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Just curious, are you a consultant yourself? If so, could you elaborate what "doing it right" means?

jacquesm 12y ago
Even doing it 'a little bit right' should net you well in excess of 100K 'credits' per year. Doing it right, anywhere from 200K to 350K. Especially if you take the GP at his word and do a bit of product development for yourself. Mind you, it's not 'free money', it's really hard work.
karmajunkie 12y ago
Won't speak for GP, but to me it means: - charging what you're worth to your client, not what you think you'd pay; (made this mistake for years) - doing enough networking to keep business coming in. When you've got too much business coming in, see my first point. - doing enough self promotion to keep business coming in - learn something new frequently. New language, new toolkit, new mode of hacking (hardware vs software, for example)... Something that keeps you interested and engaged, and keeps you valuable. This is one of the harder ones, and probably the most important to future-proof yourself as you get older and have a family or other obligations. And it's damn hard for me to do if I don't follow #1. There's a few other threads on HN about this subject that are worth reading, lots of good advice there. I don't always follow my own advice (and the above certainly isn't comprehensive) but I can say I've got a pretty good idea that I know what it takes.
aculver 12y ago
Yes, I was a consultant myself. All IMHO: The best possible “last job” to have before doing independent consulting is at a consulting firm that doesn’t just do staff augmentation. You'll learn almost everything you need to here that will help you avoid major mistakes in your own business. Don’t do anything shady here (e.g. stealing clients, etc.) and when you’re ready to leave, leave on good terms. (My old boss and I are still friends, we travel together, and he was the first customer for my SaaS product.) Whether you work for a consulting company or not, you’re ready to leave when you’ve got two contracts from other developer friends who have too much work and want to refer some leads to someone who can help them. One of your initial contracts should be for a long-term engagement, as this helps manage your cash-flow risk. If you’re working for a consulting company, I can’t recommend you work on your own contracts at the same time… but I think you’re in the clear if you’re lining them up and you make a clear break from one to the other. To leave your company on good terms and potentially gain a valuable source of work, you can offer to contract yourself back to the consulting company you already work for at whatever rate they typically pay outside contractors. (For the consulting company I left, this was $95/hour, which was the lowest rate I was willing to take at the time and only for contracts that were very advantageous to my business, e.g. regular, long-term work.) This can really help them if you were a "rock star" and were keeping important clients very happy. If your pipeline is a little weak through word of mouth, reach out to consulting companies and agencies to see if they need any help on the deals they’re closing. This is easier for them than hiring new people especially if they’re not sure demand will keep up. If your first track is a long-term engagement, increase your rate on every new project on the second track by at least $25/hour. You may find that people stop saying yes at a certain point, so maybe you level off there for a bit. However, if you don’t force this rate increase every time you have an opportunity, you’re really selling yourself short. Again, my lowest rate when I started in July 2012 was $95/hour. By the time I stopped taking new consulting clients, I was comfortably charging $200/hour and people were still saying yes at $300/hour. Schedule three annual vacations right off the bat, one of them within the first few months of consulting and make sure you take it and disconnect. These are the recurring litmus test whether your business is actually optimized for happiness and whether you're really putting family first if you've got one. Here's my favorite part: If you completely fail at this, it's no big deal. You're going to fall back into a safety net of regular full-time employment where you're still in ridiculous demand. The worse possible outcome for your business is everyone else's definition of success.

Even doing it 'a little bit right' should net you well in excess of 100K 'credits' per year. Doing it right, anywhere from 200K to 350K. Especially if you take the GP at his word and do a bit of product development for yourself. Mind you, it's not 'free money', it's really hard work.

karmajunkie 12y ago

Won't speak for GP, but to me it means: - charging what you're worth to your client, not what you think you'd pay; (made this mistake for years) - doing enough networking to keep business coming in. When you've got too much business coming in, see my first point. - doing enough self promotion to keep business coming in - learn something new frequently. New language, new toolkit, new mode of hacking (hardware vs software, for example)... Something that keeps you interested and engaged, and keeps you valuable. This is one of the harder ones, and probably the most important to future-proof yourself as you get older and have a family or other obligations. And it's damn hard for me to do if I don't follow #1. There's a few other threads on HN about this subject that are worth reading, lots of good advice there. I don't always follow my own advice (and the above certainly isn't comprehensive) but I can say I've got a pretty good idea that I know what it takes.

aculver 12y ago

Yes, I was a consultant myself. All IMHO: The best possible “last job” to have before doing independent consulting is at a consulting firm that doesn’t just do staff augmentation. You'll learn almost everything you need to here that will help you avoid major mistakes in your own business. Don’t do anything shady here (e.g. stealing clients, etc.) and when you’re ready to leave, leave on good terms. (My old boss and I are still friends, we travel together, and he was the first customer for my SaaS product.) Whether you work for a consulting company or not, you’re ready to leave when you’ve got two contracts from other developer friends who have too much work and want to refer some leads to someone who can help them. One of your initial contracts should be for a long-term engagement, as this helps manage your cash-flow risk. If you’re working for a consulting company, I can’t recommend you work on your own contracts at the same time… but I think you’re in the clear if you’re lining them up and you make a clear break from one to the other. To leave your company on good terms and potentially gain a valuable source of work, you can offer to contract yourself back to the consulting company you already work for at whatever rate they typically pay outside contractors. (For the consulting company I left, this was $95/hour, which was the lowest rate I was willing to take at the time and only for contracts that were very advantageous to my business, e.g. regular, long-term work.) This can really help them if you were a "rock star" and were keeping important clients very happy. If your pipeline is a little weak through word of mouth, reach out to consulting companies and agencies to see if they need any help on the deals they’re closing. This is easier for them than hiring new people especially if they’re not sure demand will keep up. If your first track is a long-term engagement, increase your rate on every new project on the second track by at least $25/hour. You may find that people stop saying yes at a certain point, so maybe you level off there for a bit. However, if you don’t force this rate increase every time you have an opportunity, you’re really selling yourself short. Again, my lowest rate when I started in July 2012 was $95/hour. By the time I stopped taking new consulting clients, I was comfortably charging $200/hour and people were still saying yes at $300/hour. Schedule three annual vacations right off the bat, one of them within the first few months of consulting and make sure you take it and disconnect. These are the recurring litmus test whether your business is actually optimized for happiness and whether you're really putting family first if you've got one. Here's my favorite part: If you completely fail at this, it's no big deal. You're going to fall back into a safety net of regular full-time employment where you're still in ridiculous demand. The worse possible outcome for your business is everyone else's definition of success.