Rachel reached out to us in January 2026 after reading some of our blog posts. She wanted to share how her freelance career completely transformed over 6 months. We asked if she'd be willing to write it up in her own words. Here's what she sent us.
This story was shared with us by Rachel via email. We've published it with her permission, with light edits for clarity.
I left my agency job last May with some savings and a decent portfolio. Signed up for every freelance platform I could find. First month: 47 proposals, 3 responses. One was a scam, one wanted a full e-commerce site for $200, and the third became a $350 project that took me 30 hours.
The problem was I was trying to be everything. My profile said “web designer, graphic designer, logo designer, UI/UX designer.” I thought more services meant more clients. In practice it just made me look unfocused.
Two things changed in August. A friend showed me Feedsen, which pulls opportunities from a bunch of different sources into one feed. I went from spending hours every day checking individual platforms to about 30 minutes. Same week, I read something about niching down and it clicked.
I repositioned as a Squarespace specialist for wellness businesses. Yoga studios, therapists, nutritionists. Set up alerts on Feedsen for those keywords and raised my rates from $300-500 per site to $2,000-3,500. Same work, just positioned as “a client-attracting online presence for your wellness practice” instead of “a website.”
The wellness world turned out to be well connected. One yoga studio owner told her nutritionist friend, who told two therapists. By month 5, half my clients were referrals.
My numbers: May $350. June $650. July $500. August $2,100. September $4,800. October $8,050. I have a waitlist now. If I could go back and tell myself one thing it would be: pick a niche and stop trying to win on price.
Here's what stood out to us about Rachel's journey.
16x
Income increase
5h
Less searching/week
50%
Clients from referrals
Income trajectory
What we noticed
The niche decision was the inflection point. Rachel's income was flat for 3 months while she was a generalist. The moment she niched into Squarespace for wellness businesses, her income jumped from $500 to $2,100 in a single month. Specialization isn't just good advice, it's the strategy that unlocks everything else.
The referral network was a direct result of the niche. Wellness professionals (yoga instructors, therapists, nutritionists) are tightly networked. By choosing an industry where word-of-mouth is strong, Rachel essentially built a marketing engine that runs itself.
Time savings compounded. Going from 6 hours/day of manual searching to 30 minutes with a centralized feed meant Rachel had 5+ extra hours per day to improve her craft, work on client projects, and build relationships, all of which drove the income growth.
The tool Rachel uses to find clients
Feedsen aggregates freelance opportunities from multiple platforms into one personalized feed. Set up alerts for your niche and stop spending hours manually searching.
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