For context: I've been freelancing on Upwork for about 13 months and I've made close to $20k on it. Its nothing crazy, but its good work but here's the thing about Upwork. On paper it's amazing because there's clients everywhere ready to spend but in reality it's brutal, because its sooo saturated. A GOOD job goes up and within minutes it has 50 proposals on it. If you're not one of the first to apply, the client may never even opens yours. So for months my whole life was the jobs page. Refreshing it all day, just trying to get in early. I was basically a human refresh button lol. I got sick of it, so I built a tool for myself with Claude Code that watches Upwork around the clock, picks out the jobs that fit what I do, and tells me the moment they're posted, with the start of a proposal already written. A little while ago it flagged a job from an investment banking startup. I got my proposal in within minutes and I got a message from the client. Over the next few weeks I worked with them while I scoped out what they needed. Then I pitched them an automation project worth $5,500. I'll be honest, they haven't signed yet, so I'm not going to pretend it's closed. But I scoped it properly, I pitched it, and the whole thing started because my tool saw their job before 50 other people did. Here's a short video of how the system works and how I find clients like this: https://www.loom.com/share/8deead0b0f734665a45ab270dc5d2ccb If you use Upwork to find clients, how do you handle the early-applicant problem? And for those who've pitched bigger projects, what actually got them over the line?