I’m a freelancer but I’m not on Upwork. IMO the nature of your job may be a problem. From a top-rated devs perspective, a recurring long-term job would take precedence over a one-off issue for a new client. If you’re advertising your jobs as one-offs where the freelancer could net a few 100 dollars at max, your work is not high-priority for the dev. Maybe try reframing your job post as a long-term job with a fixed weekly payment plus a variable amount of pay depending on the workload. Something like a retainer?

Also, the regional filter seems stupid to me. Freelancers working from places like Eastern Europe and SE Asia are great. I’ll admit that there’s a lot more low-quality devs in SE Asia, but it’s pretty easy to filter them out. If there’s one thing you can learn from your experience, it’s that you’ll have to filter out people regardless of their location.

You might also want to specify what you expect from your partner in this post.

You might also want to specify what you expect from your partner in this post.

They are entitled to 5% of dividends. If OP owns 95% of the company, he decides whether the company pays out any dividends so finally it’s up to OP. But all of these matters should be clarified before they sign any documents.