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What keeps you on odesk/upwork or similar race-to-the-bottom sites?

Eliminate the middle man, contact directly to prospective clients. There are a lot of opportunities for mobile devs.

I don't have enough quality contacts to find these clients. And this kind of work is not common where I live so I don't have conferences to go... Do you have any suggestions?

I live in a similar place. Going remote is the solution, but again without a middle-man... Look for gigs on HN hiring/freelancer threads; weworkremotely.com; wfh.io; etc...

Even on upwork or similar sites, especially when the client is new to site, in case they provided contact info - contact them directly. Yes, and needless to mention - double (better triple) your rate.

mhmm, I never considered direct contact, I thought it might be too intrusive. The websites you provided seems nice, I'll definitely check them out

Yep, and no need to mention the [race-to-the-bottom] site. Just check their website, contact info, maybe jobs/careers section, and contact anyway. And again, consider doubling/tripling your rate.

For short-term quick jobs - daily (better weekly) charging is preferable.

For long-term-like-regular-job - I prefer hourly billing, because I usually work part-time and with a hourly setup I have a freedom.

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