
Becoming A Software Consultant: My Backstory - brandontreb
http://brandontreb.com/becoming-software-consultant-backstory
======
patio11
You'll notice the lack of "And then I was bitten by a radioactive spider and
anointed the designated iOS consultant by Steve Jobs."

I only mention this because so many geeks think consultants are a special
breed apart, and in the main, they're geeks _just like you_ who a) got good at
something and b) started charging appropriate amounts of money for it.

~~~
Silhouette
_...in the main, they 're geeks just like you who a) got good at something and
b) started charging appropriate amounts of money for it..._

...and c) had sufficient sales skills to make a credible pitch to potential
clients or attract clients enough that they made the approach and d) had
sufficiently broad understanding of their chosen industry to interact with
non-technical people at the client whose problem they were going to solve and
e) had sufficient patience, diligence, legal and accounting knowledge, and
general acumen to successfully run a small business...

...in their spare time, when they weren't doing what they thought they were
actually going to be paid for.

~~~
r00fus
< e) had sufficient patience, diligence, legal and accounting knowledge, and
general acumen to successfully run a small business…

One generally outsources legal/accounting/tax. However, it does require extra
time/effort to manage.

Like the saying goes _you can work 8hr /day for someone else or 16hr/day for
yourself_ \- some of this can be outsourced, but the extra cost/effort never
goes to zero.

~~~
Silhouette
_One generally outsources legal /accounting/tax._

That is true up to a point, but you still need to make sure your
lawyer/accountant understands enough about your circumstances to do their job
properly. They are experts in their field, not yours, and they aren't
telepathic.

Whether or not you spend enough time liaising with your professional help and
checking their work, you're still the responsible person ultimately signing
contracts and tax returns, and you're still going to be on the hook if the
contract doesn't stand up in court or you get audited and something incorrect
is found.

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rmchugh
"I now believe the only way to have a secure career is to make one for
yourself. You could be let go at any time, for any reason."

This is absolutely nuts. Do American workers have zero rights to redundancy
pay, notice, warnings etc? I realise this may seem ignorant, but it blows my
mind that you can just be fired from one day to the next without compensation
or any kind of due process. It reminds me of the working conditions for
stevedores in the 19th century.

~~~
aestra
Generally, yes. With a few exceptions (I can't for example, fire you if I find
out you are Jewish and I hate Jewish people) The concept in the US is called
"At-will employment."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-
will_employment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment)

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strictfp
I became a consultant because I got fed up with all the random reconstructions
that big companies go through when there's a "new boss in town". If you're
smart enough to see that through it just drives you nuts to see the company
flip back and forth between two equally valid organizational structures every
x years.

I'm feeling happy I'm above things every time I see how the companies who hire
me are messing with their employees.

And I have my team mates at our consultant agency, who are all really good
coders, ambitious and fun to talk with. We go on trips together and have lots
of fun. I believe that I have much better job security here. People know who I
am. I'm appreciated. And the money is good too. Why work for a corp again? I
won't set my foot there ever again.

Meanwhile I'm collecting ideas for startup #2, this time it will be about
something I'm passionate about and with a viable business model.

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mratzloff
After my current job, I'm considering freelancing by pairing up with a good
recruiter (an individual, not a firm). I plan to offer a commission to the
recruiter for finding me good clients; in effect, using their client base to
build my own. Any warnings or red flags to this approach?

~~~
sriram_sun
I do like that approach. However are you ready to offer the recruiter 20% off
the contracting amount? This is their usual cut off your hourly wage if they
place you in a temp/contracting position. Good Luck and keep us posted!

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scarecrowbob
I don't work at quite the same level--I'm quite dirts (as they say here), but
I have done a bit of consulting even though, I'm swinging back through
freelancing and considering going back to being an employee.

What I found most useful was the picture of a person working for an existing
business who has knowledge of the entire pipeline from the sales process
through development:

"Armed with the knowledge of the entire software pipeline-from sales, to
development, to maintenance-I hit the ground running the very next day in
search of my first contract."

I think that is a key among most of the really good consultants that I have
met.

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ilbe
Thanks for sharing, I also found your previous post thought-provoking and
motivating. How sales-oriented is independent consulting? Do you look for new
technologies to branch out into and if so, how?

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tjr
How much of a role did the fact that there was hardly any other public
information on iOS programming out there play?

Could you start an iOS blog today and realistically hope for a similar
outcome, or are there so many iOS blogs that it would it get lost in the
noise, and it would be better to pick some newer, less-published technology?

~~~
bennyg
Github is the new iOS blog. Make good libraries, get them trending, and go
from there. I've had some amazing traction on one of my iOS/OSX libraries:
[https://github.com/bennyguitar/Colours](https://github.com/bennyguitar/Colours)
\- it's been trending for about 2 weeks straight now, and many many times in
the past year. I get random emails all of the time from recruiters and people
wanting me to do iOS contract work. The New York Times flew me up for an
interview after I open-sourced this HN reader I made:
[https://github.com/bennyguitar/News-YC---
iPhone](https://github.com/bennyguitar/News-YC---iPhone). Of course, I
marketed it fairly well on here through a Show HN and then on Reddit to get
more people looking at it (there's not a whole lot of full apps on Github,
mostly libraries).

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tieTYT
> I recently published a post about my first year of being an independent
> iPhone development consultant.

I admit I briefly skimmed so maybe I missed it, but where is that article? I'd
like to read it first.

~~~
fieldforceapp
I think this is the post: [http://brandontreb.com/learned-first-year-ios-
consulting](http://brandontreb.com/learned-first-year-ios-consulting)

~~~
rhizome
HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7018341](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7018341)

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mavdi
Became a consultant a year ago, and the only thing I regretted was why I
didn't do it earlier.

~~~
brandontreb
I have that exact same regret.

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lquist
A bit off-topic, but I thought here would be a good place to ask: What are the
economics like for a consultancy (say 50 people)? What are the major
challenges that make scaling difficult?

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slabrador
awesome backstory ... you remind me of Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

