I think such a business may succeed. Your biggest challenge will be what I'll call the "verification problem": How can a customer verify that you've provided th

I think such a business may succeed. Your biggest challenge will be what I'll call the "verification problem": How can a customer verify that you've provided them with a "good" product for their money? Consider selling programming services. The client can request an application or website with certain functionality, and you use your superior expertise to create that functionality. Even though the client can't code, their experience from using the application/website can tell them that you delivered the goods. Knowledge that is used to support strategic business decisions is not so easy to verify, mainly because it doesn't have consequences that can be directly experienced by non-experts. So how do people get around this? Large consulting firms (McKinsey, BCG, Bain, etc.) spend considerable resources building their reputations, alumni networks (= potential clients), etc. Small consulting firms usually build their reputations in local business and social circles, relying on repeat business and referrals. Concretely, I'd suggest thinking about one or more of: (i) specific, rare domain expertise, (ii) finding one or a small handful of clients who can become comfortable hiring you repeatedly, (iii) research services that can be delivered in the form of data or code such that someone less expert than you can verify the quality.