How I Get Freelance Clients (Without Upwork or Fiverr) I've made $15K freelancing in the past year. Zero of it came from platforms. Why I Avoid Freelance Platforms Platform Fee My Experience Upwork 5-20% + connects fee Race to the bottom, 50+ proposals per job Fiverr 20% $5 gigs, nightmare clients Toptal Screened out Elite only, takes months to join My approach 0% Direct relationships, repeat clients The math is simple: A $1,000 project on Upwork = $800 to you. The same client direct = $1,000. Strategy 1: Build in Public Everything I build, I share: // I built this rate limiter for a client's API. // Then I wrote about it on Dev.to. // That article brought me 3 similar inquiries. // The code itself became a portfolio piece // that attracted better clients than any resume could.…