I would recommend (as I fell for that once and never again) never starting a consultancy/services company unless you already have the network to give you a 3 ye

I would recommend (as I fell for that once and never again) never starting a consultancy/services company unless you already have the network to give you a 3 year runway and growth path. Starting this and going out to market your services without having a good pipeline set up before your start (for instance from your previous job / company) can be an extremely painful way to burn out your money and possibly yourself. If you have no network and only $250k and skills you think that are marketable, you'll have a good chance of that 250k being gone and you having done nothing but talking with 'potential clients' which end up in your pipeline at 30-60%. With your runway gone, you have no time to close these prospects and no money coming in. I see it happen so often...