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How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

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

#431

Post by md224 »

patio11 wrote: post #307
andrethegiant wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good example of a marketing consultant, but what about an engineering consultant? Would talking tech stack pros/cons pull in a similar rate?

It is weird how I get persistently drummed out of engineering because when I write cron jobs, SQL queries, and React dashboards I make special effort to connect them to business outcomes. Businesses, to a first approximation, don’t care about their tech stack except to the extent that it drives business outcomes. Can you articulate those pros/cons in a way a business cares about? Can you impact your deliverables to r…

You really don't see why the example you gave above was marketing rather than engineering?

All of the recommendations you gave were related to selling the product, not improving it. That's not a bad thing; it just means it was a marketing consultation.

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

#432

Post by Adam89 »

MrFoof wrote: post #222
putnam wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a consultant?

I actually am, and I'm a Hacker News nobody that is 100% solo, including all of my sales. I started in mid-2012 after being fed up with every employer out there, but was well aware that I was one of the best people someone could hire for things that are necessary, but not glamorous -- database performance tuning, data warehousing, ETL process development, and cleaning up disasters. Yet getting market rate for salary…

Would you consider going back to fulltime employment?

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

#433

Post by tptacek »

projektir wrote: post #205
putnam wrote: post #2

I have an Internet buddy in Chicago named Thomas Ptacek. [...] I decided to invite Thomas out to coffee. At the end of the conversation, Thomas said something which, no exaggeration, changed my life. Thomas: Some food for thought: If this hadn't been a coffee date, but rather a consulting engagement, I'd be writing you a check right now. Me: Three hours at $100 an hour or whatever an intermediate programmer is worth…

To some people, probably. I'd wager most people don't have someone like tptacek as an internet buddy or knowledge that would interest them, though. They literally mentioned HN karma rank titles... so much for fake internet points? Does this sound odd to anyone else or just me? There's likely some small percentage of people who can go on to do consulting and charge lots of money. That this applies to a greater amount…

I don't know what this even means. I think Patrick and I might have exchanged a total of one (1) super secret Internet friends secret messages before we met for coffee and me and Cory kidnapped him for the day. If you're in Chicago and you haven't made a hobby out of calling me an NSA shill (or if you can credibly claim that you've done so only out of irony), we're "internet friends" enough that I'll grab coffee if you have something you want to talk about.

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

#434

Post by greggyb »

kristianc wrote: post #418
patio11 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My modal engagement was with a SaaS company with $20 million a year sales, a few dozen employees, and 1~3 very strapped people wearing the marketing hat. “How much email do you send?” “We have a newsletter.” “What else?” “Welcome to free trial email. “What else?” “Nothing.” I write proposal. You should: 1) Have a pre-sales drip campaign positioned as a “free course about X delivered over email” w/ 8 emails arriving o…

For most enterprise software sales, who tend to deal in a few large customers rather than lots of small ones, almost all of this would be enormously counterproductive.

If you're a software company and you have only a few customers, then you're probably doing bespoke development (whether you call that consulting or not can be your own decision), not product sales.

The entire purpose of selling a product is to scale through volume rather than customization.

To me the big divide is how superlinear your revenue:employee ratio is. If it's linear or close to it, then you're a consulting org. You make money based on the hours of work you are able to bill for in one way or another. If it's a "product", but you as the product developer are doing heavy customization, then you've just transitioned from an hourly billing model to something resembling fixed bid, but with a fiction of a product in the mix.

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

#435

Post by minor3rd »

ivanhoe wrote: post #277
putnam wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you live?

In a small city in Croatia, on the coast of Adriatic sea. I moved here for personal reasons as it's a great place for raising a family - but it does put some limits on what types of gigs I can get (remote only) and what fees I can charge. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally fine the way it is, no regrets whatsoever. Also, it obviously depends on the type of consulting that one does. I'm mostly working with startups, help…

> I'm mostly working with startups, helping them with web app architecture and performance

When I read the blog post my first thought was that I would love to do exactly this. I'm working at a startup right now but I'm so bored of the day-to-day and really enjoy architecture/performance tasks. I think I'm going to give consulting a try after I vest a little more stock :)

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

#436

Post by ScottBurson »

blunte wrote: post #417
putnam wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you prepared or capable of making that transition?

I'm definitely not capable of doing what he does. Interacting with people is something I can do very, very well. But it costs me a huge amount of energy (introvert). And working with marketing/sales people takes more out of me than with any other segment of the population! Regarding the Denny's -> Del Frisco's, that I could actually do well :). But that's because I have a special fondness for hospitality and providin…

Before you get too tempted, read this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15658437

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

#437

Post by kasey_junk »

projektir wrote: post #205
putnam wrote: post #2

I have an Internet buddy in Chicago named Thomas Ptacek. [...] I decided to invite Thomas out to coffee. At the end of the conversation, Thomas said something which, no exaggeration, changed my life. Thomas: Some food for thought: If this hadn't been a coffee date, but rather a consulting engagement, I'd be writing you a check right now. Me: Three hours at $100 an hour or whatever an intermediate programmer is worth…

To some people, probably. I'd wager most people don't have someone like tptacek as an internet buddy or knowledge that would interest them, though. They literally mentioned HN karma rank titles... so much for fake internet points? Does this sound odd to anyone else or just me? There's likely some small percentage of people who can go on to do consulting and charge lots of money. That this applies to a greater amount…

If you want tptacek as an internet friend my advice is to email him.

If you are physically proximate to him he’ll buy you a coffee. Pretty cheap price to pay for a new internet friend.

I’ll also suggest to you that Patrick (nor any of Thomas’ successful friends) is successful cause he figured out how to turn HN karma into gold (I’d bet Patrick would say HN karma all represents wasted opportunities for your own content).

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

#438

Post by ewjordan »

md224 wrote: post #431
patio11 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is weird how I get persistently drummed out of engineering because when I write cron jobs, SQL queries, and React dashboards I make special effort to connect them to business outcomes. Businesses, to a first approximation, don’t care about their tech stack except to the extent that it drives business outcomes. Can you articulate those pros/cons in a way a business cares about? Can you impact your deliverables to r…

You really don't see why the example you gave above was marketing rather than engineering? All of the recommendations you gave were related to selling the product, not improving it. That's not a bad thing; it just means it was a marketing consultation.

I think a clearer way to say what a lot of people are bothered by with that example is that in order to sell those recommendations you need:

a) to have a lot of marketing expertise

b) to be known well enough for your marketing expertise that people will take your suggestions as valid

Most tech people have neither one. Hell, most marketing people have neither one, half of the rest on my have b) but are actually incompetent in their recommendations, and only the last little bit have both.

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

#439

Post by mooreds »

bananaboy wrote: post #429
sethev wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about if you invert it. If somebody came to you and asked for a system that can send emails when certain conditions are met in a database and track the results, would you assume that to write the program you would have to hang out with sales people? The actual work (in the two weeks to implement it) is development.

It's still fundamentally development for the marketing side of a business though, rather than development for the product side. I think the problem that people are struggling with is that they can't see how this information relates to them if they are software developers looking to do consulting work on software. Patrick's article really is from a marketing angle, even though there is a software development component…

If you're interested in value based pricing, Jonathan Stark has a pretty decent free ecourse on it: https://expensiveproblem.com/

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

#440

Post by JamesBarney »

sethev wrote: post #424
blunte wrote: post #388

Perhaps other people here shared the same assumption that I did - that this essay was about moving from tech development as a contractor/employee to tech (development) consulting. It's not. It's about moving from developing to marketing. There's nothing wrong with that, but it was a let-down to me to discover that the path to riches meant mingling with the group of people I tend to like the least in a company. Also,…

How about if you invert it. If somebody came to you and asked for a system that can send emails when certain conditions are met in a database and track the results, would you assume that to write the program you would have to hang out with sales people? The actual work (in the two weeks to implement it) is development.

The actual work of being a lawyer is writing and talking, but just because you can write and talk doesn't mean you can be a lawyer.

Every client I've ever had has asked "how many hours?" And "how much per hour?"

If a restaurant wants to increase business by building a patio and they get a bid based with pricing based on increased business and not hours. They're gonna throw it away.

Patio11 was in a unique position to know more about how to increase the business's revenue better than the business. This is a very unique position and advice based on that position is not really relevant to the rest of us who aren't experts in internet marketing.

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