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To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

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Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#91

Post by JangoSteve »

rorykoehler wrote: post #78
oldboyFX wrote: post #61

Author makes a valid point, but what about folks who actually like writing code (among other things)? Here's what worked for me as a remote consultant who lives in a small central european country: My partner and I currently position ourselves as "A high-grade self-managing team of two, specialized in mapping out, designing, and delivering complex custom-built web applications on time". I suppose we might fall under…

How do you find new customers?

Can't speak for the OP, but as we do the same thing, figured I'd contribute our answer.

We're not great at "sales", so it's been completely organic growth and word-of-mouth. I went to a lot of events and meetups for startups, and talked to people about what they were doing and what we do. I've also done a lot of open source development, including working on the Rails core team and building our own projects like Dynatable.js.

This took a lot of time to cultivate a sales pipeline. The company was just me for the first 4 years, occasionally sub-contracting as needed. Then over the next 6 years, we grew to 6 people, and are currently in the process of finding a developer-consultant to join as our 7th.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#92

Post by pdimitar »

hemling wrote: post #80

How do I go from general software developer to domain specialist if I don't have domain knowledge in the first place (or want to get out of the domain I'm working in)? I suspect that people who are in a great niche got there by accident and that luck is a much bigger part than most want to admit. I don't think a deliberate attempt to move into a great position will work.

To answer your first question: you simply sacrifice your free time to do it. No magic bullets sadly. Or, if your day job is very boring, get a fixed slice of your workday and utilize it for your future prospects / education. So many people do it and yet it's a largely denied phenomena. One of the so-called "public secrets". :)

A deliberate attempt to move into a higher position is just an intention and nothing else. The real hard part is changing the way you think and view yourself. You can start with reminiscing all the times in your career when you had a much bigger advice to offer outside of the usual coding monkey trope: "this feature will be done in 2 days". In this regard I believe the author hits the nail on the head: it's all about how people view you. If they view you as a coding monkey then they will not listen.

Start thinking about the advice you have given and which was ignored.

The process of self-transformation can take anywhere from several weeks to decades (and many people never achieve it). It seriously depends on the person. I am currently in that hard transition and I have to tell you -- it's exhausting and it will challenge a ton of preconceptions you didn't even know you had just a week ago. Be prepared to put anything and everything in your life philosophy in question. It's more than most human egos can endure.

I am still a programmer, damn good one at that. But I regularly get rejected based on "cultural fits" or half-arsed excuses where they have no idea how to twist the fact that they don't want somebody with my rates or my resistance to BS. And I started having other people market me as not-only-a-programmer. I am in no-man's-land right now but I can feel the attitude of several people changing -- and see a few new ones coming with a drastically different one compared to what I am used to when people hear I am a programmer.

TL;DR: It's extremely hard and the main limitation and hurdle is you. Sucks to admit but it's better for one fo be a realist. Remember the amazing "Cloud Atlas" movie:

"All rules are conventions and are meant to be transcended. One can only transcend a convention if they first imagine of doing so."

---

And yes, luck plays a huge part to it. But in one of the towns in my country people love saying "luck doesn't come to you, you go to it" -- which illustrates that if you keep trying eventually you will bump into the right people and conditions.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#93

Post by meesterdude »

chrisbennet wrote: post #66
acconrad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have asked what you believe is more . $75-100 is definitely in the "cheap" range, $100-150 I see for senior generalists, and $150-300 I see for the principal/architect/specialist rates. At some point the number isn't sustainable unless you're like a brand-name entity (e.g. John Carmack, Jeff Atwood, John Resig, and I'm just guessing here).

Good point. For context, I'm outside of Boston, not a web developer and I charge a very reasonable $150-$200 hour. This weeds out the clients that expect something to "take a couple of weeks" but have no idea what is involved and then don't appreciate/value the work once it's done. ("My kid cousin could have done this.") Many contract shops would be happy to tell you that "no one will pay that", pay you $65 hour and…

> Many contract shops would be happy to tell you that "no one will pay that", pay you $65 hour and then turn around and charge $130+.

or $55/$150 in my case :(

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#94

Post by xapata »

remify wrote: post #72
oldboyFX wrote: post #61

Author makes a valid point, but what about folks who actually like writing code (among other things)? Here's what worked for me as a remote consultant who lives in a small central european country: My partner and I currently position ourselves as "A high-grade self-managing team of two, specialized in mapping out, designing, and delivering complex custom-built web applications on time". I suppose we might fall under…

I just look at your website and it's amazing ! Just clean UI and good pitch. I love that it's clear that you guys are doing great code just by looking at your website.

Looks like they've read the old "useit" blog, which NN/g sadly "fixed".

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#95

Post by datavirtue »

civilian wrote: post #77
abainbridge wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a British-ism. I'm British. The parent's post used tariff in a way I found normal. Google tells me: tariff - noun: BRITISH a list of the fixed charges made by a business, especially for use of gas, electricity, or a mobile phone.

In American english tariff is usually used as "tax". Especially in the context of import & export taxes on goods and services. (E.g. The American colonies revolted over the tea tariff.)

Indeed. Tariff is a dirty word in American English.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#96

Post by datavirtue »

pdimitar wrote: post #92
hemling wrote: post #80

How do I go from general software developer to domain specialist if I don't have domain knowledge in the first place (or want to get out of the domain I'm working in)? I suspect that people who are in a great niche got there by accident and that luck is a much bigger part than most want to admit. I don't think a deliberate attempt to move into a great position will work.

To answer your first question: you simply sacrifice your free time to do it. No magic bullets sadly. Or, if your day job is very boring, get a fixed slice of your workday and utilize it for your future prospects / education. So many people do it and yet it's a largely denied phenomena. One of the so-called "public secrets". :) A deliberate attempt to move into a higher position is just an intention and nothing else.…

You can't slice out a portion of your day to learn niche domain knowledge. You get it by working in the industry or studying under a professor from the industry. You can't learn the payments industry from a bookfir example. All the information is tacit and passed verbally. Arcane is a good word.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#97

Post by BerislavLopac »

oldboyFX wrote: post #61

Author makes a valid point, but what about folks who actually like writing code (among other things)? Here's what worked for me as a remote consultant who lives in a small central european country: My partner and I currently position ourselves as "A high-grade self-managing team of two, specialized in mapping out, designing, and delivering complex custom-built web applications on time". I suppose we might fall under…

It certainly helps when you live in a country with very low cost of living and, if you've properly set things up, you can avoid paying most of the taxes. Not to mention being young and without a family to support.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#98

Post by pdimitar »

datavirtue wrote: post #96
pdimitar wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer your first question: you simply sacrifice your free time to do it. No magic bullets sadly. Or, if your day job is very boring, get a fixed slice of your workday and utilize it for your future prospects / education. So many people do it and yet it's a largely denied phenomena. One of the so-called "public secrets". :) A deliberate attempt to move into a higher position is just an intention and nothing else.…

You can't slice out a portion of your day to learn niche domain knowledge. You get it by working in the industry or studying under a professor from the industry. You can't learn the payments industry from a bookfir example. All the information is tacit and passed verbally. Arcane is a good word.

Oh I agree what you say is true for many areas. But what I say is also true for others. It depends on what the person is aiming at.

My general point was that there are no magic bullets. I was always to irritated at the Hollywood trope of the person who hates their job and decides to change their life... and then we fast-forward to them having a villa at the sea and working only when they want. I was trying to show that a lot of hard work is involved, and that some sacrifices have to be made.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#99

Post by finnley »

Not a fan of this article. Could sum it up fairly simply here:

Build credibility and trust with your clients, prospects, and network. Trust in you gets decision makers to listen. You don't do this overnight. You can both code and be viewed as a thought leader - it's not mutually exclusive.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#100

Post by icedchai »

andy_adams wrote: post #56

For any devs worried they're missing out because they're not in the "strategic" role described here: There's still a boatload of money to be made just doing the coding. Yes, strategic work can be the way to big buck$, but there's also a shortage of reliable implementers of moderately-technical projects who don't disappear and communicate reasonably well. Sure, you might not get to a $20k/week bill rate, but for many…

I've worked with some "strategic" consultants. Believe me, these guys did some pretty diagrams and wrote a couple of nice word docs, but they didn't do any real, useful work. It was almost laughable.
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