Upwork stole $10k from my account

Feb 24, 2023

Morning everyone.

Upwork blocked my account last week and froze hard earned money, so I needed to dedicate more time to my agency to stabilize the situation. I wrote Twitter thread regarding this situation.

Anyway, you'll find three new startups looking for new owners. We vetted and prepared them for sale.

P.S. It's already one year since the war started in my country 🇺🇦 I hope the war ends soon and everyone will be safe against Russian occupiers.

👋 Welcome

Welcome to the 50 new people joining this week.

Let me know what you think of your first issue. Replying helps Google realize it’s not a spam.

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Now let’s crack on with the newsletter ☕️

☘️ Partnerships getting stronger

More people are joining our affiliate program and spreading the word about Microns. This week I checked and found that we paid almost $1k in commission to our affiliates. Great milestone.

Ilya Novohatskyi 🇺🇦 @ilyanovohatskyi

Two new sales 🥳 Already paid our brand ambassadors almost $1k for referring new buyers.

It's wonderful to see how people are creative about promoting Microns. I saw partners featuring our listings in their newsletters, writing blog posts, sharing their podcasts, and reviewing on YouTube. I'm so proud to have such partners and value everyone who helps us grow.

If you want to become one of us and have an audience, ideas, or desire to earn. Sign up here, create content, and share your partner link with others. Tracking and payments are on us.

😱 Platform risk is real

Upwork permanently suspended my freelance account with $500k+ in earnings during the last four years this week. They didn't reply to my emails for almost a week, money was frozen, and clients were surprised.

They said that I failed the verification process, but this sounded funny as previously, I always passed it quickly. I provided all documents requested, answered all their questions, went through the screening process without electricity (because of the war), and solved a programming task.

Ilya Novohatskyi 🇺🇦 @ilyanovohatskyi

Upwork just stole $10k from me and permanently suspended my Top Rated account.

Moral of this story:

Continuously diversify your assets.
Don't depend on one income channel.
Don't hold money on platforms because platform risk is real.

This case taught me that platforms are great for starting your business, but they're so bad for the long term because anytime you could be blocked without any reason.

Thank you to everyone who supported me and spread the word about the situation. It means a lot! And if you need front end engineers (React.js, Next.js) on demand, feel free to reach out.