

Ask HN: How do I get into consulting coming from a finance background? - withinthreshold

I am currently an auditor at a Big 4 firm in low-income country. I am not completely satisfied by the amount of income I retain while working for sometimes 60+ hours per week, and I want to pursue my dream and build a business.<p>I think that starting to do consulting, saving money and invest it into my own (web product) business is the path to go.<p>My non-finance skills are: web development (beginner to moderate, knowledge of PHP and PHP frameworks, MySQL, Rails) and Excel (naturally). I have no portfolio currently (besides some basic bootstrap- and wordpress-based sites I've created a while ago).<p>Is there hope for me? How do I get clients while there are clearly a lot of developers having a substantial portfolio and better skills?
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stfu
Just for putting another option on the table:

Get a graduate degree from either a US or UK institution and try making the
jump from the low-income country over to a US/EU country. Afaik accounting
PhDs are quite in demand so with a littlebit luck and effort you might find
there a paid teaching position. That would allow you to have more time on your
hands and push your non-finance skills forward.

That might improve your situation more than just building up Php/MySql sites
as you have apparently already have quite a solid level of expertise in the
auditing industry.

Think about what level of time and effort someone from outside the auditing
industry would have to invest in order to compete with your
skillset/experience. Unless you found some lucky accident you need to put the
same level of effort into your goal if you want to become a full time IT guy
(who doesn't just compete with a zillion of other wannabe professionals on
oDesk).

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michaelpinto
Doing something service oriented like consulting vs. a product are two very
different paths. And it's very hard once you do service to launch a product,
so it's best to pick one or the other.

I think the main problem you have right now is that 60+ hours per week is
brutal, so it's hard to either get a client or build a product if you're
already giving it that much.

So I think there is hope for you, but it's best to focus on one thing at a
time or at least give yourself the space to do that.

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lifeguard
Try to find and read a copy of, "Guerrilla Selling: Unconventional Weapons and
Tactics for Increasing Your Sales" by Bill Gallagher, Orvel Ray Wilson, Jay
Conrad Levinson

Also "Purple Cow" or anything by Godin
[http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/purple-cow-seth-
godin/110004...](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/purple-cow-seth-
godin/1100041613?ean=9781591843177)

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dylanhassinger
Keep your day job and build the product on the side. You can use your current
salary to finance some outsourcing, have a product into the market in 3-6
months.

This explains everything: startupbook.net

Also fourhourworkweek.com and lifestylebusinesspodcast.com

Freelancing is a dead end road that takes all your mental energy, avoid it at
all costs

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munimkazia
I am just wondering.. If you are an auditor in a Big 4 firm, you should be
pretty decent in finance itself. Why even look at tech? I am not sure what all
financial consulting really involves, but it seems like the natural way to go
for you.

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allsystemsgo
There is such a thing as IT audit.

