilled one or two, but it took way longer than I estimated.
In 2018, when I was first introduced to web development, my goal was to get a job on Upwork within three months.
However, I didn’t get any gig on Upwork until 2021. In fact, I couldn’t even complete any projects in the first two years.
My first project was an e-commerce website for a local shop. That was my first real gig in web development. I built it using WordPress. (I was really bad at coding at that time). I believe the only reason I got this gig was because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Then, I got another client (actually a request from a relative) who needed software for managing a local government council (mainly residential and commercial taxes).
I also built that in WordPress. It was a pretty complex project to develop in WordPress, but it served until 2021.
By now, I was good at WordPress and got a good start on Upwork. At the end of 2021, a client suggested that I start my services on Fiverr.
This time, I started on Fiverr as a mobile app developer. Everything was going well, so I hired a few developers to help me. (That’s how MakeReal got started.)
By 2022, we had built UPMIS from scratch using the MERN stack. We onboarded 14 areas. It was going well. We started working on Academy Pro and Squad AI.
My journey started well, but I got distracted.
My bad time began in mid-2022. I launched a niche food delivery service for local cities. This was the worst decision of my life so far. I lost all of my money ($15,000), a good six months, and my dev team.
The only hope was Fiverr clients. I did a few gigs and by mid-2023 started a job. It paid my bills but it wasn’t enough ($1,000/month). I started doing gig work with my current client and started monthly after a few months ($2,200/month).
2024 started well and is going pretty much okay.
So far, we made UPMIS an end-to-end SaaS product. I got a co-founder and it’s going well.
I am happy with my one client at MakeReal. We developed 20+ WordPress sites, one mobile app, and two Next.js projects over the last three months.
I joined Reddit few months ago. Since then, I’ve gotten to know a lot of folks doing exactly what I want to do in my life.
I have made an effort to get one client for MakeReal but didn’t succeed. Then I tried to get a few signups for Squad AI, but that didn’t go well either.
Now, I understand that I lack a few skills. The number one is writing.
When I open Reddit to post something, most of the time I can't produce even a single word.
So, from now on, I will write — well, anything—blogs, tweets, replies, life stories.
And this is the first part of it.
In 2018, when I was first introduced to web development, my goal was to get a job on Upwork within three months.
However, I didn’t get any gig on Upwork until 2021. In fact, I couldn’t even complete any projects in the first two years.
My first project was an e-commerce website for a local shop. That was my first real gig in web development. I built it using WordPress. (I was really bad at coding at that time). I believe the only reason I got this gig was because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Then, I got another client (actually a request from a relative) who needed software for managing a local government council (mainly residential and commercial taxes).
I also built that in WordPress. It was a pretty complex project to develop in WordPress, but it served until 2021.
By now, I was good at WordPress and got a good start on Upwork. At the end of 2021, a client suggested that I start my services on Fiverr.
This time, I started on Fiverr as a mobile app developer. Everything was going well, so I hired a few developers to help me. (That’s how MakeReal got started.)
By 2022, we had built UPMIS from scratch using the MERN stack. We onboarded 14 areas. It was going well. We started working on Academy Pro and Squad AI.
My journey started well, but I got distracted.
My bad time began in mid-2022. I launched a niche food delivery service for local cities. This was the worst decision of my life so far. I lost all of my money ($15,000), a good six months, and my dev team.
The only hope was Fiverr clients. I did a few gigs and by mid-2023 started a job. It paid my bills but it wasn’t enough ($1,000/month). I started doing gig work with my current client and started monthly after a few months ($2,200/month).
2024 started well and is going pretty much okay.
So far, we made UPMIS an end-to-end SaaS product. I got a co-founder and it’s going well.
I am happy with my one client at MakeReal. We developed 20+ WordPress sites, one mobile app, and two Next.js projects over the last three months.
I joined Reddit few months ago. Since then, I’ve gotten to know a lot of folks doing exactly what I want to do in my life.
I have made an effort to get one client for MakeReal but didn’t succeed. Then I tried to get a few signups for Squad AI, but that didn’t go well either.
Now, I understand that I lack a few skills. The number one is writing.
When I open Reddit to post something, most of the time I can't produce even a single word.
So, from now on, I will write — well, anything—blogs, tweets, replies, life stories.
And this is the first part of it.
