
To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017) - fagnerbrack
https://daedtech.com/key-becoming-software-consultant/
======
oldboyFX
Author makes a valid point, but what about folks who actually like writing
code (among other things)?

Here's what worked for me as a remote consultant who lives in a small central
european country:

My partner and I currently position ourselves as "A high-grade self-managing
team of two, specialized in mapping out, designing, and delivering complex
custom-built web applications on time".

I suppose we might fall under the authors category of predictably positioned
"opinionated developers".

Our ideal customer is a non-technical entrepreneur who needs someone to help
them polish their idea, turn that idea into a high-grade working product,
bring that product into the market, and start making traction and revenue.

I noticed that many entrepreneurs, especially non-technical folk, have a very
difficult time building their first product — especially if it's a relatively
complex piece of software. Most contractors are focused on using cool tech or
writing clean code instead of helping people build successful businesses.

Our selling points are pretty basic: Learn about your client's business, be
reliable, communicate effectively, deliver a great product on time. If needed
also help with additional hires, validating PM-fit, marketing.

It's nothing revolutionary, but the fact that there are so many uninvolved
developers on the market makes it very easy for us to find long-term
engagements. The clients are happy and we're able to charge San Francisco-like
rates. Just last year I put $1XX,XXX into my savings account.

We're in our late 20's so there's a long road ahead of us. Who knows, perhaps
we'll get bored with programming in a couple of years.

But people should know that you CAN make very good money while still writing
code most of the day.

~~~
rorykoehler
How do you find new customers?

~~~
oldboyFX
For the past couple of years our average engagement was full-time and 8+
months long, so we only needed to look for new customers once or maybe twice a
year.

We took some time to create our consultancy website and make sure we're
communicating our value and principles at least somewhat effectively.

It also helps having satisfied past clients who will speak well of you when
someone calls them up.

We don't really do any speaking, blogging, traveling to conferences to
network, or anything like that. I just advertise on a couple of websites like
HN who wants to be hired, for hire subreddit, angel list, startupers.com, etc
to let people know we're on the market looking for a new project. We usually
find someone who is a good fit within a couple of weeks.

We are also involved in the local tech community and in the past we would get
some projects through word-of-mouth, but those were at lower rates near the
beginning of our careers.

You could also try platforms like codementorX and moonlightwork until you
manage to connect with someone yourself.

~~~
rorykoehler
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I have a lot of work through word of
mouth at the moment. I was more curious how someone in central Europe
(Croatia?) finds high paying customers in the US. You make it sound much
simpler than I anticipated.

~~~
oldboyFX
It is simpler than we anticipated as well. I will say that many of our past
clients had something in common — a recent ugly experience with one or more
other development teams.

So far we have a history of delivering on what we promised (knock on wood),
and we make sure to communicate that there is a very high chance that we will
be the last team they will have to hire to solve their problem.

There's one more thing... A couple of years ago we created a passion project
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8547351](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8547351))
that experienced quite a lot of traffic. I'm not sure how much influence (if
any) this had on our ability to find clients, but a few of them did tell us
how cool it was.

------
tptacek
This notion of the distinction between contractors and consultants as a career
status strikes me as similar to the distinction we make between developer and
manager. And then, this is useful advice if what you want to do is manage, and
code less.

I've been consulting professionally since 2005, and I think I've gotten pretty
good at it? And my take on this is, graduating from "IC" to "manager" in the
eyes of your client is presumably one way to ratchet up your status. But there
are others, and I think they can be more lucrative.

Two straightforward alternative approaches to leveling up a consulting
business that you've started by freelancing IC-type work:

1\. Scale it out. Take on more work, find trusted people to subcontract it out
to, eventually bring on a partner, standardize and methodologize what you do,
get to the point where you can train other people to do it, start hiring
people. You will probably find that when you get to the point of hiring
consultants to work for you, your business accelerates naturally --- one of
the most overlooked and important value components of most consulting
businesses is _on-demand availability_ , which is expands as your roster does.

2\. Specialize. Start looking for commonalities between the projects that you
do. Build tooling for them. Maybe publish some open source stuff. Build a
specialty practice around that. You can do this repeatedly, for different
areas; eventually, you'll do it for business verticals. In both kinds of cases
you'll find that you become attractive to different kinds of companies when
you change from generic to specific.

In neither case do you stop coding, or reposition yourself from the kind of
company that writes code to the kind of company that tells other people how to
write code.

We agree about hourly billing, though!

~~~
vram22
>2\. Specialize. Start looking for commonalities between the projects that you
do. Build tooling for them. Maybe publish some open source stuff. Build a
specialty practice around that. You can do this repeatedly, for different
areas; eventually, you'll do it for business verticals.

A former manager of mine, who had some consulting background, once told me
that the big management consulting firms like McKinsey do something like this.
They compile tons of detailed case studies from former engagements (that's
what consulting gigs are called in that field) and then reuse the hell out of
them for new gigs, thereby saving a lot of their staff's working time on
those. Also probably surprise the clients (who may not know about this
practice) by being able to come up with results sooner due to this.

~~~
121789
Haha, I was a consultant and you paint a very idealistic picture of the
situation. It usually went something like this in my experience:

1\. Partner hears client is interested in a certain type of engagement

2\. Partner promises that their firm has extensive expertise in the area

3\. Partner commits to writing a proposal for the potential project

4\. Lower level staff scramble to talk to other consultants in their firm
(same industry) and dig through old case studies to figure out if #2 is
actually true

5\. Staff hurriedly compiles a proposal deck from a mish-mash of slides from
other projects that are mildly relevant

6\. Multiple iterative feedback loops where the partner gives vague
suggestions on improvements and staff makes the changes

7\. Send finalized proposal to design/production team

If you win the proposal, you use some lead time before the project to build an
approach using past projects. In rare cases there would be a firm-sponsored
template or framework (often when there is associated whitepapers or other
marketing materials), but in general the situation was a more reactive "I do
not have time to start this from scratch, so what can I gather from past
projects?" and less of a proactive "let's build a template to reuse for new
projects"

~~~
vram22
>Haha, I was a consultant and you paint a very idealistic picture of the
situation. It usually went something like this in my experience:

1\. I did not claim to "paint" the full picture. 2\. I did not paint the
picture. Was saying what my ex-manager said to me. 3\. The plural of anecdote
is not data.

Interesting to hear of your experience, though.

Regardless of your experience, systematically collecting and analyzing data on
prior projects, with a view to applying the learning to future ones, is
useful, for any discipline, not just management consulting or software
engineering. That's part of how progress in any field happens.

~~~
vram22
Also, I'm well aware of the "golmaal" (Hindi slang term) that goes on in any
field. Hey, it's common knowledge. But that does not invalidate work of the
good actors in the field.

~~~
vram22
Sorry, I didn't explain what golmaal means in English, also may have used the
wrong word. I meant something like skullduggery, but golmaal means chaos or
confusion (according to Quora, at least).

------
mlthoughts2018
By the time a business believes that a “solution provider” is not the same
type of person hired for the technical implementation, the battle is already
lost and you should leave. The idea of wanting to work in these situations as
consultant or software engineer is all pretty crazy.

For example, Scrum is a pretty stupid and horrible thing, at least as stupid
and horrible as Waterfall and often quite worse.

Anybody who thinks it’s important to give consulting advice about whether to
adopt Scrum is someone to run away from. It’s like a daisycutter of common
sense.

There are great, small places to work where you can be paid well _and_ have
your technical opinion respected and considered as an implementer.

You can’t do that in places that are brainfucked with politics and
bureaucracy, and the willingness to hire outside “solutions” consultants is a
pretty big indicator that a place is brainfucked with bureaucracy and
politics.

~~~
adrianN
Some people work to make money. If providing solutions to bureaucracies pays
well, why not do it?

~~~
saiya-jin
_Most_ people work to make money, even in IT, even in software development. If
you don't believe this, stop paying them and lets see who comes next day.

Working in bureaucracy is great indicator/training ground for patience, and
not really caring about meaningless things in life and instead focusing on
those with true meaning. Yes, it wouldn't be work in that case.

'All we need is just a little patience...' music in the background

------
andy_adams
For any devs worried they're missing out because they're not in the
"strategic" role described here: There's still a boatload of money to be made
just doing the coding.

Yes, strategic work can be the way to big buck$, but there's also a shortage
of reliable implementers of moderately-technical projects who _don 't
disappear_ and communicate reasonably well.

Sure, you might not get to a $20k/week bill rate, but for many of us $4k/week
isn't a bad start.

~~~
icedchai
I've worked with some "strategic" consultants. Believe me, these guys did some
pretty diagrams and wrote a couple of nice word docs, but they didn't do any
real, useful work. It was almost laughable.

~~~
lj3
And yet, they get paid more and treated better than contractors and
"consultants" who write code. Is the joke on them? Or us?

------
PeterStuer
Having seen all type of consultants over the year:

\- The strategic consultant you describe manages to have a higher tariff, but
the sales cycle is long and the downtime between gigs significant

\- the 'software consultant' has an on average lower tariff (depending on the
specialization), but little downtime and faster sales.

Pick your poison and do what you feel most comfortable with.

~~~
warent
When you say tariff do you mean price?

~~~
abainbridge
I think this is a British-ism. I'm British. The parent's post used tariff in a
way I found normal. Google tells me:

    
    
      tariff - noun:
    
      BRITISH
      a list of the fixed charges made by a business, especially for use of gas, electricity, or a mobile phone.

~~~
civilian
In American english tariff is usually used as "tax". Especially in the context
of import & export taxes on goods and services. (E.g. The American colonies
revolted over the tea tariff.)

~~~
datavirtue
Indeed. Tariff is a dirty word in American English.

------
gabriel34
All is good and well until 5 years down the road you don't have experience
implementing the newnosql.js stuff that is all the rage. You try to conform it
to what you already know and end up with a myopic view of the solution. Since
you are already respected people listen to you when defining architectures.
Coders think you are a moron, impostor syndrome sets in. The doctors prescribe
the new and improved treatment, but the new balm doesn't work as well as the
goop for some cases.

You have to remember what made you a specialist in the first place was coding
at challenging projects. Our market changes too fast for you to stop doing
that. Studying and trying out new things using a private lab will only get you
so far, the real challenges are the ones which push you to really master
something.

~~~
gk1
Do you think the VPs and CTOs know how to implement newnosql.js? The biggest
challenges involve more that to get solved.

~~~
gabriel34
We are talking about consultants, but CTOs should have this knowledge if they
if they are the ones making system architecture decisions. I have been at
positions in which I had to explain to hierarchical superiors why a decision
was bad or why some architecture was preferable. I was also overruled in some
of these occasions, and in these cases we hit obstacles I predicted and had to
change on the fly, ended up with delayed deliverables and a sub-optimal
solution.

~~~
gk1
It's not realistic to expect CTOs to know the intricacies of all the latest
widgets and libraries. I'm talking about CTOs of mature companies, not "CTOs"
of a 10-person startup.

------
amorphous
I have been thinking about this for a while.

There is a lot of good advice out there. OP, Jonathan Stark (expensive
problem), Philip Morgan (positioning), Double your freelancing, Patio11 etc

They all have read the same book: Positioning by Al Ries.

What the OP (and others) are saying makes total sense. If you move away from
being a generalist and carve out a niche everything becomes easier: your
marketing (no more job hunting, no more interviewing), the stress (no
implementation "details" to deal with) and as you can charge much much more
life in general.

The problem: no one can tell you how to get there. It's survivorship bias.

Some of them got there by luck or not at all (they just coach - J.Stark, for
example, started with rare (at that time) mobile dev skills and now decided to
do just coaching after his skills have become commoditized).

The advice can be summed up in network as much as possible, talk to lots of
people, try to find common pain points and so on.

Please note: I'm not meaning to discredit anyone, I'm grateful for what they
do and learned a lot from them.

------
acconrad
I've only been at it a year but I find this to be nearly impossible. 95% of my
income this past year was writing software. Whenever someone saw me as a
"software consultant" they thought "well why don't we pay him to implement it
too?" But I also made more than double what I made when I was full-time.

I really would like to know how to not immediately be slotted as someone who
is just a coding mercenary.

~~~
acct1771
Don't take the work, or subcontract it.

~~~
acconrad
So the breakdown I saw this past year was:

* 5% consulting (e.g. reports, audits, et al)

* 10% subcontracting to other devs

* 85% direct software development

The highest margins were certainly on that 15%, but the volume was not nearly
high enough to be able to make it work.

Would a scenario be something like:

Prospect wants work done. Instead of turning them down because my rate is too,
subcontract that to someone who is maybe less experienced and _can_ do it at
less than the advertised rate and bake in a margin there?

~~~
toyg
This is how body-shops make the big bucks: squeeze production prices down so
you can carve more profit.

The alternative, I believe, is to find niches with higher margins or that
scale better (white-label products, saas, and so on). Facebook makes $640k for
each worker they employ, and they certainly don’t skimp on salaries.

------
TamDenholm
Very true sentiment in this article. Also a corollary to this would be to
deliver based on the value you provide the client, not the time it takes you
to complete the problem. I've written about this before on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942561)

~~~
mrfredward
I read your linked comment, and it's important to distinguish that you are a
consultant in the "not on a W2 sense," rather than a consultant in the "people
pay me fat fees just for advice sense."

It's great that you are successful at getting contracted to build apps, and
I'm envious because I hope to do something similar one day, but I regard it as
a different job from the consulting described in the article, where you are
paid to advise an existing team, not build something by yourself.

~~~
TamDenholm
True, i also build but its a smaller part of my job since as i have employees
etc that do the labour work. But the biggest part of my job is to listen to a
problem and come up with a solution, more often than not, my company also
delivers that solution, but i get paid for the answer to the problem, not the
time taken to build it.

------
carlsborg
I think that provable deep expertise in some niche is a pre-requisite to this
kind of positioning. Is there a market for general purpose software
consultants? Who is the target audience?

~~~
maxxxxx
What I have seen is that some people/consultants have the ability to talk to
C*O or VP level in their own language. Once you get these people to trust you,
you can hire people with expertise you need. You can probably also get
contracts because of your specific domain expertise but I believe the ability
to communicate with high level management is more important for a successful
consulting business.

~~~
llampx
Do you have any tips on how to do that or to grow the ability to talk to
C-level in their own language? I feel that that's what's holding me back at
the moment.

~~~
maxxxxx
No, I have been struggling with my whole life. Let me know if you find out
something.

------
chrisbennet
One way to get clients to respect your input is to charge a lot.

~~~
acconrad
Easier said than done. They may respect you but they'll also likely not hire
you. They have to respect you AND know you. It's hard to justify paying
someone a lot if they are an unknown quantity. I checked out your HN profile:
do you think you can hire more because you specialize in Computer
Vision/Graphics? I'd also imagine your clientele is highly-targeted as well?

~~~
chrisbennet
As long as _someone_ hires you, you are much better off. The clients that want
"cheap" are generally not great clients. It's counter intuitive but charging
more gets you better clients and more respect (in addition to more money).

~~~
acconrad
I should have asked what you believe is _more_. $75-100 is definitely in the
"cheap" range, $100-150 I see for senior generalists, and $150-300 I see for
the principal/architect/specialist rates. At _some_ point the number isn't
sustainable unless you're like a brand-name entity (e.g. John Carmack, Jeff
Atwood, John Resig, and I'm just guessing here).

~~~
chrisbennet
Good point. For context, I'm outside of Boston, not a web developer and I
charge a very reasonable $150-$200 hour. This weeds out the clients that
expect something to "take a couple of weeks" but have no idea what is involved
and then don't appreciate/value the work once it's done. ("My kid cousin could
have done this.")

Many contract shops would be happy to tell you that "no one will pay that",
pay you $65 hour and then turn around and charge $130+.

~~~
semperdark
How do you market yourself? Personal network?

~~~
chrisbennet
That the weird thing. I don't (market myself). I made website but I don't get
leads from it. It's just a portfolio. I am very friendly and I do keep up with
people I worked with decades ago but that is the extent of my "networking".

~~~
semperdark
Interesting. I've heard that before, it does seem to be mostly a matter of
building up a solid reputation over time and getting referrals. Thanks for the
info!

~~~
chrisbennet
I’m naturally friendly and I keep in touch with people I’ve worked with. I go
out to lunch with them every now and then, etc. I keep in touch with them
because I really do like them but a happy side effect is that decades after I
last worked with them, they’ll contact me with work.

I know some people can go 30 years and not have any friends they used to work
with. At the very least, you should make contact on LinkedIn for your (former)
colleagues when you leave a job. Drop them a line once in a while. “Ping” them
a text at Christmas, etc. You don’t want to wait until you need work to start
building your network.

------
pwaivers
This article suffers from too many analogies. After the long DaVinci analogy,
he goes into a medicine analogy. Please just say your point clear and up
front. I don't think analogies are necessary to explain each point.

~~~
noxToken
Agreed. I _think_ I understand what he was getting at, but when I read the
analogies, I start to second guess whether I really understand the message.

~~~
cestith
What I got out of it can be summarized pretty succinctly. Freelance
programming is not the same thing as software solution consulting. If you want
to do more consulting, don't write code for the same clients for whom you're
designing high-level solutions.

------
hemling
How do I go from general software developer to domain specialist if I don't
have domain knowledge in the first place (or want to get out of the domain I'm
working in)?

I suspect that people who are in a great niche got there by accident and that
luck is a much bigger part than most want to admit.

I don't think a deliberate attempt to move into a great position will work.

~~~
pdimitar
To answer your first question: you simply sacrifice your free time to do it.
No magic bullets sadly. Or, if your day job is very boring, get a fixed slice
of your workday and utilize it for your future prospects / education. So many
people do it and yet it's a largely denied phenomena. One of the so-called
"public secrets". :)

A deliberate attempt to move into a higher position is just an intention and
nothing else. The real hard part is changing the way you think and view
yourself. You can start with reminiscing all the times in your career when you
had a much bigger advice to offer outside of the usual coding monkey trope:
"this feature will be done in 2 days". In this regard I believe the author
hits the nail on the head: it's all about how people view you. If they view
you as a coding monkey then they will not listen.

Start thinking about the advice you have given and which was ignored.

The process of self-transformation can take anywhere from several weeks to
decades (and many people never achieve it). It seriously depends on the
person. I am currently in that hard transition and I have to tell you -- it's
exhausting and it will challenge a ton of preconceptions you didn't even know
you had just a week ago. Be prepared to put anything and everything in your
life philosophy in question. It's more than most human egos can endure.

I am still a programmer, damn good one at that. But I regularly get rejected
based on "cultural fits" or half-arsed excuses where they have no idea how to
twist the fact that they don't want somebody with my rates or my resistance to
BS. And I started having other people market me as not-only-a-programmer. I am
in no-man's-land right now but I can feel the attitude of several people
changing -- and see a few new ones coming with a drastically different one
compared to what I am used to when people hear I am a programmer.

TL;DR: It's extremely hard and the main limitation and hurdle is you. Sucks to
admit but it's better for one fo be a realist. Remember the amazing "Cloud
Atlas" movie:

" _All rules are conventions and are meant to be transcended. One can only
transcend a convention if they first imagine of doing so._ "

\---

And yes, luck plays a huge part to it. But in one of the towns in my country
people love saying "luck doesn't come to you, you go to it" \-- which
illustrates that if you keep trying eventually you will bump into the right
people and conditions.

~~~
datavirtue
You can't slice out a portion of your day to learn niche domain knowledge. You
get it by working in the industry or studying under a professor from the
industry. You can't learn the payments industry from a bookfir example. All
the information is tacit and passed verbally. Arcane is a good word.

~~~
pdimitar
Oh I agree what you say is true for many areas. But what I say is also true
for others. It depends on what the person is aiming at.

My general point was that there are no magic bullets. I was always to
irritated at the Hollywood trope of the person who hates their job and decides
to change their life... and then we fast-forward to them having a villa at the
sea and working only when they want. I was trying to show that a lot of hard
work is involved, and that some sacrifices have to be made.

------
mrhappyunhappy
Reminds me of the art of value podcast that talks all about positioning
yourself to provide value, not services.

As a UX designer who has positioned himself as consultant, I now have fewer
projects but charge for value provider. There is more downtime in between
projects but I actually end up making more money. If I get 2 or 3 projects at
once, it's really nice.

Of course, I have to decline 98% of requests coming my way but it's well worth
it. The businesses I partner with realize a good ROI and everyone is happy.
Just so happens this process filters out a lot of the undesirable qualities in
businesses I don't want to work with.

I had to eliminate every mention of client, freelancing and rates from every
piece of content I have put out, because I think the moment you position
yourself as subservient to your "client" the game is over. I see it more as a
business parntership.

------
reubenswartz
Another way of looking at this is to focus on the what the client is buying,
rather than what you are selling. We all lives in our own worlds, so by
default we tend to think the client is buying what we are selling. If you can
switch it around, then you can sell (and deliver) what they are buying.

------
jasode
_> Don’t ever let would-be consulting clients pay you for code that you
write._

A similar piece of advice is in the often-submitted article by Patrick
McKenzie.[1]

The common idea is that instead of being just a "code monkey", you position
yourself higher up the value hierarchy to be more of a "solutions provider".

In my observations of programmers that successfully sell consulting vs earning
a W-2 salary, both articles leave out the _dispositions and natural
inclinations_ of the reader. This affects how easy it is to move up the value
hierarchy.

To do high-value consulting, one has to take an honest self-assessment:

1) Do you like to be somewhat entrepreneurial and "hustle" for work? (Some
programmers would prefer to be given a set of defined tasks and then be left
alone rather than scout for new jobs and projects. The act of "selling
yourself" to prospective clients is uncomfortable.)

2) Do you accept that there can be cycles of feast or famine because of
downtime between freelance contracts? (Some programmers would rather have the
predictability of steady paycheck rather than stress over contracts and
chasing Accounts Payable for past-due payments.)

3) Do you find "solving business problems" more interesting than programming
languages? (E.g. some folks are more interested in Python 3 vs Python 2
differences or studying Lisp macros -- rather than tackling the domain
knowledge and complexities of modernizing a hospital billing system, or the
code to monitor container ship logistics, etc. The coder views the business
stuff as _boring_ but programming languages as _interesting_.)

Once you've done the "know thyself" exercise, you can then analyze how various
types of "consulting" is sold in the marketplace and where to position your
services.

If you're just a generalist programmer in (e.g. C++/Java/Python), it will be
difficult to sell that as "consulting" to companies. You have to go up the
value chain and sell "solutions". This is easier if you have expertise in a
_specific_ business niche that interests you. As for examples of selling
_general_ consulting that covers the spectrum from "bodyshop of programmers"
to "solutions providers", that would companies like Infosys (India H1B),
Pivotal Labs, Thoughtworks, Accenture, IBM Global Solutions.

Some exceptions to selling small scale "consulting" without being a being a
solutions provider would be web freelancing and maybe cybersecurity auditing.
Otherwise, generalist programmers either need to work for the solutions
providers above, or become a solution provider themselves, or find contract
gigs on marketplaces like Upwork and Dice. However, selling your programming
skills on Upwork is the probably the opposite of the advice given in the 2
essays.

[1] [https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-
pr...](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

~~~
acconrad
When I got into consulting I read that MacKenzie article and answered an
ecstatic "Yes" to all three and yet people see my resume and previous work and
just immediately slot me into the "code monkey" territory. I am able to
negotiate a great rate, so I've done very well, but I believe I could do
better if I was able to get the higher value projects, but no one has yet to
perceive me this way.

~~~
rpeden
Is it possibly because you've positioned yourself in a such a way that you
attract customers who will only ever see you as a coder for hire?

I love the look of your consulting website, but "We create beautiful, engaging
applications" isn't a very strong positioning statement. Most generalist
software shops have something similar on their site. And if you position
yourself that way, whether online or in person, I think that most customers
will inevitably see you as an implementer of software.

In smaller text, you write "If you’re a healthcare or fintech company, we can
help you launch products faster with fewer resources to increase conversions
and get results".

Now that's definitely a stronger positioning statement. Do you think it would
be helpful to position yourself more strongly along those lines? Like, instead
of your big hero text saying something general, could it be something more
specific like "End-to-end app development for healthcare companies", or to
narrow it down even more, something like "Dashboards for fintech companies".

That last one might seem really narrow, but that kind of narrowness also helps
you build up a reputation as more than just a code jockey. It's hard to become
known as the go-to person for beautiful, engaging applications, because there
are just too many people who market themselves and their companies that way.

But it's a lot more doable to become known as the go-to person for reactive
fintech dashboards. It takes a bit of time to establish your authority in a
niche like that, though. But since you're already doing software consulting
profitably, you're in a good position to move in that direction.

And once you're known as an authority in a specific area, you almost
automatically become seen as more than just an implementer. Instead of coming
to you with exact specs that need to be coded up, you'll have more
conversations along the lines of "this is what we're trying to achieve; since
you're the expert on this topic, how would you recommend we do it?".

Since you've completed customer projects successfully, you now have project
management experience. In your marketing materials, and in conversations with
potential customers, would it be possible to emphasize the project management
angle? Because that could be a solid point of difference that works in your
favor. Unlike most software developers, you have project management
experience. You don't just deliver code. You deliver complete end-to-end
solutions that don't require the customer to specify everything in
excruciating detail. Instead, you're like an amazing machine to which
customers only have to insert high-level business requirements.

Please note that none of this is intended as criticism. You're obviously
already enjoying success! Over the years, I've just seen other people in the
same position you're in, asking the same questions you are. And so I figured
that sharing a few observations might be helpful.

If you haven't read it already, Philip Morgan's positioning manual covers this
in a lot of detail: [https://philipmorganconsulting.com/the-positioning-
manual-fo...](https://philipmorganconsulting.com/the-positioning-manual-for-
technical-firms/)

I don't have any connection to him aside from being a customer.

~~~
AgalmicVentures
Thank you so much for writing this. I've struggled with positioning for a long
time, and although I have a niche, it was a challenge to communicate the value
I offer in a succinct way. This nails it:

> You don't just deliver code. You deliver complete end-to-end solutions that
> don't require the customer to specify everything in excruciating detail.
> Instead, you're like an amazing machine to which customers only have to
> insert high-level business requirements.

Reading over the website, The Positioning Manual seems to have more actionable
information than the sum of all other source I've found, so thank you for that
too.

~~~
rpeden
You're welcome! I'm glad it was useful.

If TPM seems useful to you, you'd probably enjoy signing up for Philip's
newsletter. He sends out an e-mail every day, and I usually find them useful
and insightful.

Along the same lines, you might like Jonathan Stark:

[https://jonathanstark.com/](https://jonathanstark.com/)

I haven't bought anything from him (yet), but I signed up for his e-mails and
find them valuable.

------
blunte
Exceptionally well written, and very believable advice.

Wish I had understood this concept of positioning long ago...

~~~
lowlevel
I found it rather enlightening and quite enjoyable to read as well. Gonna go
quit my job now ;)

------
beatgammit
I'm confused. The title made the think the article would be about licensing is
IP transfer on project completion, but I got a lecture on what I consider to
be a nuanced lecture about marketing.

Because of this and the reactions here, I'm sure I'm missing something and I
think others may as well.

Is the author essentially saying "outsource the development?

As a consultant, I'm expecting to sit with the client, figure out their
problem, and provide a solution. I charge based on the project and provide a
breakdown of how much they'll pay for each deliverable and when it'll be
available. The customer doesn't have to care who does the work (it'll probably
be me), provided the deadlines are met, and at anytime the client can stop
(they'll pay for any in-progress work).

Is that what the author is saying? Or are they saying to avoid taking any
responsibility over the development process? Subcontracting is always an
option, so if there's too much work, outsourcing is an option. I just don't
feel comfortable just delivering a design, but I can if that's objectively
better.

------
robterrin
As a Deloitte alumnus and a current cofounder of my own cybersecurity services
and advisory firm, I hope I am qualified to weigh in here.

First, lumping all consulting firms together is a mistake. The main lists here
cover the big brands, and I've added a couple more. Each has their strengths,
weaknesses and approach to the market:

\- Pure technology consulting: Accenture, IBM, Cap Gemini, Tata, Cognizant and
Infosys

These firms usually win because of their reputation for solving large scale
technical problems. They can mobilize large teams of relatively qualified
people and often have exclusive or at least preferential treatment from
software providers who are eager to sell into their distribution channel.

\- Prestige strategy firms: McKinsey, Bain, BCG

Very little technical knowledge. Almost no implementation. Usually bought for
political reasons that require "hiring the best." A true Veblen service.
Still, they often are the right choice for a question that has an unknowable
answer and requires panache and persuasion.

\- Big Four: Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC

Outside of government practices, these firms win because they have a monopoly
on the CFO relationship. This entree into board conversations around audit and
financials is powerful enough to build a relationship that can lead to
strategy, technology, supply chain or myriad other consulting projects (SarbOx
made it illegal to sell both audit and consulting at once, but once Deloitte
made it clear that some hand waving and compliance measures were sufficient to
fend of regulators, as long as services weren't sold at the same time, the
rest jumped back into consulting).

\- Niche players: Aon, WTW, AT Kearney, CapCo, ATT, Verizon, Marsh, Sapient
and Booz

This heterogenous group often wins because of a specific strength,
relationship or reputation. For Aon, Marsh and WTW it is around insurance and
the CRO. For ATK, they are known for logistics.

Finally, to address the article itself, one of my earliest observations about
the corporate world is that the less work one does, the more one gets paid.
Partners delegate work and even proposal writing to focus on selling. Those
who get promoted most quickly are those who sell the most work. Relationships
are what lands deals and working is in conflict with schmoozing, so it is
important to do very little actual work.

Furthermore, what people are saying about bureaucracy and management being
inherent to an organization is correct, although I'm less jaded on this point
than I was while working for somebody else. Sclerotic organizations need third
parties to make change because inertia is such a powerful force, and a
combination of risk aversion and other fallacies can do harm to one's career
unless there is somebody else to blame. See Rene Girard on this point to fully
understand why scapegoating is a feature, not a bug.

The last thing I would say, is that having real expertise and experience is
crucial to making a convincing sale. My field, cybersecurity, is still
professionalizing so credentials don't mean as much as past work experience.
Social proof is everything and competing on price in markets with information
asymmetry is a sign of bad quality.

There are a few ways to get to the place that was laid out by the OP. The
first, and most desperately needed, is somebody with deep technical knowledge
who can develop and implement processes. The second, and almost as important
is somebody who can create documentation that ties everything together and
explains code, networks, data and systems at various levels of granularity
(C-suite, middle management, engineering lead, devs, network engineers, etc.).
While the latter should be the responsibility of a good engineer, it often
gets left behind and is almost never prepared for different audiences. Third
and final is where we are positioned, risk management. We assess, mitigate and
quantify risk in terms leadership can understand and act on. Whether a bank is
worried about regulatory pressure and needs to demonstrate a good faith effort
to comply or a due diligence team needs a financial quantification of the
current cybersecurity risk in an acquisition, the greatest value here is being
fluent in business and technology. Translating between lingo, goals and most
importantly culture is easier said than done.

------
tokyodude
Does the author ever actually say what you should do? AFAICT all he says is
"don't let them pay you for code" and never really got clear about what you
should do instead. Did I miss it?

------
superhuzza
Anyone else have trouble reading this site? The combination of low font-weight
and color makes for really poor legibility.

------
fergie
That was a surprisingly well written article with a well articulated point.

------
mrhappyunhappy
Anyone here do UX consulting? How much or how do you charge?

------
stevenl42
And that ladies and gentlemen is exactly how American IT became taken over by
Indian outsourcing companies and the quasi ones like Deloitte , Accenture.
American exceptionalism and a good education system might make you a great
consultant but who turns that spec to code and does the grunt work ? Surely
you aren't hiring American college grads because they have already been told
this work is boring and shitty and they are special and should build domain
expertise or salesmanship . Don't get me wrong - it's an excellent article but
I think this is targeted towards developers with experience who also
understand the big picture (accounting , P&L, systems). However doing
implementations , turning spec to code , reusing it are great ways to enter
the IT industry with solid pay and something that American college grads
encouraged to take up for a solid middle class life . Infact community
colleges and colleges should teach those skills similar to how it's done in
India. (No I am not a Trump supporter).

~~~
theriddlr
Undertook a rewrite of grant tracking system for an NGO. The first solution
was butchered by one these 'consulting' firms. They had set up fragmented
Google Sheets, Trello and MSSQL and lots of repetition. Non-programmers
shouldn't undertake this kind of work. The majority of the work was data
cleansing to get rid of duplicates and normalising the database to 3NF. The
rest is a user-friendly frontend to enter data and some data validation. Our
solution worked out cheaper than the 'consulting' firm's and actually
increased productivity.

