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Ask HN: How do I start being a consultant?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I start being a consultant?

#21

Post by m0nastic »

I think the advice folks are posting here is very good. I'm about a week into the process of incorporating a company and trying to figure out how in the hell I'm going to do this.

While not particularly novel advice, the one thing I can advise (and I have to remind myself of this constantly) is to be cognizant of whether your spending too much time focusing on the inconsequential things (which seem psychically easier to deal with) than the important things.

In my case, I'm still trying to figure out a plan for getting initial work (which you might imagine is a pretty important thing), but I found myself debating for days about my new logo (which is pretty much guaranteed to never be looked at by anyone for longer than a few seconds at the top of my web page).

I've also spent hours figuring out systems for how I'm going to handle invoicing, client management, output delivery, branding and marketing, etc.

All of those things are certainly important to do, but I find it's way too easy for me to focus my energy on them, instead of the elephant in the room.

Good luck though.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start being a consultant?

#22

Post by proexploit »

riledhel wrote: post #12
proexploit wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free is not good but it's actually better than cheap. As long as you are accepting a client's money, they are going to have expectations and a lot more things can go wrong. Free at least frees you from those expectations.

In my experience people have all kinds of expectations, regardless of wether you charge them or not. And billing shows them your time is as valuable as theirs. On the other hand, if you offer your time for free, people will tend to load you with as much work as possible because, hey, you're free; and you have no way to leverage how much you're willing to do.

I figure with free, you've always got the opportunity to say "Hey, that's as much as I can afford to do for free" in response to unreasonable requests. With cheap, you then have to deal with the added "but I paid you money" argument as well. I'm sure it differs on how the job is presented and how you outline your responsibilities as well.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start being a consultant?

#23

Post by mzarate06 »

tptacek wrote: post #17

(1) Start a freelance practice. (2) Raise your rates. (3) As you work for clients, keep a sharp eye for opportunities to build "specialty practices". If you get to work on a project involving Mongodb, spend some extra time and effort to get Mongodb under your belt. If you get a project for a law firm, spend some extra time thinking about how to develop applications that deal with contracts or boilerplates or PDF gene…

(5) Start refusing hourly-rate projects. Your new minimum billable increment is a day.

I'm assuming that holds true for you? If so, how did clients respond to that? I'm curious to hear about existing clients you transitioned from hourly (if applicable), and new clients that were introduced to that pay structure from day 1 (b/c most new clients I encounter have only heard of fixed pricing or hourly billing).

Re: Ask HN: How do I start being a consultant?

#24

Post by bartonfink »

mzarate06 wrote: post #23
tptacek wrote: post #17

(1) Start a freelance practice. (2) Raise your rates. (3) As you work for clients, keep a sharp eye for opportunities to build "specialty practices". If you get to work on a project involving Mongodb, spend some extra time and effort to get Mongodb under your belt. If you get a project for a law firm, spend some extra time thinking about how to develop applications that deal with contracts or boilerplates or PDF gene…

(5) Start refusing hourly-rate projects. Your new minimum billable increment is a day. I'm assuming that holds true for you? If so, how did clients respond to that? I'm curious to hear about existing clients you transitioned from hourly (if applicable), and new clients that were introduced to that pay structure from day 1 (b/c most new clients I encounter have only heard of fixed pricing or hourly billing).

Thomas frequently mentions that his practice bills in weeks because that's the nature of his consulting (application security), and he's urged several people on here to do the same. He points out that people who balk at this tend to not be serious clients, and are ultimately not profitable enough to justify the work.

I'd bet, although I'm far from an authority, that anyone who's looking to hire top-rate consultants to audit the security of their software isn't going to balk too much at this sort of arrangement. It's the difference between the lawyer who advertises on late night TV to defend your DUI charge, and a team of legal experts in tax laws between America and New Zealand. If you need the latter level of expertise, you have to accept that the relationship is going to be fundamentally different than it would be with the former.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start being a consultant?

#25

Post by ajushi »

Wow, amazing responses! Thank you guys, I've learned a lot from you :-)

I have another quesiton that's been bothering me:

Let's say I contacted my old company. I know that there are developers there that knows better than me (with regards to programming). Should I still pursue consulting there? What should I do?

P.S. Let's say I see the project that's going to be done would fit perfectly well with PHP, it's adequate and saves the company money. Then there are the developers that are .NET programmers and they are pushing that although let's say for the sake of argument, PHP would suffice.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start being a consultant?

#26

Post by ajushi »

tptacek wrote: post #17

(1) Start a freelance practice. (2) Raise your rates. (3) As you work for clients, keep a sharp eye for opportunities to build "specialty practices". If you get to work on a project involving Mongodb, spend some extra time and effort to get Mongodb under your belt. If you get a project for a law firm, spend some extra time thinking about how to develop applications that deal with contracts or boilerplates or PDF gene…

Amazing advice! This will be my blueprint! Thank you :-)

Just a clarification with (6): I experience this a whole lot. The client always changes scope. Are you suggesting that I don't budge and be firm about the scope agreement?

Also RE:elementary customer service. From what I understand is communicate with the client well (update them always and be responsive so that they won't be in the dark). Is that what you meant?

Again thank you :-)

Re: Ask HN: How do I start being a consultant?

#27

Post by Cd00d »

tirrellp wrote: post #2

How I started: - Called up past employers and let them know what I was up to. Asked if they "needed any help" - Reached out to local startups and asked if they "needed any help" - Trolled craigslist for projects, built POCs quickly, then responded to the ad with a link to the proof of concept. My first three clients were an ex employer, 2 local startups (reaching out to startups), and a real estate company (craigslis…

Have you worked out equity pay packages for startups that need your solutions but don't yet have capital?
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