Shahinur Rahman Shaheen was born in an underprivileged farmer's house in a faraway village. While working on the farmland, his dream of going to school almost ended. However, he continued his studies with his indomitable willpower. Apart from farming with his father, Shaheen continued attending school. Many times, he was about to drop out of school. But after defeating all odds, he became a top freelancer in the world's largest online freelancing marketplace 'Upwork' from an agricultural background. Working from his home, his earning is about 4 to 5 thousand dollars a month which is equivalent to Tk.5 lakh.
The TDM correspondent talked to this successful freelancer. It is known that Shaheen's house is in the Baradap area of Atwari in Panchagarh. He is the only son of Dabirul Islam, a farmer in that area. One of his sisters is disabled. With his sumptuous income, he runs his whole family- parents, two sisters, his wife and children. While going to his house, it is seen that Shaheen is busy with freelancing. A few college students are working in his team.
Talking to The Daily Messenger, Shaheen said, “I had to grow crop with my father. Father did not want me to study. He wanted me to do agricultural work with him. But due to my interest in studies, I overcame all obstacles and became a successful freelancer after finishing college.’’
How to get started as a freelancer
In 2016, Shaheen got admitted in a diploma course at IITB, a private polytechnic institute in Bogura. Then seeing many opportunities of sumptuous and lucrative online income on Facebook and YouTube, the dream of being a freelancer crept into him. But as he did not have a laptop or desktop computer to pursue his career in freelancing. It became hard to proceed with just a smartphone.
He used to learn more about freelancing by watching YouTube only on his phone. But nothing proceeded well without the laptop.
The following year, he came home from Bogura and pressured his father to buy a laptop for him. But his father denied buying an expensive electronic product. But adamant Shaheen started to save some money by doing tuition.
He insisted his father buy a laptop for him using saving and to add some money from their home.
After realizing the situation, his father bought a laptop in installments for Shaheen. His mother and elder sister also insisted his father to buy a laptop from him.
Since the day I got the laptop, he promised that he would do something good with it. Later, he was able to pay the monthly installments of the laptop with the earning he got from tuition.
Then he pursued learning how to earn online. At first, he didn't understand anything. Even he learned how to operate a laptop from one of his roommates named Sourav.
He kept on searching how to browse the internet, how to earn online by searching Google and YouTube. He learned almost everything by 2017.
But he did not get any work. He would send messages to those who could. But he didn't receive any help from them.
Two years passed by. However, he didn't give up. During this period, he continued to learn and practice various skills.
He still recalled his strenuous journey for getting first work at the Upwork. On 26 November in 2018, he finally received a work at the online marketplace Upwork at hourly rate of $3.
The journey begins with that $3. After 11-12 days, the clients assured me that the quality of work is good and they want to provide me with more works. Hearing this, his passion for work increased manifold.
Shaheen said, ‘’I happily agreed. I started working with Upwork. I earned 90 dollars by working 30 hours for that client. They gave me good feedback.’’
Shaheen said that he had to face many problems because he was not good at English. Many clients refused to work as he could not speak English fluently during videoconferencing. Then he started studying hard to become proficient in English. He started practicing by watching YouTube. Now Shaheen can speak in English. This is how he started getting one or two jobs. Work experience gradually increases. They added more feathers of success to his profile.
So far, he has worked with more than three hundred and fifty clients. He earned more than one hundred thousand dollars from Bangladesh. Shaheen is now a top-rated plus freelancer on the world's top marketplace Upwork. His monthly income is 4 to 5 thousand dollars since he is working from home.
Shaheen's Freelancing IT Farm
Shaheen's earnings from freelancing have changed his lot. He built a beautiful house behind the ‘Paris Cinema Hall’ in Atwari. He has built a freelancing IT farm called ‘Techorex’ at home. Interested students from various students of local schools and colleges have been receiving an opportunity to learn and earn from freelancing.
TDM/FMT
