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You sound much more a freelance developer or a single person development agency than a software consultant, I guess we simply describe those roles differently a

You sound much more a freelance developer or a single person development agency than a software consultant, I guess we simply describe those roles differently and don't assume the same thing when talking about "software consultancy". The thing you are describing sounds like the first phase of a project where you are gathering the requirements, in a one-to-one business relationship with a single customer. "Sell before you build" as far as I understand is usually used in a one-to-many scenario, where you start selling (or better, marketing) a product before building it.

SonOfLilit 4y ago
As of today, I have an employee, so definitely not a one person agency anymore. And it's very rare that I'm engaged to write a complete system, because I'm quite expensive. However, from the way I approached the answer you can easily tell I'm a software person and not an MBA/salesman by birth. Usually I work with startup CTOs (which I was myself until half a year ago) to solve very complex business or technology problems or support the design and development of a complex project. For example, you might engage me to perform design reviews with your team, or to dive into the code of a system written in a language nobody in the company knows and add a complex feature that sends ripples across the codebase, or to design a critical system and then write the most complex module myself and stay involved enough in the development of the rest that I can ensure what the team delivers is what the organization actually needs. I really am a consultant, just a software consultant, not a "management consultant", like McKinsey or Deloitte. "Sell before you build" means before you waste resources building something, have expectant customers waiting for them to exist, with money already committed to buying it once it exists. There are many ways to structure this commercially. Of course you should sell one-to-many, not just one-to-one. Many times the first thing I tell a potential customer on a sales call is "wait, you want to build this before you have paying customers? Why take all this risk? Go out and sell it (or market it, if it's a B2C product) and then build it without the product-market-fit risk!" I then go into the many strategies that exist for selling things before they are built, as they apply to their specific industry and business. This can save my customers millions of dollars or years of their lives if they're at the first stages of a startup. This kind of thing is a major reason I can charge consulting rates and not freelancing rates, and is essential business advice that every serious entrepreneur either learned the easy way or the hard way.
- 01acheru 4y ago
  We are converging :) I guess it is just a matter of terms, I would have never called what you just described as a "software consultancy" since you mentioned building, developing, code reviewing and such terms a lot of times. By talking to you I understand that the meaning I give to the word "consultancy" is not as universal as I have thought. For me consultants never dive into anything "practical", they limit themselves to aspects of the software that stay all around the actual development. From my point of view you I would call you an experienced freelance developer, or a development agency (congrats on growing BTW, going from 0 to 1 employee is a big step). Mind that developing is not simply coding, so IMHO you are still a developer even if you "stay involved enough in the development of the rest that I can ensure what the team delivers is what the organization actually needs". You happen to advice your customers about stuff not strictly related to the actual development process, and that would be a consultancy, but it doesn't sound from all your comments that this is your main focus so from my strictly personal point of view I wouldn't call you a consultant. Developer: code, output, stuff that works and implements some business logic. Consultant: advices, indications, expectations... and then it is up to someone else to make it work. (and they don't care if ever, how, when, why, who) Anyway don't take it personally, and by the way I didn't mean to be disrespectful towards you. Maybe my first comment was a little harsh, so I'm sorry if you felt it as an attack on your person or your professionalism :D
  - SonOfLilit 4y ago
    I think your use of "consultant" is less correct but closer to the common perception. Consultants that deliver measurable KPIs and not just heaps or documents are less common. I'm an uncommon type of consultant, but definitely not a development agency or software freelancer. I help my clients build things, but I don't usually build things for my clients, as that would be too expensive for them.

SonOfLilit 4y ago

As of today, I have an employee, so definitely not a one person agency anymore. And it's very rare that I'm engaged to write a complete system, because I'm quite expensive. However, from the way I approached the answer you can easily tell I'm a software person and not an MBA/salesman by birth. Usually I work with startup CTOs (which I was myself until half a year ago) to solve very complex business or technology problems or support the design and development of a complex project. For example, you might engage me to perform design reviews with your team, or to dive into the code of a system written in a language nobody in the company knows and add a complex feature that sends ripples across the codebase, or to design a critical system and then write the most complex module myself and stay involved enough in the development of the rest that I can ensure what the team delivers is what the organization actually needs. I really am a consultant, just a software consultant, not a "management consultant", like McKinsey or Deloitte. "Sell before you build" means before you waste resources building something, have expectant customers waiting for them to exist, with money already committed to buying it once it exists. There are many ways to structure this commercially. Of course you should sell one-to-many, not just one-to-one. Many times the first thing I tell a potential customer on a sales call is "wait, you want to build this before you have paying customers? Why take all this risk? Go out and sell it (or market it, if it's a B2C product) and then build it without the product-market-fit risk!" I then go into the many strategies that exist for selling things before they are built, as they apply to their specific industry and business. This can save my customers millions of dollars or years of their lives if they're at the first stages of a startup. This kind of thing is a major reason I can charge consulting rates and not freelancing rates, and is essential business advice that every serious entrepreneur either learned the easy way or the hard way.

01acheru 4y ago
We are converging :) I guess it is just a matter of terms, I would have never called what you just described as a "software consultancy" since you mentioned building, developing, code reviewing and such terms a lot of times. By talking to you I understand that the meaning I give to the word "consultancy" is not as universal as I have thought. For me consultants never dive into anything "practical", they limit themselves to aspects of the software that stay all around the actual development. From my point of view you I would call you an experienced freelance developer, or a development agency (congrats on growing BTW, going from 0 to 1 employee is a big step). Mind that developing is not simply coding, so IMHO you are still a developer even if you "stay involved enough in the development of the rest that I can ensure what the team delivers is what the organization actually needs". You happen to advice your customers about stuff not strictly related to the actual development process, and that would be a consultancy, but it doesn't sound from all your comments that this is your main focus so from my strictly personal point of view I wouldn't call you a consultant. Developer: code, output, stuff that works and implements some business logic. Consultant: advices, indications, expectations... and then it is up to someone else to make it work. (and they don't care if ever, how, when, why, who) Anyway don't take it personally, and by the way I didn't mean to be disrespectful towards you. Maybe my first comment was a little harsh, so I'm sorry if you felt it as an attack on your person or your professionalism :D
- SonOfLilit 4y ago
  I think your use of "consultant" is less correct but closer to the common perception. Consultants that deliver measurable KPIs and not just heaps or documents are less common. I'm an uncommon type of consultant, but definitely not a development agency or software freelancer. I help my clients build things, but I don't usually build things for my clients, as that would be too expensive for them.