I've frequently been paid $1k/hour regularly for insights on expert networks on how to grow companies, manufacturing know-how that's inherently rare based on my

I've frequently been paid $1k/hour regularly for insights on expert networks on how to grow companies, manufacturing know-how that's inherently rare based on my specialty, and more. I've had companies reach out from all over the world, but I'll tell you, when I first moved to San Francisco, I lived in my car for ~2 months, then in a bunk bed in a run down hacker house, and was more than ecstatic to make 30 USD/hour. This post would be incomplete without mentioning that sometimes it takes many failures in a niche to develop great depth in it. One area of expertise that regularly has been paying me for 1-2 hours every month for the past few months is new manufacturing plant startups or relocations. I'm one of a handful of engineers with know how and experience in material flows and operations research. I had one company buy 10 hours of my time and flew me out of the country to help them navigate a facility location based on an ever modulating set of market variables. When I studied polymer-textile-fiber engineering and operations research though, it was never exotic, I didn't want to work in the middle of nowhere, but was utterly fascinated with the subject matter. I'm thankful for expert networks, my one qualm is that some networks like GLG etc ask for resumes, but I think that's the wrong approach. I really love sites like clarity.fm where you can just o-auth quickly and tell your story. Generally, "game knows game" is something I believe in, I also believe marketing and brand don't always correlate with substance. I love finding people with performant dark horse talent who should be paid 1k/hour on expert networks but never pass the "branded" corporate filter of the sites themselves.