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I don't understand some of this passive hate against consulting. Consulting could also be your startup. I started consulting a year and a half back. And i've te

I don't understand some of this passive hate against consulting. Consulting could also be your startup. I started consulting a year and a half back. And i've teamed up with half a dozen other devs, got a person to help me manage stuff, and over a dozen running projects at any time. It's hectic since i'm touching each project right now in some way, but i'm scaling back and starting to learn how to delegate better. The advantages are, that i was profitable from day 1. Although i've always wanted to do a product startup, but the point is i don't have to. Now i have sufficient lee-way on time/savings to do my own product startups. But one caveat is that you're more likely to favour money in hand(i.e. more clients consulting) rather than "hope money"(i.e. a successful product). So you have to be prepared to step out of the circle and do what you started out to do i.e. if a product was your aim. So let's see how this pans out in a year from now for me.

nerfhammer 15y ago
Getting a bit OT but how were you able to expand your client base so quickly?
- sidmitra 15y ago
  To be honest, i just accidently sort of fell onto it. There was no plan, no "execution" or even an idea. But some things that helped me build a portfolio: 1. Pure luck - i got a nice little project starting out, which had a nice, unique design and where i became a lead and got a chance to do some neat stuff. They also got some neat press, which added weight to my portfolio. 2. Used Elance etc for what they are, i.e. lead building. Initially i was the lowest bid, since i could afford to be... just to get some links to showcase. Also, i moved back to living with my parents, thought it's the norm in India. 3. I was everywhere, wherever i could find a lead. It didn't matter if i wasn't interested in the project, although i focused only on django, python gigs. I just shot a mail to get some eyeballs. I would look for startups that needed full-time people and sent them an email if they were open to freelancers. That sometimes lead to long-term projects which are still continuing. Infact i still spend a couple of hours everyday on stuff like this. But my hit-ratio has definitely increased, out of every 10 emails i get atleast 5 responses. 4. I started my rate at $20/hr :-|, and kept increasing it after one or two projects. 5. I didn't really sleep much initially, or could only manage ~4-5 hours every 2 days. But i was working equivalent to 3-4 people, and thus was building a portfolio at a double pace. Although it seems obvious in hindsight, but i realized late that this wasn't gonna scale up much. 5. I collaborated with some offshore(i'm in india, so i mean offshore as in other 3rd world countries). It took a while to find the right sort of people, since most of the freelancers out there are not good. They don't have a sense of urgency, and closure on projects. They don't meet deadlines, and disappear after a few days. I usually got a constant string of excuses like hard-disk failure, laptop screen busted, grandfather died. But i found some good devs along the way. So i started delegating more stuff to them, and increasing my bandwidth. I'm not sure if those points are of any help, since your mileage may vary!

nerfhammer 15y ago

Getting a bit OT but how were you able to expand your client base so quickly?

sidmitra 15y ago
To be honest, i just accidently sort of fell onto it. There was no plan, no "execution" or even an idea. But some things that helped me build a portfolio: 1. Pure luck - i got a nice little project starting out, which had a nice, unique design and where i became a lead and got a chance to do some neat stuff. They also got some neat press, which added weight to my portfolio. 2. Used Elance etc for what they are, i.e. lead building. Initially i was the lowest bid, since i could afford to be... just to get some links to showcase. Also, i moved back to living with my parents, thought it's the norm in India. 3. I was everywhere, wherever i could find a lead. It didn't matter if i wasn't interested in the project, although i focused only on django, python gigs. I just shot a mail to get some eyeballs. I would look for startups that needed full-time people and sent them an email if they were open to freelancers. That sometimes lead to long-term projects which are still continuing. Infact i still spend a couple of hours everyday on stuff like this. But my hit-ratio has definitely increased, out of every 10 emails i get atleast 5 responses. 4. I started my rate at $20/hr :-|, and kept increasing it after one or two projects. 5. I didn't really sleep much initially, or could only manage ~4-5 hours every 2 days. But i was working equivalent to 3-4 people, and thus was building a portfolio at a double pace. Although it seems obvious in hindsight, but i realized late that this wasn't gonna scale up much. 5. I collaborated with some offshore(i'm in india, so i mean offshore as in other 3rd world countries). It took a while to find the right sort of people, since most of the freelancers out there are not good. They don't have a sense of urgency, and closure on projects. They don't meet deadlines, and disappear after a few days. I usually got a constant string of excuses like hard-disk failure, laptop screen busted, grandfather died. But i found some good devs along the way. So i started delegating more stuff to them, and increasing my bandwidth. I'm not sure if those points are of any help, since your mileage may vary!