Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

training.kalzumeus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 495 posts

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#211

Post by ericabiz »

kleiba wrote: post #57

To this day, I'm still not quite clear about what a consultant actually does. I mean, beyond some vague idea ("goes to some company, talks with people, gives some recommendation"). I'd really love for someone to give some example or describe in a tangible way what the work of a consultant entails, what skills one typically needs and actually employs, what a typical gig looks like from beginning to end and so on. If a…

I'm pretty well-qualified to answer this question :) I've done several marketing consulting gigs, including working with Patrick 6 years ago at WP Engine, where we were both consultants!

I am in the middle of another marketing consulting gig right now with a SaaS company. I was hired to help them drastically reduce their sales cycle. They sell to enterprise companies and the sales cycle takes forever.

I'm working on a new front-end website for them, with better copy, more testimonials, white papers/case studies, and a live demo of their product. (Today, potential customers have to request a demo--having people be able to see the product for themselves should shave at least a week off the sales cycle.)

I have both a technical background and a marketing background, so I can write both copy and code, though I'm stronger on the marketing side these days.

When I worked with Patrick at WP Engine, I was also lead on deploying a new front-end website, with a better tagline. My most important contribution there, though, was that I came up with the "10 sites for $99" pricing structure, which is a huge component of what made them so successful.

I am also working on a better pricing structure with my current consulting gig.

I spoke more about what I do for SaaS companies in this talk at Microconf: https://vimeo.com/72456666 (Notably, I did this talk, and it was posted here on HN, several months before pg wrote his "Do things that don't scale" blog post.)

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#213

Post by [deleted] »

putnam wrote: post #171
AFNobody wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A consultant making 5 figures a week, in practical terms, is a unicorn that is not reliably repeatable. Most people cannot maintain that level of marketing while maintaining an income (as a consultant) effectively. If they could, every programmer would try to transition into making 5 figures a week as a consultant instead of making $100-200k with a stable job. The $4k/week thing isn't since pretty much any decent con…

Why can they not maintain that level of marketing? What is stopping them?

[deleted]

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#214

Post by user5994461 »

oblio wrote: post #189
k__ wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consultant is simply perceived higher value than freelancer or contractor. Since I started selling myself as a "Mobile Consultant" I made significantly more money than selling myself as a "Front-End Developer", "Freelance Developer" or such. Seemingly it's all in the wording these days.

It was always in the wording :)

"Freelance" is the offshore developers on elance.com working for a dollar an hour and the students working after class for free who are desperate to get experience.

"contractor" is the replacement status for permanent employees. They are outside of normal payroll and company benefits, they usually do 1 to 6 months repeatable contracts.

"consultants" is the experienced people who need to be called by up-the-chain to perform important matters and take critical decisions.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#216

Post by bagacrap »

kleiba wrote: post #57

To this day, I'm still not quite clear about what a consultant actually does. I mean, beyond some vague idea ("goes to some company, talks with people, gives some recommendation"). I'd really love for someone to give some example or describe in a tangible way what the work of a consultant entails, what skills one typically needs and actually employs, what a typical gig looks like from beginning to end and so on. If a…

You tell whoever hired you whatever they want to hear, and if their/your plan goes wrong they get to blame the consultant. If things go well, they take the credit. It's a win win because the consultant gets paid either way.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#217

Post by kirubakaran »

gvsmith wrote: post #210
bastijn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example reads like a programmer wrote it instead of a consultant. - Would not expect to see a "such as" in statement of work in the locations you used them. - Would not expect typos in statement of work. - Consultant will push commits to source control.. I have other employees to code, I would pay an consultant to consult. Define strategy, architecture, coach. Not type code, you are way too expensive for that. A…

Except in the real world (also at Google) the people who "type the code" also do the actual design work. I quess Perelman was also just "typing a proof". The amount of clueless people here is astonishing.

Hey, just fyi, this comment was flagged to death but I vouched for it to undo that, as I think you mean well and you make good points. I'm guessing the flaggers were reacting to the "clueless people" line.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#218

Post by chiefalchemist »

> "This is stunningly not the case for programming, due to how competitive the market for talent is right now, and it is even more acutely untrue for folks who can program but instead choose to offer the much-more-lucrative service "I solve business problems -- occasionally a computer is involved."

Very true. But also easier said than done. I'd add that problem identification is problem even more valuable than problem solving. That is, get the problem wrong and even the greatest solution is irrelevant.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#219

Post by shanemhansen »

mgkimsal wrote: post #114
iends wrote: post #84

One of the problems I've always had with patio11's advice is that the skills he brought to a job was something that could easily be measured, e.g. he mainly did sales funnel optimization so it was easy to see the before and after of the direct impact on the bottom line. As somebody who is a skilled backend developer the value I provide is not as measurable. How can I justify charging a large weekly rate, when almost…

> As somebody who is a skilled backend developer the value I provide is not as measurable Learn to do something which is more measurable, or figure out ways to measure some particular aspect of value you can bring. In back-end software, it will most likely be around performance or security. Doing a security audit then proposing remediation... if the company has already been hacked, they (should) understand the value…

It's not hard in my experience. Not as easy as convincing CEO to do two redesigns per year, but not hard.

I work with companies operating at a large scale. Downtime costs $xxx,000/minute.

Developers cost lots of money, improving their productivity by a little bit pays huge dividends.

If the company has big events like Black Friday or Superbowl commercials, keeping the site up during those events is worth paying for.

Many not so big companies spend 6 figures per month in AWS bills.

Lots of work for a backend consultant.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#220

Post by kemitche »

s73ver_ wrote: post #192
Retric wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that increasing the number and quality of great actors increases the profitably of movie studios, and thus the number of movies made. Similarly with sports, there is a huge range of player incomes and assuming the sport becomes more interesting to watch and thus profitable their would be room for more highly compensated players.

For that to happen, they would have to increase the number of teams. This requires new stadiums/arenas to be built, and expansion teams to be created. This requires rebalancing of conferences and divisions within the league.

And, over several decades of the NFL, all of that has happened several times.
Post reply on HN