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Okay, assuming you are smart, skilled, work hard, lucky, organized etc this is the one piece of strategic advice that will deliver the most value if you start a

Okay, assuming you are smart, skilled, work hard, lucky, organized etc this is the one piece of strategic advice that will deliver the most value if you start a consulting practice: Define your niche as narrowly as possible. I know it sounds counterintuitive but it works wonders. You can read crossing the chasm or just try it. You’re not a tech consultant, you’re not a crypto consultant, you’re not even a bitcoin consultant, you might be something like the best person to document the ICO process for the investment community in Europe. Because there is a lot of competition for the former but you should basically own your market.

Roark66 7y ago
This.Exactly. Many years ago when virtualisation first appeared on the market I worked for a business that marketed themselves as "Windows P2V experts". We got lots of jobs from clients that had in-house IT depts, external consultancies contracted in permanently etc. The value we brought was that there was this one large job that needed to be done, the business benefit was very clearly demonstrable, once we did that job we were no longer a threat for the in house IT or the general consultancy as we only did that one job. We were also responsible for the outcome and we supported the virtual infrastructure until the other guys got trained up on it. We also did very similar stuff many times so we knew exactly what to expect, what can fail and how to fix it etc. We had the satisfaction of knowing we're doing our niche task well. This was a very good job for me back then. Now I prefer to travel less and work remotely, but back then I enjoyed it a lot. I would recommend finding a good niche and getting really good at it to anyone in our industry. Assuming you retain the ability to swap that niche every few years if necessary. The industry changes continuously.

Roark66 7y ago

This.Exactly. Many years ago when virtualisation first appeared on the market I worked for a business that marketed themselves as "Windows P2V experts". We got lots of jobs from clients that had in-house IT depts, external consultancies contracted in permanently etc. The value we brought was that there was this one large job that needed to be done, the business benefit was very clearly demonstrable, once we did that job we were no longer a threat for the in house IT or the general consultancy as we only did that one job. We were also responsible for the outcome and we supported the virtual infrastructure until the other guys got trained up on it. We also did very similar stuff many times so we knew exactly what to expect, what can fail and how to fix it etc. We had the satisfaction of knowing we're doing our niche task well. This was a very good job for me back then. Now I prefer to travel less and work remotely, but back then I enjoyed it a lot. I would recommend finding a good niche and getting really good at it to anyone in our industry. Assuming you retain the ability to swap that niche every few years if necessary. The industry changes continuously.