Maybe I didn't express myself clearly enough - this is all about the practicality of starting remoting. I agree with your point of solving business problems - that is obvious and I am a quite a generalist (with certain preferences) when it comes to tech. I am just trying to be realistic here - I don't find it easy to find a job on site and my guess is finding a remote one is way more difficult with all the devs around the world from developing countries knocking down salaries. I thought most companies tend to hire with focus on certain experience?
Low-end competition on places like UpWork is mostly piecework, doing small and very specific jobs at sometimes extremely low rates. I don't compete in that market and I don't advise it.
If you want to freelance remotely I advise lining up clients before you start traveling or living abroad, because it's harder to do that remotely. Unless you like churning your customers or doing piecework, you need to aim for long-term relationships. I focus on small- and medium-size companies that don't have in-house IT/programming staff, they are used to outsourcing already. They often have a backlog of work and a history of bad experience with freelancers, so if you gain their trust and show an interest in their business (not just what tech they happen to use) you can find plenty of work.
If you want to find a startup that's hiring remote staff there are online job boards specifically for that.
The business problems I address in my freelancing is taking over legacy applications (usually web sites, and often not very old or even finished) where the original developers have left. This happens a lot -- small businesses are terrible at putting together requirements and specs, terrible at hiring, and don't usually attract the kind of people who want to get hired at Google and Snapchat. I only need a handful of clients to keep myself flush.
My blog (see my profile) has some more specific articles you may find helpful.
Couldn't agree more about the UpWork, though I've managed to mostly get long-term contracts there. The rate was far from competitive, but it's nice when you're just getting started or still on college.
I avoid it now though, most of the jobs posted there nowadays are just trash. Wouldn't recommend anyone experienced to waste time there.
About half word of mouth and referrals. I work through an agency now and get customers through them. Once in a while I get a lead/customer from articles on my blog.
Every business has a backlog of bugs and enhancements they don't have resources for, so it's not so much a matter of finding them as it is persuading them you can help. Listening and understanding their business problems is the key.
Rewriting is rarely a good business decision. Companies have already invested time and money and changed their internal processes. I maintain and fix what they have. If they decide to replace it I am usually the first developer they offer the job to.
