4 ms·

Consulting is a pie-eating contest where the reward is more pie. If you're good, you get just enough work to keep you from doing something else. I know I'm not

Consulting is a pie-eating contest where the reward is more pie. If you're good, you get just enough work to keep you from doing something else. I know I'm not alone here.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
btilly 17y ago
Reduce your personal expenses and you can acquire a surplus. If you let your personal expenses expand to meet your cash flow, you'll never have excess cash flow to do with as you please.
jasonkester 17y ago
Indeed, that's essentially another way to rewrite what I said above, though perhaps a bit of a pessimistic one. If you're just squeaking by, getting enough consulting work to pay the bills, then your schedule is likely pretty open most of the time. Unless you're spending 28 hours a week chasing work, you should have plenty of time for entrepreneurial stuff. And of course, if you're working 20+ hours a week on billable consulting work and just squeaking by, you're simply not charging enough.
- commonsense 17y ago
  > getting enough consulting work to pay the bills "Consulting" does not just pay the bills. You're thinking of freelancing for dipshit entrepreneurs who think $10k will buy them the next facebook.
  - gridspy 17y ago
    $10k might very well buy the next facebook, in the startup stages. It wasn't always this big. All it takes is the right idea and some money to pay the bills.
    - commonsense 17y ago
      > $10k might very well buy the next facebook Get the fuck out of here. The amount of engineering the founders put into facebook far outpaces $10k. You're living in a fantasy land.
      - gridspy 17y ago
        My point is that those founders didn't draw a salary until well after they had a value proposition for investors. Or to put it another way, Stephen and I have put > $400,000 of hours into Gridspy, but our costs are limited to board prototyping, outsourced layout and web hosting. For most internet startups, costs are perhaps $10,000 per founder for 3 months + hosting (perhaps $100/mo until there is enough traffic to drive ads). It only gets expensive when you need to bring in contracting help. That is why it pays to be a switched on hacker in this game. Remember, the giants weren't always giants. As they transitioned to giants, there were doing it with VC money - not founder's cash. Don't look at the destination and get put off. Take it one step at a time. You can probably get to traction with $10k.
        gridspy 17y ago
        One further point. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that facebook is burning through $1m per day now. http://www.google.co.nz/#hl=en&q=facebook+burn+rate http://www.google.co.nz/#hl=en&q=facebook+burn+rate would seem to agree with me ($200m per year perhaps).

Consulting is a pie-eating contest where the reward is more pie. If you're good, you get just enough work to keep you from doing something else. I know I'm not alone here.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

btilly 17y ago

Reduce your personal expenses and you can acquire a surplus. If you let your personal expenses expand to meet your cash flow, you'll never have excess cash flow to do with as you please.

jasonkester 17y ago

Indeed, that's essentially another way to rewrite what I said above, though perhaps a bit of a pessimistic one. If you're just squeaking by, getting enough consulting work to pay the bills, then your schedule is likely pretty open most of the time. Unless you're spending 28 hours a week chasing work, you should have plenty of time for entrepreneurial stuff. And of course, if you're working 20+ hours a week on billable consulting work and just squeaking by, you're simply not charging enough.

commonsense 17y ago
> getting enough consulting work to pay the bills "Consulting" does not just pay the bills. You're thinking of freelancing for dipshit entrepreneurs who think $10k will buy them the next facebook.
- gridspy 17y ago
  $10k might very well buy the next facebook, in the startup stages. It wasn't always this big. All it takes is the right idea and some money to pay the bills.
  - commonsense 17y ago
    > $10k might very well buy the next facebook Get the fuck out of here. The amount of engineering the founders put into facebook far outpaces $10k. You're living in a fantasy land.
    - gridspy 17y ago
      My point is that those founders didn't draw a salary until well after they had a value proposition for investors. Or to put it another way, Stephen and I have put > $400,000 of hours into Gridspy, but our costs are limited to board prototyping, outsourced layout and web hosting. For most internet startups, costs are perhaps $10,000 per founder for 3 months + hosting (perhaps $100/mo until there is enough traffic to drive ads). It only gets expensive when you need to bring in contracting help. That is why it pays to be a switched on hacker in this game. Remember, the giants weren't always giants. As they transitioned to giants, there were doing it with VC money - not founder's cash. Don't look at the destination and get put off. Take it one step at a time. You can probably get to traction with $10k.
      - gridspy 17y ago
        One further point. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that facebook is burning through $1m per day now. http://www.google.co.nz/#hl=en&q=facebook+burn+rate http://www.google.co.nz/#hl=en&q=facebook+burn+rate would seem to agree with me ($200m per year perhaps).