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100% agree, if you're 100% utilized than you're working for your business not on your business. I have three other pieces of advice. One you need to decide wh

100% agree, if you're 100% utilized than you're working for your business not on your business. I have three other pieces of advice. One you need to decide whether you want to run a consultancy or be a consultant. The first means scaling by hiring more people the second means scaling by increasing your rate. You can make more money doing the first but your job will eventually be 100% account management and sales. The second piece of advice is you need to come up with a business plan. The most important part of this is an actual plan for predictably acquiring new customers. Third general piece of advice is 98% of the time being a general software consulting company is a shitty business. A good first step is pick a specific problem and/or a specific industry. "We build custom CRMs for enterprise sales organizations.", "we do custom ERP work for Oil & Gas" or "We help startups scale Postgres databases" are all much better businesses than "we write software". This is for two reasons. One you have a specific product you're selling to a specific customer which will help immensely with sales/marketing. Two the margins are much better.

arcturus17 4y ago
This is all real, down-to-earth advice that corresponds with my observations after three years doing this. > A good first step is pick a specific problem and/or a specific industry To add, I prefer thinking of three levels of specialization: 1. By vertical or industry (oil and gas) 2. By problem or technical domain (user interfaces, data pipelines, etc.) 3. By platform (Salesforce, React, etc) 2 and 3 could be conflated, but I like to separate them. Your specialization can cut across dimensions and at a small scale it's likely the best (eg: "we build custom Salesforces apps for sales processes in oil and gas") > You can make more money doing the first but your job will eventually be 100% account management and sales. There is not two ways about this, but emphasis on eventually... I think up to a certain scale you will be able to combine technical and management - although arguably the scale is much smaller than we'd like to think.
- ggwp99 4y ago
  I agree specification is better, but the issue is that I am afraid that would limit my clients especially that the first client is the hardest to find. I am working though on trying to be a "general" consulting company with a short term focus on one niche.
ArtWomb 4y ago
Wands choose the wizards. And to some degree, your niche chooses you. The tech stack I built for video games: gcloud, chromeos, android vulkan, admob. Is essentially a "native mobile ads" platform. It was only when clients requested I serve ads that I realized what I had built! Now it unlocks free cash flow potential. And I'm working on my own private buyers list, inventory management, real time bidding exchange & auction tech ;)

arcturus17 4y ago

This is all real, down-to-earth advice that corresponds with my observations after three years doing this. > A good first step is pick a specific problem and/or a specific industry To add, I prefer thinking of three levels of specialization: 1. By vertical or industry (oil and gas) 2. By problem or technical domain (user interfaces, data pipelines, etc.) 3. By platform (Salesforce, React, etc) 2 and 3 could be conflated, but I like to separate them. Your specialization can cut across dimensions and at a small scale it's likely the best (eg: "we build custom Salesforces apps for sales processes in oil and gas") > You can make more money doing the first but your job will eventually be 100% account management and sales. There is not two ways about this, but emphasis on eventually... I think up to a certain scale you will be able to combine technical and management - although arguably the scale is much smaller than we'd like to think.

ggwp99 4y ago
I agree specification is better, but the issue is that I am afraid that would limit my clients especially that the first client is the hardest to find. I am working though on trying to be a "general" consulting company with a short term focus on one niche.

ArtWomb 4y ago

Wands choose the wizards. And to some degree, your niche chooses you. The tech stack I built for video games: gcloud, chromeos, android vulkan, admob. Is essentially a "native mobile ads" platform. It was only when clients requested I serve ads that I realized what I had built! Now it unlocks free cash flow potential. And I'm working on my own private buyers list, inventory management, real time bidding exchange & auction tech ;)