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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)

#111

Post by vram22 »

121789 wrote: post #105
vram22 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2. Specialize. Start looking for commonalities between the projects that you do. Build tooling for them. Maybe publish some open source stuff. Build a specialty practice around that. You can do this repeatedly, for different areas; eventually, you'll do it for business verticals. A former manager of mine, who had some consulting background, once told me that the big management consulting firms like McKinsey do somet…

Haha, I was a consultant and you paint a very idealistic picture of the situation. It usually went something like this in my experience: 1. Partner hears client is interested in a certain type of engagement 2. Partner promises that their firm has extensive expertise in the area 3. Partner commits to writing a proposal for the potential project 4. Lower level staff scramble to talk to other consultants in their firm (…

>Haha, I was a consultant and you paint a very idealistic picture of the situation. It usually went something like this in my experience:

1. I did not claim to "paint" the full picture. 2. I did not paint the picture. Was saying what my ex-manager said to me. 3. The plural of anecdote is not data.

Interesting to hear of your experience, though.

Regardless of your experience, systematically collecting and analyzing data on prior projects, with a view to applying the learning to future ones, is useful, for any discipline, not just management consulting or software engineering. That's part of how progress in any field happens.

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

#112

Post by vram22 »

vram22 wrote: post #111
121789 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, I was a consultant and you paint a very idealistic picture of the situation. It usually went something like this in my experience: 1. Partner hears client is interested in a certain type of engagement 2. Partner promises that their firm has extensive expertise in the area 3. Partner commits to writing a proposal for the potential project 4. Lower level staff scramble to talk to other consultants in their firm (…

>Haha, I was a consultant and you paint a very idealistic picture of the situation. It usually went something like this in my experience: 1. I did not claim to "paint" the full picture. 2. I did not paint the picture. Was saying what my ex-manager said to me. 3. The plural of anecdote is not data. Interesting to hear of your experience, though. Regardless of your experience, systematically collecting and analyzing da…

Also, I'm well aware of the "golmaal" (Hindi slang term) that goes on in any field. Hey, it's common knowledge. But that does not invalidate work of the good actors in the field.

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

#113

Post by oldboyFX »

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?

For the past couple of years our average engagement was full-time and 8+ months long, so we only needed to look for new customers once or maybe twice a year.

We took some time to create our consultancy website and make sure we're communicating our value and principles at least somewhat effectively.

It also helps having satisfied past clients who will speak well of you when someone calls them up.

We don't really do any speaking, blogging, traveling to conferences to network, or anything like that. I just advertise on a couple of websites like HN who wants to be hired, for hire subreddit, angel list, startupers.com, etc to let people know we're on the market looking for a new project. We usually find someone who is a good fit within a couple of weeks.

We are also involved in the local tech community and in the past we would get some projects through word-of-mouth, but those were at lower rates near the beginning of our careers.

You could also try platforms like codementorX and moonlightwork until you manage to connect with someone yourself.

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

#115

Post by rpeden »

AgalmicVentures wrote: post #89
rpeden wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possibly because you've positioned yourself in a such a way that you attract customers who will only ever see you as a coder for hire? I love the look of your consulting website, but "We create beautiful, engaging applications" isn't a very strong positioning statement. Most generalist software shops have something similar on their site. And if you position yourself that way, whether online or in person, I thin…

Thank you so much for writing this. I've struggled with positioning for a long time, and although I have a niche, it was a challenge to communicate the value I offer in a succinct way. This nails it: > You don't just deliver code. You deliver complete end-to-end solutions that don't require the customer to specify everything in excruciating detail. Instead, you're like an amazing machine to which customers only have…

You're welcome! I'm glad it was useful.

If TPM seems useful to you, you'd probably enjoy signing up for Philip's newsletter. He sends out an e-mail every day, and I usually find them useful and insightful.

Along the same lines, you might like Jonathan Stark:

https://jonathanstark.com/

I haven't bought anything from him (yet), but I signed up for his e-mails and find them valuable.

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

#116

Post by llampx »

maxxxxx wrote: post #5
carlsborg wrote: post #2

I think that provable deep expertise in some niche is a pre-requisite to this kind of positioning. Is there a market for general purpose software consultants? Who is the target audience?

What I have seen is that some people/consultants have the ability to talk to C*O or VP level in their own language. Once you get these people to trust you, you can hire people with expertise you need. You can probably also get contracts because of your specific domain expertise but I believe the ability to communicate with high level management is more important for a successful consulting business.

Do you have any tips on how to do that or to grow the ability to talk to C-level in their own language? I feel that that's what's holding me back at the moment.

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

#117

Post by maxxxxx »

llampx wrote: post #116
maxxxxx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I have seen is that some people/consultants have the ability to talk to C*O or VP level in their own language. Once you get these people to trust you, you can hire people with expertise you need. You can probably also get contracts because of your specific domain expertise but I believe the ability to communicate with high level management is more important for a successful consulting business.

Do you have any tips on how to do that or to grow the ability to talk to C-level in their own language? I feel that that's what's holding me back at the moment.

No, I have been struggling with my whole life. Let me know if you find out something.

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

#118

Post by tomohawk »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #28
rumok wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious, why do you believe scrum to be "stupid and horrible"?

Many years of experience with it across orgs of various sizes and ages. One-size-fits-all software management and metrics about planning and velocity are things that exist to give middle management surface area to tell whatever political blame/credit stories they want, and have not got shit to do with productivity, adjusting to change, or delivering anything. And don’t even get me started on why Agile is emphatically…

I've seen scrum work and not work. My biggest beef with scrum is that people think its a batteries included thing, and its not. I've also seen a lot of things called scrum, which were not scrum. That batteries not included part is the thing scrum calls a product owner, which is just an idealization of whatever requirements process is in place. If that requirements process does not deliver decent requirements in a prioritized manner, then good luck.

I've had much more success with feature driven development (Coad).

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

#119

Post by semperdark »

chrisbennet wrote: post #106
semperdark wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you market yourself? Personal network?

That the weird thing. I don't (market myself). I made website but I don't get leads from it. It's just a portfolio. I am very friendly and I do keep up with people I worked with decades ago but that is the extent of my "networking".

Interesting. I've heard that before, it does seem to be mostly a matter of building up a solid reputation over time and getting referrals. Thanks for the info!

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

#120

Post by 01100011 »

tptacek wrote: post #101
01100011 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest failures at the software consulting houses I've worked at have come from not building adequate tooling and not establishing a framework for knowledge/skills transfer. A close runner up would be failures related to trying to build actual products. The problem with consulting though is scalability. You can make a product and recoup your NRE with the first x units, and then most of what you sell beyo…

$165/hr is not particularly high (in addition to the fact: don't bill hourly). A $3200 day is not unusually high. Product development is in some ways more gratifying than consulting. But consulting has its own rewards, too.

Sure, you could charge a lot more depending on your role and resume. My friend is getting $165/hr doing Sr. Software work, writing code for satellites. It's a steady 40ish hour/week role, so I think that, compared to salaried senior devs in the area(i.e. not silicon valley or NYC), he's doing quite well.

For comparison, I know a local engineering staffing/design services firm that charges $200/hr for principal engineer time. You're getting more out of that sort of company though.

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