Vadym | GigRadar (2.5M ARR) (@vadymhimself) header
Vadym | GigRadar (2.5M ARR) (@vadymhimself) profile picture

AI Entrepreneur building Boba πŸ§‹ shop in Bali & Freelance AI agents Founder @GigRadarHQ β–“β–“β–‘β–‘β–‘β–‘β–‘β–‘β–‘ $2.5M/10M ARR Made $45M+ in Upwork sales. Father of 4 πŸˆβ€β¬›

Bali, Indonesia
Joined June 2019
Photo by Vadym | GigRadar (2.5M ARR) (@vadymhimself)Photo by Vadym | GigRadar (2.5M ARR) (@vadymhimself)Photo by Vadym | GigRadar (2.5M ARR) (@vadymhimself)Photo by Vadym | GigRadar (2.5M ARR) (@vadymhimself)Photo by Vadym | GigRadar (2.5M ARR) (@vadymhimself)Photo by Vadym | GigRadar (2.5M ARR) (@vadymhimself)Photo by Vadym | GigRadar (2.5M ARR) (@vadymhimself)
every bro on Twitter is building an AI agent. i decided to build… a bubble tea shopπŸ§‹ honestly i'm already sick of the picture. the Bali founder with the Stripe MRR screenshot. or the opposite, the Y Combinator grind crowd. so i'm diversifying your feed and opening a cafe. with a cashier, a team of baristas, suppliers, the whole thing. because sometimes you want to stand behind the counter and see who's actually paying you. can one head + one founder playbook take an offline business from zero to 10,000 cups a month, while we keep growing our successful SaaS? posting weekly progress. in parallel with an equally insane GigRadar pivot my restless head cooked up (more on that later). if it works, i have a second business. if it doesn't, i have the best failure post of 2026.
8
1
19
2,299
i just CANT read my X feed any longer: opus + higsfield Fable + blender Astra + toaster Jev + vacuum cleaner all of it is either (a) sponsored posts bought with BILLIONS of venture capital or (b) poor founders trying to ride the hype created by (a) audiences all going to become immune to this slop, that will be the end of social media and feeds as we know it a good example of the future social network is telegram: no feeds, no fomo, no VCs pouring tons of cash to buy every pixel of your phone (yet) hopefully the bubble will burst soon and we go back to authenticity media
1
83
Building a SaaS to $2.5M ARR taught me how to build a better body. Left is 2024. Right is 2026. Nothing in the second photo came from a new idea. It came from the same 3 things that took GigRadar from 0 to 3,000+ agencies on Upwork, with no VC: 1/ Finish what you start. Most people do not fail at the plan. They quit it in week 6 and start a better one. 2/ Do the boring thing and ignore the shiny one. Every week there is a new protocol, a new framework, a new channel. The boring thing you already do, done again, is the only thing that compounds. 3/ Take the shortcut when the tradeoff makes sense. Buy the tool, hire the person, pay for the plan instead of building your own. Time bought back is time that compounds. Everyone loves the story of a long, hard road to the result. Nobody wants to hear about luck, cheat codes and knowing the right people. But that is what it is, most of the time. It does not have to be hard. Most of the distance between what you want and what you have is a limit in your head, not in the world.
4
4
206
Human - inefficient AI wrapper.
78
SaaS, 2026 β€” Slop as a Service
98
i remember the day i became a usd millionaire (on paper) 2020. sitting on the floor with my MacBook Pro, a 2015 model. the cold floor of a $7-a-day guesthouse, the cheapest one in Bali, that i'd just moved into after pulling out of a toxic relationship. then the email came. the deal was signed. the company was now valued at $1.2M. it felt incredible. even though my credit card was at negative $5,000. even though i barely had a few hundred bucks left for next week's rent, let alone my contractors. i was thrilled to the bones. told myself i'd finally hustled my way into the real game. that i could finally feel secure and just build. two months later the investor pulled out. back to zero. worse than zero, actually. but that's a different story. all these years later i just checked my bank account. $326k, after we acquired 3 products. do i feel even a little more secure than on that cold floor? absolutely not. startup folks with 100x that in the bank: does it feel more secure? (don't answer. i know it doesn't.) there's no security in this game. if you wanted security, you should've taken the job. "you wanted to be a businessman, son?" my dad used to tell me, skeptical. "enjoy."
3
150
POV: 2.5M ARR Friday Bali afternoon with the team on a floating bar - 9h sleep - 4X/week gym - $2.5k/mo 2br penthouse w ocean view - dinner topics: life, happiness, health - European/Us nostalgia: none also @nikolak47 next to us w his 16M ARR people, wake up
POV: your AI startup took off and you moved to SF with your friends. ARR: $4M+ Rent: $12k/month for a 3-bedroom Sleep: 4-6 hrs Dinner topics: AI agents, fundraising, growth, distribution Claude: Max plan for all the team Desire to build: daily European nostalgia: bottle caps that don’t leave the bottle SF is expensive until you realize the whole city is basically peer pressure for founders.
2
3
445
The best thing we’ve built for Upwork
Meet Claude Fable for Upwork. Just describe your ideal customer. It goes to work: β†’ Finds high-intent leads on the platform β†’ Writes personalized proposals, sends them in < 5 mins on matching signals
117
winning the bid on Upwork is the easy part. most agencies lose the deal in the chat. you win the job, the client replies, and 6 hours later you finally see it. by then they've logged off and gone cold. the lead you paid connects to win dies in your inbox. GigRadar CRM runs the whole conversation for you: β†’ replies to new Upwork messages in seconds, not hours β†’ qualifies the client and warms them up automatically β†’ books high-intent clients straight onto your calendar while you sleep β†’ chases stale conversations so no lead dies quietly clients wait an average of 5 minutes after they open your chat. GigRadar CRM never misses that window. stop losing deals you already won. comment CRM and i'll DM you a free trial. (top-rated Upwork agencies only)
1
1
169
I've analyzed 512+ Upwork millionaires Here's what separates winners from the rest: The anatomy of a winning setup: 1. Technical Profile Optimization (with Keyword analysis) - Bad: vibe-updating your profile with what you CAN do - Good: researching job feed for what clients ACTUALLY search for, researching competitors for their winning hook descriptions, avatars, keyword strategy 2. Auto Bidding - Bad: Applying to jobs with 5 hours average delay - Good: Using premium ai personalization tools to position in front of client eyes in <5 mins 3. Client intake management - Bad: Picking up client replies your morning time (when they already logged off) - Good: Using first reply automation to book a meeting with GigRadar CRM - Even better: Using agentic sequences in GigRadar AI CRM to qualify & book high intent clients for your time 4. Making the most of every connect spent - Bad: Never following up with past client replies - Good: Using programmable sequences in Upwork chat to periodically follow up stale conversations 5. Managing multiple profiles in an agency - Bad: Switching virtual desktops or cloud browsers (BAN RISK) - Good: Using omni channel inbox tools or real physical devices for each account Advanced tactics that work: - Cross bidding for the same jobs with multiple accounts - Raising prices for existing clients every 3 months Remember: Clients spend an average of 15 seconds per proposal and maximum of 5 minutes waiting for you to get back to them after they open the chat. I built a leaderboard of the top Upwork earners in EVERY category. Like this post and comment with your Upwork profile URL -> I will send you your Upwork rank so you can study your competition.
1
144
Meet Claude Fable for Upwork. Just describe your ideal customer. It goes to work: β†’ Finds high-intent leads on the platform β†’ Writes personalized proposals, sends them in < 5 mins on matching signals
2
1
3
464
β†’ Qualifies, warms up, and converts replies into booked calls while you sleep β†’ Learns from your best campaigns and keeps improving Don't hire another Upwork bidder. Let GigRadar book meetings for you. (now with agentic Upwork CRM built in)
1
66
Marc Lou's TrustMRR just hit 200k visits/mo. I built the Upwork version on 342k profiles. here's what the data shows: There are 512 Upwork millionaires. I analyzed 342,219 freelancer and 86,719 agenciy profiles on Upwork, and now you can too. Here's the earnings breakdown: 26,032 freelancers have earned $100K+ 2,395 freelancers have crossed $500K+ And 512 have made over $1M The top earner? $15.7M. Based in India. (currently doing around $1.9M a year btw) You can also look at current recurring revenue (MRR): 7,137 freelancers do at least $1K/mo 3,177 earn $5K+/mo 1,212 earn $10K+/mo 10 agencies make $100K+/mo Top performing country? USA, and it's not even close. US-based freelancers alone have: $2,055,260,045 in total earnings β€” that's $2.05B (B as in Billion) $16.5M in recurring revenue EACH month 43,698 registered accounts The most competitive countries by freelancer count: (1) Pakistan β€” 55,136 (2) India β€” 47,238 (3) USA β€” 43,698 (4) Philippines β€” 25,209 (5) Nigeria β€” 17,548 Interested where you rank? Check the link in the replies below. It's called UpworkRank: you paste your profile link, see your rank, your estimated MRR, and how you compare against 342K+ freelancers and agencies. Completely free. P.S. Feel free to share your rank as a widget on your personal website or on your LinkedIn P.P.S. And yes, I was heavily inspired by Marc Lou’s TrustMRR. P.P.S. More cool features such as tracking your profile’s USO (Upwork search optimisation coming soon) Claim your profile today!
All-time high traffic on TrustMRR: πŸ₯³ 200,000 monthly unique visitors πŸ₯³ 50% are πŸ”΅ returning visitors, and they spend an average of 3.5 minutes on the site. I'm especially proud of that because TrustMRR is a low-dopamine website in a world optimized for instant dopamine πŸ€—
1
2
350