How should I spend $1,000 to start getting clients? I considered buying a bulk of inboxes and a premium instantly plan to increase sending volume, but do you have other suggestions?
If you haven’t had a client yet, allocate part of the $1,000 to Upwork to buy your first job—it’s the simplest way to get started. Also invest in Maker School to learn the automation framework and get the curriculum. With the remaining budget, buy a modest number of mailboxes (around 20–21) and domains (about $50 for domains plus $70 for mailboxes, totaling ~$120). Use leftover funds to purchase leads. This approach lets you cover education, outreach tools, and lead acquisition while positioning you to land your first client through Upwork, provided you stay consistent and follow the program’s advice.
Industry averages suggest you’d spend around $200 to $300 before landing your first client. The Maker School fee is about $184, but you typically receive $2,000 to $3,000 in discounts and credits upon joining, which offsets the cost. You can use those credits on platforms like Upwork, cold email, LinkedIn DMs, or community outreach to acquire your first client. Upwork is often the simplest route because clients already have budget and are ready to hire. Cold email is high leverage but takes longer to master, especially for beginners who lack sales process understanding. Other methods include cold DMs on platforms, LinkedIn outreach, and engaging in communities like Reddit or LinkedIn groups to solve problems and get on calls. Overall, you should expect to spend at least a couple hundred dollars; if you’re not willing to invest that amount, joining paid products may not be worthwhile since you’ll need to recoup the investment after landing a client.
With $1,000 to bootstrap, go with Upwork. You can submit roughly 200‑300 applications (maybe more thanks to the connects refund policy). In the Maker School community, the average number of proposals needed to land a client is about 40‑60, so you could realistically secure around six clients. If the average revenue per client is around $200, that puts you at $1,200, and you can rinse and repeat. In practice, the average revenue per client is often higher—many close $1,500‑$3,000 deals—so within the first 50 proposals you could reach roughly $6,800 (or about $1,600 after the correction). Consistently scaling up from there will grow your business.
I no longer use Go High Level (GHL). For software costs, the cheapest option is about $37 per month for an instant‑inbox style service. A low‑cost stack looks like this: $3 per mailbox (so five mailboxes cost $15/month) plus two domains at roughly $30 per year ($2.50/month when amortized), bringing mailbox‑related expenses to $17.50/month. Adding the $37/month inbox service brings the base to around $54.50/month. If you also purchase leads—say 4,000 leads per month at $120 per 1,000 leads—that adds $480/month, for a total of roughly $534.50/month for email outreach. For Upwork, expect to spend about $1.50 per application plus a refundable boost, averaging roughly $3 per app; sending 10 apps a day would cost about $30/day. Upwork is simple to start with because you can invest for just a few days, get paid quickly, and buy credits for the whole month rather than one‑off purchases.
No, you don't need to start anywhere else. Upwork is by far the easiest place to start for a number of reasons. As a beginner, sales is hard and consists of three parts: understanding the client’s problem, pitching a solution, and standing out enough for the client to pick you. Upwork handles the first two parts for you; you only need to pay for connects and a fee (now between 10‑15%) when you deliver a project. This means you only have to focus on being the best pick among freelancers, which is roughly one‑third of the sales work. It also minimizes capital outlay because you don't need to spend large amounts on cold‑email tools, ads, or other lead‑generation platforms. As a beginner you might spend around $200 on tools and see no results for weeks, whereas with Upwork you can start seeing ROI in a few days, making the gap between spending and earning much shorter.