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How do you build a team of the "best in their field" on demand? Recruiting a team takes time... There's so little money to be made on billing the time running

How do you build a team of the "best in their field" on demand? Recruiting a team takes time... There's so little money to be made on billing the time running a team as opposed to taking a slice of the team's time. Is your team just a loose collection of other consultants? How do you guarantee they have time available? How do you deal with the huge amounts of funds you have coming in and out of your books without any sort of net on that?

reeses 13y ago
I live in the Bay Area, so there are enough people with a strong skill set that are happy to shift hours to work on fun projects. I'm also a big fan of "you have 90% of this nailed and the other 10% will get you another service you can offer." Plus, I like these people, and I like working with them. I've found that telling someone "I don't take a slice of your time" is another one of those things that demonstrates that I'm going the extra mile for them. I don't like agencies that take 20% for no value-add, especially when I'm actually bringing someone in to help me out. I do pass through the $x/week, which has a nominal cost in time (15m/p if I'm slow), but I also make sure both sides of the relationship (engineer, client) are happy, on track, and continuing to make progress, and I handle almost all client visits. This is billable time. Generally, an hour or two of overhead with each person is more than enough time to make it worthwhile. Sometimes they spike and need help, which of course involves more time. I pull from a number of people that I've met, been impressed by, and dragged with me like a plague from place to place over the past 15-20 years. They're all consultants (or companies of consultants) and if one person isn't available, they've always been willing to put in 5-10h/week to advise someone else who wants to master a skill set or solution domain. In addition, I've brought people into a place where they can continue to contribute after I lose interest and move on. I'm probably the least mercenary of the group. I have enough stuff going on that I don't like to put in the insane hours. However, a lot of these guys will slam through 80+h/w to build the FU account.

reeses 13y ago

I live in the Bay Area, so there are enough people with a strong skill set that are happy to shift hours to work on fun projects. I'm also a big fan of "you have 90% of this nailed and the other 10% will get you another service you can offer." Plus, I like these people, and I like working with them. I've found that telling someone "I don't take a slice of your time" is another one of those things that demonstrates that I'm going the extra mile for them. I don't like agencies that take 20% for no value-add, especially when I'm actually bringing someone in to help me out. I do pass through the $x/week, which has a nominal cost in time (15m/p if I'm slow), but I also make sure both sides of the relationship (engineer, client) are happy, on track, and continuing to make progress, and I handle almost all client visits. This is billable time. Generally, an hour or two of overhead with each person is more than enough time to make it worthwhile. Sometimes they spike and need help, which of course involves more time. I pull from a number of people that I've met, been impressed by, and dragged with me like a plague from place to place over the past 15-20 years. They're all consultants (or companies of consultants) and if one person isn't available, they've always been willing to put in 5-10h/week to advise someone else who wants to master a skill set or solution domain. In addition, I've brought people into a place where they can continue to contribute after I lose interest and move on. I'm probably the least mercenary of the group. I have enough stuff going on that I don't like to put in the insane hours. However, a lot of these guys will slam through 80+h/w to build the FU account.