Lancer Case Study Ep. 1 — Ahmed Kamel
How I won 15 Upwork projects in 52 days (With a New Account)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCYPpgigFDQ

Auto-transcribed from the source recording and lightly edited. Timestamps are
omitted because the source recording predates the published edit.
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Okay, so guys, this will be probably like a series of case studies we're doing and to
highlight the performance of one of our top users, where that's gonna be weekly, by
weekly month, I'm not sure, but Ahmed is one of our top performers and it's very, what's
very unique about him is he's kind of defined the, I would say the narrative that you
can't really start on app work in 2025 or 2026, it's too late. Only established
freelancers or agencies are getting deals on app work.

And he started with us with essentially a brand new account and he closed, I think,
what's the tagline? Like, 20 projects in like 50 days, something about Ahmed? Almost
yeah, 12 projects within like 52 days. Yeah, so I would love for you to share your story
on how basically with the fresh account, with basically our help as well, you went from
zero to 12 projects in like 50 days and your experience with top work, with cancer and
yeah, go ahead, take the stage. So basically in the beginning, I was like, okay, I have
a business and they need to like, cramp this up in terms of the income streams and that
I've knew the business is doing.

So I was looking for more income streams rather than pitching clients or going to events
or anything of that sort. So I started to begin to what would be the best way to get
extra clients and one of them was up work. And because it's very hectic to be like
applying 24, seven, which again, you also can't apply for jobs 24, seven. I started to
find or like to research about some AI automations, maybe services that even thought of
like building this would like, whatever AI was there, back in like I think mid 2025.

And what happened after that is I started with one of the services in the market, which
was so bad because they didn't have the knowledge and the experience of how to convert
on up work. So what they did was they built the product but they don't understand the
mechanics. So if something is broken, they cannot tell you, okay, here is the issue or
that is the problem or you need to fix this or you need to work on that. No, their
knowledge was quite basic, which is yeah, instead of saying that you were unpaid ads,
you need to say meta ads.

Yeah, but what other keywords, what other descriptions should I be there? Do I need to
put a video? Do I not need to put a video? Do I need to have some consultations and
catalogs and all of that? They were just like, yeah, it should be, but how can be done?
They don't know this. So they're not sure it's quite basic. And through my experience, I
think I lost around $4,000 while I applied for a ton of jobs. And what I got was one
single job with $50.

And the guy basically worked with me for one single reason because he said that I know
how to speak English. The rest of the people that were applying, they had shitty
English, it was so bad. He couldn't even communicate to them. He couldn't understand
them. So the moment he found someone who can communicate and he could just understand,
he was like, okay, we need to work together. So for me to get the first client closed, I
did a job for $50, almost for like three days of work, just to have one job, one five
star testimonial on the platform.

And after we finished this, he even gave me like $50 extra on top of it just because
like we thought about the work. So I would say that this has been the worst return on an
investment I ever like did in my entire life. Wait $4,000, I go to $100 back. And this
made me feel like there's something wrong. So I was searching for more until I met you
guys, which you guys are doctors of the whole thing like literally. You guys are experts
in what you're doing.

The other guys were like general practitioners while you guys were the specialized team
who know how to do it, why to do it, how it should look like and what final output we
might expect with and how much time. So since they won, I came to you, we had to talk to
me in your event and it was like, okay, like I just gave you the whole thing, hey man,
this happened. I'm here to experience your product or service. And let's just take it
from there.

And I followed everything you guys said, wishes. Let's number one, go to the Upwork
coach that you guys work with to help me optimize everything. I did everything as he
mentioned exactly and then we set up the profile with the campaigns that we have on
Lancer. And then after that, yeah, like 52 days, 12 contracts closed, some of them are
like already clients working with us like for like, already like last almost two months.
Some of them came here for like one time gig and that's it.

But also give you some context. These 12 contracts so far may like 5.2 or 5.3 thousand
dollars, which is also great. Yeah, we are not spending much on Lancer. I even have the
basic package. If I remember correctly, I have the $300 a month or something. Plus per
month, I think I'm spending maybe $300 for $100 more. So if you just do the math the
first time I paid Lancer, I paid the three months in advance. I think I paid like 600
something dollars. Plus so far, let's say worst case scenario, I paid a thousand dollar
on just Upwork Connect.

So I paid like let's say 1.5 thousand or 1.6 thousand. Maybe $3,000 back. And yeah, less
than this. Sorry, within the first 50 days. Yeah, within the first 50 days. Currently I
also have let me tell you one, two, three, four, five. I have five or six clients out of
10 clients. I have five or six out of 10 clients. They are clients that are like working
on like hourly basis. So these folks have every single month. They are still bidding the
four other clients. They were one time gigs and two of the 10 clients I closed, they did
two other contracts.

So they came, let's say for a test project. They liked what they got to service and the
fast communication, transparency, professionalism and like everything. So they started
to work on longer contracts. Also one more thing to finalize or just answer your
question that I've got that Upwork is for cheap labor, which is basically one of the
most true comments I ever received from a client. And it was again with that previous
tool I worked with. The guy told me, why are you here? You actually charge a lot.

Upwork is for cheap labor. You shall not be here. He exactly told it to me like this.
And he sent me a contract. I thought he wants to work together and then he canceled it
and then he sent me that message. So he was actually charging my rate, which is so
weird. Currently, I have some clients who want charge at $65 an hour and they're so
happy to pay it. They were paying this and they came against to pay it. $40, $50 and
yeah, it's so for cheap labor.

It's just you need to do the right things to attract the right set of eyes, that's it.
Cool, awesome. And do you have any like, you mentioned a couple of things but you have
like some high level things of like what was the, what are you doing differently now? As
opposed to be dollar tool, I would say. What I'm doing differently now is the card set
up of how the upwork profile looks like. Previously, my upwork profile was not
optimized. So when you go to my upwork profile, that looks like a random guy will just
start to the yesterday.

And this is what I mean by you guys know what you're doing and they were just degenerate
practitioners. For anything, they were just gave you the paint killer but you guys know
where to look for the problem and how to fix it. So after optimizing the platform, the
first contract I got was for $10. And yeah, like it was just $10 an hour. The rest of
the contracts I'm getting are $40, $25, $50, $65. So the way you're optimizing the way
your profile looks like and how optimized it is, it attracts the caliber you're looking
for.

The people who want the cheap labor, they are mostly looking for someone who just
started yesterday, like literally started yesterday. They want to hunt the lowest out of
the age so they can make the most revenues. But clients who are serious about their
money and what they are doing and their businesses, they don't care how much they pay
you because they know that you'll make them multiple returns for that money that they're
spending with you. So I would say the first thing would be my profile is more optimized
and is more straight to the point.

Also, I started to get invitations on random jobs that I didn't apply for. So how did I
appear to these guys as well? So because my profile is also optimized, I appear to a
certain caliber of people based on the keywords they search for. And the second thing I
get selected because my profile actually communicates my value. So even though yes, I
and my team, we made more than $65 million in a revenue for the clients we worked with.
The previous profile before working with you guys, yes, it had this, but it didn't
communicate it.

So it looked like maybe we are faking the numbers. But after we optimized everything,
everything looked let's say more professional, more niche, more like luxurious for
actually someone who made that amount of money for their clients, but someone actually
starting. And this started to attract people who come say, hey, we saw your profile, we
like it, we want to work with you. And for sure, that's a completely different story.
One more thing I would also say that your product is attaching the, like, what is it
called?

The projects that I have on the profile, which also gives them to see what type of work
did we do? How are the results we brought to the clients and all of that? Yeah, that's
the way we, that's kind of different, that's based on a different approach when it comes
to automation. And I think the two that used previously doesn't really run the
automation through the user's account, but it goes through like a third party agents,
manager accounts, etc. So it's not really fully automated through the account.

I would love to know your basically take away after essentially now, like if we were a
couple of months back with a different tool, and now it has a couple of months, and
you're still relatively new and upward. What's your basically take away on the platform
itself? So basically, because you know, a lot of people were discussing before we
started recording, a lot of people, especially on radio, don't link, you will say, oh,
Upwork is dead, you know, like stay away from it, like you just burn money.

You as a new user starting in 2026, like what has been your take away of the platform?
My take away is you cannot judge something you didn't try correctly. When I tried Upwork
before, I tried it without optimizations. The team I was working with, or the tool I was
working with, they said that they understand it, but they didn't. Also, when I needed
support, yeah, they scheduled the calls with me, but they don't know what to do. But
when I came to you guys, everything was so different for me.

And it was so different and it was so obvious from day one that even when I shared with
you the numbers, in the very initial calls of my, like, let's say, reply rate and all
these percentages of conversion, what you were mentioned was like, oh, no, this is bad.
This means that there is something wrong. So before even working on Lancer, or before
having the setup on Lancer, what you recommended was to go to the Upwork coach, start to
work with them and then come back to Lancer.

They didn't even recommend something like this. So my biggest takeaway is make sure you
put all the positive pieces together when you're trying something new because Upwork is
not that there is so much money that can be done there. And again, I am not even like
doing the crazy work there. I am a new profile. I have, I don't know, like, less than
10k, I don't have the rising star badge or the top rated plus or whatever, like the no
rising star, not upgraded, not upgraded plus badges.

And I closed 10 climbs with 12 contracts in 50 days, more than 5.2 thousand dollars,
5,200 dollars so far. So imagine if I have the rising star badges or the top rated plus,
there's again, there's so much can really happen there. Yeah, yeah. And again, like I
feel like you're killing it and that's why I wanted to have it here in Brazil. I think
your approach is a differentiator. And I think when it comes to Upwork a lot of these,
people are differentiated by the mindset, the mindset they're coming in and the approach
they have on the platform.

If people like you come in with all look, wait, I can dissect all this weight. There's a
ton of opportunity here, but I need to do these things to basically make it work. And I
need to make a replacement. What you did and what's very rare is basically you actually
burned $4,000 in figuring it out as a channel. And you didn't get an ROI and you still
didn't give up. You're like, you know what? Actually, there still might be value here. I
see this guy, I see that guy.

You know, I open up and you do this guy's killing it. And maybe I'm doing something
wrong. So you gave Upwork a second chance with a different approach to Lancer. And
basically you made it work, right? And I think maybe this, thanks to your experience
with running, you know, pay that campaigns where you know there's a lot of
experimentation and make it work. And you know, that's what actually Lancer is. Like
that's how I've always been pitching it really on. It's kind of transitions upwork from
like this broke and a messy place to make actually a paid acquisition channel.

Like once you set it up, I don't think you even have actually touched the initial setup
that we made on Lancer, right? Maybe it's something that's not at all. So basically you
just start it up running and then you have like basically, you know, you have the
conversion rates, you know, how many people have opened your proposals, how many reply
rate, what's your cost per reply. And you know, and basically what you've done is
basically like automated funnel for getting leads and then you closing it because you're
very good at this and what you do.

And again, as you mentioned, this was scale and scale scale. Awesome. So I guess I think
we covered what I wanted to cover. I will have to do this short. Maybe I'll give you the
floor if you have anything else to add for like people that are considering this or
thinking or they're like on the edge of whether they want to jump, make the jump toward
just initially the upwork itself, not with our tour or anything. And what would you
basically give them as an advice whether they should do it and if they do it, how to do
it so they don't burn like $4,000, maybe as you did, like, you know, I would say that
for businesses in general, when they are building their income streams, they need to
make sure that they don't put all the eggs in one basket.

And for the business to be safe, but they need to diversify their income streams. The
problem that a lot of business owners fall for is that sometimes they are building or
they're focusing their efforts on revenue streams or income streams for their business
that are not repeatable or scalable or predictable. I was reading this book called, said
like crazy for a guy called Sabri Zubi and what he said that when you're building and
like an income stream or revenue stream, it needs to have three elements which are it
needs to be repeatable, scalable and predictable.

These three elements exist on a channel like upwork. You can do this every single month,
it is repeatable, it is predictable based on the data that you have, you know, how much
on average you can close, your average costs, cost per lead, cost per like applying,
cost per like final contract. And it is scalable because yes, you can spend so much more
on it in terms of connects. You can increase your like services or like you can absent
people. And not just this, if you get a client in month one and they're working with you
to month two and then month two you get another client, you are now working with two
clients.

Then one three, you have two from the previous month and then the third month you have
it. So my only recommendation to people actually think about this, make sure you do
everything right, make sure what you're building is predictable, scalable and just like
two, like it's something that can be like repeatable as well. And this is something you
can do on upwork and this is something you can do with the answer on upwork. So this
also de-risks your business when I cliently is that you have, yeah, now we have a
problem, what shall we do, we need to replace it, no.

Now we are not thinking about this because upwork is taking care of it. So yes, it needs
the work, but make sure you do the work, right? Awesome, I couldn't have said better
myself. I think that's it. Thank you for basically sharing all of this with us and good
luck crushing it and scaling on upwork. Absolutely, together, thank you. Thank you.