person_number_8

> How many clients do you have outside of the various intermediaries?

Most of our engagements were between 6-12 months long, so we don't have tons of past clients to begin with. Of those we worked with, most can't afford us anymore. That's why we switched to exclusive platforms in the first place.

> I also am not sure of the ethical/legal implications of asking your current clients through various platforms to act as references and/or refer work directly to their colleagues without the intermediary involved, even if they can not themselves cut out the middleman.

It's against the contract and kind of douchey. Moreover, I've only worked with one client on the intermediary platform, it was almost a year long contract.

I honestly think that cold, hard selling is the best option right now. Once we get the next client, we can look into the future and start increasing our presence and nurturing our network.

The success of these exclusive platforms proves that there are thousands of companies and entrepreneurs that are willing to pay high rates for high-skilled remote professionals.

I'm relatively certain that we can sell ourselves, but our biggest challenge right now is indentifying companies that are willing to buy.

Great suggestion, I did not think of that at all.

I just applied via their website, but it's not worth it imho; they don't have enough clients. I got into Toptal aswell and they do a much better job.

Not Slovakia; but close to Slovenia ;)

$7.5k gross, $5.6k net after all taxes. Subcontracting platforms take a huge cut, so the client is paying around $13k to the platform.

We're trying to remove the middleman and work with clients directly. And we're not really freelancing, more like contracting. Most of our engagements have been 6-12 months long.

> Because income like that would put you into top 1% in this area. Or am I wrong?

Probably, but one can always do better.

Edit: Whoops!