Out of curiosity, what kinds of businesses were you submitting your portfolio to, and what kind of work were you finding freelance from that? Asking as someone looking at this route but not sure where to start.
The slightly less abbreviated version is that I did a bit on upwork and eventually freelancer.com. I found postings there were far more forgiving than trying on indeed or similar sites which basically just shut me out 100% of the time. It took a bit of time and taking some menial tasks but I was able to build up a profile and and some solid references especially from 2 bigger contracts that were quite involved
Initial jobs were fairly simple automation tasks and from there moved towards my niche which is data analytics/data science. I was given the advice to try to pick a niche and stick to it rather than just do whatever and jump all over the place so I tried to stick to that. It was helpful I think; in the initial stages when I didn’t stick to that I ended up researching and learning a bunch of stuff that wasn’t really relevant to my end goals. Hth
Writings about Python on the Web, with a focus on PyScript and Pyodide. Also occassional notes about other technical projects (mostly microcontroller-based LED controls) and amateur radio.
