CA- Santa Clara based Upwork is having a very, very good year. They announced today, their best year-over-year growth performance since their Initial Public Offering (IPO) on October 3, 2018. They finished the year with 32% year over year to $106 million, and Q4 gross services volume grew 33% year over year to =$728 million.

What was the key to Upwork success and their successful freelancers?

• Aggressive execution during the pandemic that created jobs for the freelance marketplaced
• Upwork enabled Covid Pandemic Global accelerator to business innovation to continue, beyond just keeping the lights on and business flowing.
• Companies would pay for the Freelancers needed to contribute critical skills and expertise
• Freelancers retained autonomy to work on the projects most suitable to their portfolio and requirements.

Iqbal Mahmud: Top Rated and Verified Upwork Freelancer since 2017.

I sat down with Iqbal who just celebrated his 4 year freelancer anniversary with Upwork. Iqbal feels that the key to being top rated is:

• Consistent delivery of 90% work done ratio
• 5 star rating for all jobs done, and
• $1,000 earnings from Upwork in a 12 month period.

Whats it take to be top rated? Delivering value and developing long relationship with clients is the best for a positive job, and a positive experience that clients want to keep coming back to.

Iqabal manages focus on client outcomes for web development and web architecture solutions. Its about understanding requirements and delivering value with quality, scalable, customer facing web applications and solutions.

What was your first Upwork project? It was a small project. Never be afraid to take a small project, as you never know when it will turn into a huge client. The first project involved making a secure https- based website for a Global Modern home design client.

This client was so happy with the outcomes and their experience working with Iqbal, they became a repeat client for future efforts. Maintaining a conscious business focus for delivering on time the details required for the client, in a positive attitude, is what makes Iqbal a favorite with his new and loyal clients. This type of freelance attitude tends to win longer term rewards, clients and repeat business.

Many projects were business facing emergency, where the website needed incident management, problems or web site optimization solutions to keep business flowing on key websites where slow loading or buggy features inhibit the user experience.

2017 August – 2019 April the Bangladesh Embassy in Tokyo was the most exciting project multinational government project. The project needed to be implemented, a site needed to be restored and recovered. The project existed because the Bangladesh Embassy Tokyo portal was brought down by hacker using an xss attack vector.

Working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Iqabal went about quickly restoring and recovering and testing the sites restoration to it’s full functionality. The client and the partners involved worked together to appreciate the presitige and businss impact. As a result they received continued business as new features were incorporated, and the continued site health surveys were conducted as a managed services safeguard to secure the experience and to incorporate new functionality.

Bangladesh Rapid Action Battalian Website (with video library )

One example of that freelance referral creating incredible and interesting projects was in 2015 in a project with Laser Line Logistic. Iqbal was assigned to design a new website for Bangladesh Rapid Action Battallion (RAB), an elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police. RAB consisted of a high profile membership that included the Bangladesh Police, Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Navy, Bangladesh Air Force, Border Guard Bangladesh and Bangladesh Ansar.

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