Can you work on a Power BI project?
Four years ago, this Twitter DM appeared in my inbox. I stared at it for thirty seconds, my palms sweating. I had built dashboards before, sure—but for myself, for practice. Never for money. Never with a real client's expectations hanging over my head. I typed back: "Yes, absolutely." Then I closed my laptop and thought to myself: "What did I just agree to?"
.
That moment changed everything for me, and what I learned from that experience contradicts almost everything you've been told about landing your first client. Here's the controversial part that nobody wants to admit: you don't get clients because you're skilled. You get them because you're visible. I've seen brilliant analysts with no clients and average ones booked solid for months. The difference? One was hiding behind their portfolio, waiting to be discovered. The other was everywhere, impossible to ignore.
.
1. Building Your Proof of Work
.
The first thing I did that actually mattered was picking one niche and going deep into it. I chose logistics and supply chain, but yours could be anything—retail, healthcare, finance, real estate. I've always been an advocate of this approach: focus on one tool, master it, and use it to solve niche problems. It doesn't matter if that tool is Excel, Power BI, Tableau, SQL, or Python. What matters is that you pick one and become known for solving specific problems with it.
.
Once I had my niche, I built two to three dashboards solving specific, painful problems. Not generic "Sales Dashboard" projects that every other beginner was building, but solutions with clear value propositions like "How retail managers can reduce stockouts by 30%" or "How logistics companies can identify delivery bottlenecks in real-time." Here's something that might surprise you: I made them ugly but functional. Nobody actually cares about your gradient backgrounds or perfect color schemes. They care about insights that help them make better decisions or save money.
.
Every time I finished a dashboard, I posted screenshots with detailed captions explaining the problem I solved. Not just "Here's my new dashboard," but "Here's how this dashboard helps warehouse managers identify which products are sitting too long and costing them money in storage fees." The more specific you are about the problem and the solution, the more it resonates with people facing that exact problem.
.
2. Documenting Like Your Career Depends On It
.
The second critical piece was writing technical articles consistently. I committed to publishing two articles per month on Medium, and I stuck to that schedule religiously. Those articles are still working for me today—some of them get 100 to 200 reads monthly, three years after I wrote them. You can find my Power BI and data-related articles on my Medium at mubarbianalytics.medium.com, though nowadays my new articles live on my website at mubardauda.com.
.
The format I used was simple but effective: "How I [solved problem] using [tool]." For example, "How I automated inventory alerts for a ₦50M business using Power BI" or "How I reduced report generation time from 3 hours to 5 minutes." Each article followed a clear structure: Problem, Solution, Results. This made them scannable and valuable for people who were facing similar challenges.
.
Pick whatever platform works for you—Medium, Hashnode, LinkedIn, your own blog—but pick one and stick with it. Consistency matters far more than perfection. Those articles became my portfolio, my resume, and my sales pitch all rolled into one. They demonstrated that I could solve real problems and communicate technical concepts clearly, which is exactly what clients care about.
.
3. Being Strategically Everywhere
.
The third strategy felt uncomfortable at first, but it worked incredibly well: I became strategically annoying. Every day, I made it a point to comment meaningfully on five posts in my niche. These weren't generic "Great post!" comments but thoughtful responses that added value or shared my own related experiences. I shared every learning win publicly: "Finally figured out DAX measures for YoY growth—here's what clicked for me." I documented all my struggles, the bugs I encountered, every single piece of progress, no matter how small it seemed.
.
I also made sure to attend at least one local data meetup or conference, even if it was virtual. The goal wasn't just networking in the traditional sense. The goal was simple: when someone needed Power BI help, I wanted my name to pop into their head immediately because they'd seen me everywhere, consistently providing value and sharing knowledge.
.
The DM That Changed Everything
.
For six months, I posted consistently across my blog, Twitter threads, and LinkedIn. My engagement was terrible—twenty likes maximum on most posts. I almost quit during the first month when it felt like I was shouting into the void. But things started picking up after the third month. Slowly but surely, people began paying attention.
.
Then the DM came. A client had seen one of my articles about automating reports. He didn't ask about my years of experience or where I went to school. He didn't care about my credentials. He cared that I understood his problem deeply and could articulate a clear solution in plain language. The project was for a sales performance dashboard. Was I nervous? Absolutely. My imposter syndrome was screaming. But did I deliver? Yes, because I had built enough foundation through all those practice projects I'd been documenting publicly.
.
What Most People Get Wrong
.
Here's where most aspiring Power BI developers completely miss the mark: they build a portfolio and wait. They take courses and wait. They spend months "preparing" and wait for someone to discover them. Stop waiting. That's not how this works anymore.
.
Instead, start with this exact sequence: pick your niche today. Build your first problem-specific dashboard this week. Post it with a detailed problem and solution breakdown. Write your first article explaining how you built it and what you learned. Share that article everywhere—LinkedIn, Twitter, relevant Facebook groups, Slack communities, Discord servers. Then repeat the entire process with dashboard number two. Keep posting, keep commenting, keep showing up even when engagement is low and you feel like giving up.
.
One of my favorite quotes has always guided my approach:
"Be focused and prepared, for success comes to those who are focused and prepared when opportunity arrives."
Mubar Dauda
You can't control when the opportunity will come, but you can control whether you're ready and whether you're visible enough to be found when it does.
.
4. Building Solutions, Not Just Dashboards
.
There's a critical distinction that separates beginners from professionals, and it took me embarrassingly long to figure this out: don't build dashboards. Build solutions. Nobody pays for a "sales dashboard." That's a commodity that dozens of people can create. They pay for "the dashboard that helped me identify why our Lagos sales dropped 40% in Q3 and what specific actions we needed to take to fix it." See the difference? One is a tool. The other is a solution to a painful, expensive problem.
.
When you position your work as solutions to specific business problems rather than technical demonstrations of your skills, everything changes. Your portfolio becomes a collection of case studies showing business impact. Your articles become how-to guides for solving real problems. Your credibility skyrockets because you're speaking the language of business outcomes, not just technical features.
.
The Uncomfortable Truth Nobody Wants to Hear
.
Your portfolio doesn't matter if nobody knows it exists. That fancy GitHub repository you spent weeks organizing? It's completely useless if you have three followers. Those Udemy certificates you collected? They won't DM you with project opportunities. But that article you wrote at 11 PM explaining exactly how you solved a specific, painful problem? That's working for you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It's building trust with people you've never met while you sleep.
.
Here's the actual content formula that got me clients, and I tracked this carefully: sixty percent of my content was tactical breakdowns with titles like "Here's how I built X" or "Here's how I solved Y." Thirty percent was lessons learned and reflections like "What I wish I knew about Power BI before my first client" or "The mistakes I made in my first three projects." The final ten percent was hot takes and controversial opinions like "Stop building generic dashboards—here's why" or "Why most Power BI portfolios are useless."
.
Your Action Plan Starting Today
If you're serious about landing your first Power BI gig, here's what you need to do today—not tomorrow, not next week, today. Open LinkedIn or Twitter right now. Write one post about the last Power BI challenge you solved, no matter how small it seems. Use this format: describe the problem, explain what you tried, share what actually worked, and include the lesson you learned. Hit post even if it feels incomplete or imperfect. Then tomorrow, do it again. And the day after that, do it again.
.
Consistency compounds in ways that sporadic perfection never will. Each post builds on the previous one. Each article reinforces your expertise. Each comment you leave expands your network. Over time, this creates an unstoppable momentum that brings opportunities to you instead of forcing you to chase them.
.
My Biggest Regret
.
Looking back, my biggest regret is simple: I didn't start this six months earlier. I wasted so much time "getting ready," perfecting my portfolio, taking one more course, waiting until I felt completely prepared. But here's what I learned the hard way: your first client won't come from being perfect. They'll come from being present, visible, and consistent.
.
The opportunities are out there right now. The clients exist. The projects are waiting to be done. The only question is whether they can find you and whether they trust you enough to take a chance. Everything I've shared in this article is designed to answer both of those questions with a resounding yes.
.
So here's my question for you:
- What's your move?
- What niche are you targeting?
- What's the first problem-specific dashboard you're going to build?
- What's the first article you're going to write?
.
Don't just read this and move on. Take action today. Start building in public. Your future self—the one who's landed multiple high-paying Power BI gigs and built a thriving freelance career—will thank you for having the courage to begin.
.
Want more insights on building a profitable Power BI and data analytics career? Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter, or visit my website at mubardauda.com where I share technical articles, case studies, and strategies for monetizing your data skills.
