
Consulting - dopeboy
http://dopeboy.github.io/consulting/
======
jakejake
A friend of mine said that working at a corporation gives you the illusion of
stability, and working as a freelancer gives you the illusion of freedom.

I found that to be very true. Working freelance basically means that each
client is a new boss. Each boss will want things from you and they don't know
or care about the other bosses! So you have to be really good at juggling
projects.

~~~
ryanSrich
Freelancing != Consulting. I think this is a huge issue with the article
posted.

Freelancing = Not so great jobs where clients dictate what they want (low pay)

Consulting = Excellent jobs with clients that want you for your knowledge
(much much higher pay)

Making the leap is the difference between "building websites" and "building
websites for a particular industry with a very specific technology that only a
handful of people really know".

~~~
Silhouette
In reality, I don't think the difference is as big as you're making out. In
many practical senses, a consultant in an IT field is just a freelancer or
agency staffer in an IT field who also understands marketing.

Consultants pitch based on their general capability and the value it offers to
a client. They probably take ownership of a whole project so the client can
just set out their expectations and then give occasional feedback as things
progress. You hire a consultant to solve a problem, and what you're paying for
is a solution that meets your needs.

Technical freelancers, the kind of people who describe themselves as
"$language programmer" or "web designer", pitch based on their ability to do
things like hacking in $language or producing mock-ups of the appearance of a
web site. However, _these things have no direct benefit to a client_. They
only have value when put in context and combined with the work of others under
some implied level of management. You hire this kind of freelancer to build a
thing, and what you're paying for is the asset they build, and it's your
responsibility to figure out what to do with it and how to make it valuable.

Although consultants may also specialise more, for example preferring to work
in a specific niche market, I don't think that is really the defining factor.
Most consultants _are_ still just freelancers or small agencies. They just
have enough business savvy not to describe themselves as such, because someone
who can solve a problem is typically much more valuable to a prospective
client than someone who can build a thing.

~~~
YuriNiyazov
I really think you are downplaying just how important the ability to pitch
"your general capability and the value it offer to a client" is. If this
ability is something that can triple freelancers' incomes and completely
change their view of the market that they operate in, it results in a _huge_
difference, even if the actions that led up to it seem simple.

~~~
Silhouette
It can do a lot more than triple your income in some parts of the industry,
and certainly it does fundamentally change your view about the work you're
doing and how you see your clients.

My point was more that freelancers and consultants aren't some sort of
mutually exclusive categories or different steps on a ladder. A lot of
consultants who mostly work alone _are_ freelancers, creating a significant
overlap in the groups, but neither group is a subset of the other.

------
lisa_henderson
For years I worked as a concierge programmer, and it was the most fun that I
ever had, mostly because of the one-to-one relationship I had with my clients.
All of them were in the same circumstance, which is that they had inherited a
large amount of money, and they had an idea for a website. I was able to offer
2 different skills: my skill as a programmer, and my experience in the world
of startups. In all such cases my clients were non-technical and inexperienced
in the world of startups. They had no interest in being angel investors,
instead they wanted to dive in and use their own creativity to find out how
hard it was to build a business around software. They tended to be reasonably
interesting people, and I enjoyed working with them, and I enjoyed shaping
their vision into something that could exist in the real world. All of the
projects eventually grew (for a time) into something larger, at which point I
would help put together a team of what was needed (typically some mix of
backenders, frontenders, QA, writers, and customer service support).

I did make good money during those years (2002 to 2009) but what I recall most
fondly is how much fun all of it was.

I think that world has now largely died out, as even the earliest stage
startups now belong to a scene that is somewhat professionalizing. But the
earlier web was unprofessional, and that was the best thing about it.

Still I find, even now, even in New York City, there is some of the same
energy among those dreaming about doing very early stage startups. Certainly
the creativity and excitement is still there. The problem I've run into lately
is the large number of people who are so sure that their idea will someday be
worth billions that they do not want to pay cash right now, they only want to
pay in equity. And that kills all of the fun for me.

~~~
juliangregorian
> people who are so sure that their idea will someday be worth billions that
> they do not want to pay cash

I think the opposite is more likely true. If you really believed your idea was
worth billions you would want to keep all that equity for yourself. I don't
consider equity-only offers worth the paper they're printed on.

~~~
vidarh
I've more than once encountered people who genuinely seem convinced that they
are "billionaires-in-waiting" and that everything in between is just a few
formalities, and that even if they were to give away a sizeable chunk of
equity they'll still be swimming in cash, and so giving away equity is no big
deal.

In that kind of situation there is a subset of people that can hardly wait to
start spending the money on their lifestyle, and conversely would rather not
spend their cash on their business if they can spend equity instead.

In my experience these are the same type of people who go into a casino
expecting to win because they feel lucky today.

At the same time, they can be so blinkered that they don't get it when someone
else don't see it as an amazing chance when offered equity over cash, often at
inflated valuations. Sometimes people take personal offence, because rejecting
their equity offer means rejecting an idea they're extremely deeply
emotionally invested in.

------
ChainsawSurgery
> I've made life long friends with some of my clients. That, more than
> anything else on this list, has made consulting special to me.

Hah, I had the exact opposite experience freelancing straight out of college,
and this was why I stopped and sought full-time employment.

Most of the people I was interacting with (clients, etc) were significantly
older than me, and it was brutally isolating after awhile. Even barring the
age barrier, there was always a definitive client/vendor line that seemed to
prevent any meaningful relationship from developing.

I even tried a coworking space, but it was never quite the same for me since
people were there to work mostly, and it's not like you were ever going to
work together aside from some rare cases.

I did it for about a year and then resolved never to do it as a full-time
thing ever again. The freedom attracted me, but (for me at least) the
isolation was overwhelming.

Disclaimer: blah blah blah, my own experience and not yours necessarily, etc.

~~~
ohashi
It always saddens me to read about coworking spaces like that. I think it's
probably rare and takes a lot of effort, but coworking that builds real and
lasting relationships does exist. It's not common and I think your experience
is the norm, which is what disappoints me about this 'coworking revolution.'

------
Aqwis
>I get asked a lot about what software consulting (aka freelancing) is like.

Are consulting and freelancing synonyms now? In my world, most "consultants"
work for small or big (Accenture, one of the French corps, Deloitte...)
consulting companies and don't have many of the problems mentioned in this
blog post (but also likely have lower earning potential).

~~~
cpitman
I work as a consultant, and at least for my work it is like this:

Consultants are brought in to "consult", ie they have knowledge and expertise
that the client does not have and that the client needs access to. For
example, many of my clients have aging skillsets and development practices,
and need to rapidly retool their team and organization.

I don't often hear the term freelancer used, but I often hear "contractor". A
contractor is brought on to augment the client's existing staff and/or create
a specific deliverable. For example, contracting a web designer to implement
the desired look and feel of a web page.

Basically, contractors are a lot like employees with higher hourly rates and
temporary employment. Consultants are brought in to help a client change their
business.

~~~
count
Consultants work on objectives, contractors work on specifications or
requirements, is how I like to think about it.

'Solve this problem' vs 'Take these actions and produce this deliverable'.

------
ujjain
In London us DevOps consultants make only £60k yearly, but £500 daily as
consultants (contractors), which is twice as much after taxes.

It seems in the United States salaries for permanent employees are higher, but
that contractors don't get paid double.

~~~
therealwill
Contractors are usually double what you would pay a salary person in the US
too. It is because contractors have less reliable work and pay more taxes than
salaried employees.

~~~
charlesdm
In the UK, taxes are generally better for self employed people when trading
through a personal service company, because you can control the flow of
dividend payouts.

Contractors (on a 6-12 month contract) actually do get paid better
significantly than permanent employee counterparts.

~~~
leereeves
I find that it's similar in the US. Contractors do pay a tax that's paid by an
employer (half of the Social Security and Medicare Tax, about 7.5%), but they
can also claim more deductions.

With long term contracts that provide reliable work, contracting pays well.
But without benefits.

~~~
charlesdm
Right. But who cares about the benefits when the difference is $4-6k per
month? Most of those benefits (tech books and conferences, laptop,
smartphones, software, etc) are valid tax deductions for software developers.
I'll happily pay for those.

The UK, and many other EU countries, also have excellent ‘free’ healthcare.

~~~
_delirium
In the U.S. it's a bit different because the category "benefits" often
includes things that in other countries are part of the social system, such as
health insurance, childcare, maternity/paternity leave, continuing education,
etc.

That can all admittedly be solved with money, given enough of a pay
difference, though in some cases it would have to be a quite large pay
difference. The stickiest part used to be the health-insurance part, which was
hard to buy outside an employee risk pool if you had preexisting medical
issues, but that's mostly been fixed (or at least papered over for now).

------
shiftb
One of the best things I learned during my time consulting was an acute sense
for the value of my time.

Spending a half hour goofing off or taking a longer lunch translated directly
into a lower paycheck. Realizing that altered the way I work and how I focus
on what needs to get done. It made me more productive.

------
zerr
Finding gigs gets tough when you want to break out of web dev, to e.g.
C++/systems/desktop stuff.. And also add REMOTE constraint to that.

Network[ing] gets mentioned quite a lot, but, from my experience, if you truly
want to work on really different project/domain, you have to search elsewhere.

~~~
shubb
I'd be interested to hear where. I'd like to try freelancing, but my skills
are in embedded, so I figured I'd need to get good at web? Where are you
finding your customers?

~~~
zerr
You mean in web dev? It's been many years since I left this domain, but you
can find a lot of remote/freelance postings in HN hiring threads, and other
similar sources.

------
wooyi
I was part of a mobile dev boutique "shop" for a few years. We had maybe 10
projects a year, and the majority of the projects were your run of the mill
projects (ie, me-too projects, simple apps,..etc) . It became just like any
other job except that you had 10 bosses instead of 1. Everyone's experience is
different. But my takeaway was that it's better to define your own passion
projects and make it work than to be someone else's mercenary.

~~~
jakejake
I agree with you which is why I stopped consulting after five years. I started
to feel like I couldn't focus on anything because I always had 5-6 projects
going on at once.

Another thing is that you really begin to feel the pressure of having all time
on the computer being billable time - in order to pay your bills (or in my
case meet payroll for employees). So that leads to not being able to do much
exploration of new technologies. For example I would stress out if spending a
week learning something new because that would be a week that I would have no
revenue.

------
shubhamjain
Although, "being your own boss" seems a very pleasing thing but quite
possibly, you could have a steady line of work after investing some time in
building relationships, one of the aspect which seems a little daunting is -
boredom due to grunt work.

Most of the non-technical people would want to build a simple site with simple
functionality and after sometime it is bound to get repetitive. Pay could be
one of the motivating factor but would it be motivating enough to continue it
for many years? Certainly, such complains can also be made about startup jobs
but there are certain problems related to scaling and optimization that always
give excitement and satisfaction.

There are a few very successful consultants whose skill-sets are just too
awesome for a full time job and they have a steady line _exciting_ work but
probably, that would require knowledge of the deepest sort in certain fields
like scaling, or statistics.

~~~
chrismarlow9
having to do grunt work is an effect of a lack of automation in most cases.
one of the things he mentions is getting very tight and efficient with his
tool chain, to eliminate wasted time.

also, you outsource the things you're bad at yourself, or you create a
relationship with another contractor to trade work. typically this split is
"designer & coder".

------
k__
For me, consulting was mostly fire fighter work.

"A dev got sick, but we got to ship on monday! We gonna pay you mad monies to
come over the weekend and safe our ass"

Paid good money, but was boring work. But I would recommend it anyone before
starting to work for an "agency".

Product development > Freelancing > Unemployment > Working for an agency

~~~
stevebot
I disagree. Apparently, you have had one set of bad experiences with an
Agency. I have had a rather good experience.

At an Agency, I am usually brought in for green field projects that larger
companies don't feel their team either has the time of expertise for. This is
awesome.

Also, at an Agency, I get paid for every hour I work. This is not usually the
case in Product Development, where salaries are more common. The caveat, would
be if you have equity. Equity can beat being paid for every hour you work, but
obviously this is not always the case.

Freelancing also means you usually get paid for every hour you work. However,
you also have to spend mad time marketing and looking for clients, as well as
managing taxes, heath care and other housekeeping items. I dislike this, and
would rather have someone else do it for me.

~~~
curiously
Agencies have a horrible reputation. I know this because almost anyone I talk
to chances are they are looking for a way out.

An agency is like a freelancer but with more mouths to feed, you don't want to
be another mouth to feed because the food is limited, they compete based on
price.

~~~
stevebot
True, that is one way to look at it, but another is that they are a family
providing for each other. It really depends on the agency. As with all things
in life, there are good and bad examples. Again, I have had one set of
experiences and you another.

------
snambi
Awesome post. Couldn't agree more that the satisfaction is much higher than
the working for a big company.

------
hoboon
I'm curious to know something: how do you meet these non-technical people?

------
cafard
A bit breezy, but well worth reading:
[http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/soc.html](http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/soc.html)

------
ExpiredLink
> _Being a consultant means I am my own boss._

... or so are your delusive dreams. In reality you trade one kind of
dependency for another.

------
DonHopkins
Q: What's the difference between a consultant and a contractor?

A: A contractor knows the difference.

~~~
mlvljr
Why is not this comment next to first (instead of first as it is now)? ;)

------
psp
Consulting would be perfect except when the lights go out you don't own
anything.

------
meapix
one main thing about consulting is you will be doing work nobody wants to do.

------
curiously
Here's an actionable question.

Take a look at my "freelance" website
[http://appsonify.com](http://appsonify.com)

Tell me how I can turn it into a "consultant".

I don't want to be a freelancer getting paid low canadian dollars per hour. I
want to be a consultant getting paid lots of money.

Based on what everyone described and this article says, the differences are
subtle.

So what can I do to change how I present myself as a consultant rather than a
freelancer? What changes can I make on my freelancer website? Where can I find
my first consultant client? Why would a client use an expensive consultant vs
odesk (based on some customer's words not mine)? How can you avoid running
into these type of cost reducing customers?

These are the tough questions I think anyone curious about becoming a
consultant would care about.

~~~
grey-area
Your website doesn't really matter. If you want to improve the quality of
clients, try:

Give them quotes per project or part of project, not per day, or heaven
forfend by the hour.

Don't find clients on odesk, find them anywhere else (referrals and contacts
is the best way, you've already done some work, so work those contacts).

Don't do work and then walk away - build meaningful relationships and trust
with clients over years, and keep delivering for them (and being paid). Trust
is key. So don't drop clients unless they are toxic - aim to build up a stable
of good clients with repeat work and income. You've probably already met your
first consulting client.

Do drop clients who don't trust you or insist on lower prices. If they don't
trust you, you can't work for them.

Don't talk technology to them unless necessary or requested. Your client
doesn't care if you use odoo with git or poo with tigger, they care about what
you can deliver. They won't even know what OpenERP is (I didn't either). You
can do a lot of work for clients without them knowing or caring what tech is
used as long as what you build is solid and solves the problem.

Discuss requirements with them first in an in-depth way, don't wait for them
to give you a list of things that need done, have a discussion, and come back
with a quote which details ways to improve their business (efficiencies, new
features, new markets etc). Think of yourself and present yourself as a
partner, not someone contracted to do some odd jobs.

PS Since you asked about your site, it is a little topsy turvy, it starts from
top to bottom with stuff you care about, and only reaches stuff clients will
care about at the bottom - consider instead having a set of case studies at
the top with projects you have been paid for (just 3 is fine), and quotes from
happy customers. Your clients are usually focussed on their business and
making money for that business more efficiently. Your personal views, your
favourite technologies, and even the types of work you do, come secondary to
that.

~~~
gurkendoktor
> Give them quotes per project or part of project, not per day, or heaven
> forfend by the hour.

But if you do this, definitely have a strategy for when the project explodes,
or when a client keeps asking for "just one more little fix" for months. I
tend to summarise every new project (usually discussed over the phone) in an
email, so that I can refer to what is and what isn't part of the quote later.
I wonder if it comes across as lawyer-y, though.

~~~
grey-area
I give them a written spec, I don't think it's lawyerly at all, just
professional - it clarifies exactly what to expect and lets you control scope.

------
mikerichards
I'm doing consulting on the side and loving it. Besides the money, I'm able to
really hone some front-end skills that went a little stale because of the
project I'm on at my full-time job.

My experience is different than the OPs though. Although we live in the same
town, almost all of our interaction is by phone. And I've been fortunate that
my contacts are typically technical.

Of course the only downside is time. When you've got a full-time job and then
doing it on the side, every minute is precious, but I'd probably be goofing
off anyway.

------
curiously
so the question everyone here wants to know is.

How do you get a coffee with a real estate realtor or someone like that?

Craigslist?

PPC? what keywords do you target?

Landing page? How does it differ from a freelancer's portfolio?

How did you find out what he quotes he was getting? Did you match it or
underprice it somewhat?

~~~
ohashi
In the article didn't he clearly state he was working in the same space? To
put it in a more generalized context, he was meeting people in real life (and
he also mentioned how real life connections were important).

