How I went from programming to consulting (2012) • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by mgkimsal » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:19 PM UTC

shanemhansen wrote: post #219

mgkimsal wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

If you have the experience and/or brand/name already, it wouldn't be hard. My thinking was not so much the work, but the finding people and convincing that a) you can do the work and b) they need it done. If you're successfully doing this now - props to you! If you have any specifics you can share about how you got through a and b above... would love to read more.

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

#272

Post by mathgeek » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:23 PM UTC

s73ver_ wrote: post #212

putnam wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly do you need answered about the "how"?

"network with people who will pay you to freelance." That.

Would phrasing it as "find people who are willing to pay you, by networking with people who might be willing to pay you" be more informative?

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

#273

Post by putnam » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:24 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #170

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…

Depends, there are many ways of doing consultancy. I do enterprise software consultancy, which means that those big companies that don't think twice about buying Oracle or Visual Studio Ultimate, hire companies like my employer to come in and develop software for them, instead of having an internal R&D department. Usually because for those companies software is a by product, something that they need for their real bu…

What's preventing a software developer from doing enterprise software consulting?

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

#274

Post by patio11 » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:24 PM UTC

ivanhoe wrote: post #129

zdw wrote: post #17

Step 1: Be popular/famous enough that people know your name. Step 2: Be good/accurate enough at opining in ways that make sense. Most people won't have either 1 or 2 going for them. There's one more thing - charging a lot is how to signal value, which is a a huge thing. I know a guy who used to manage an A-list rock band (everyone knows their songs) who went into consulting, and started out lowballing people, for $1k…

IMO it's a mistake to focus on his particular fees, that's what he managed to make for himself. You need to find your own realistic path. For instance I, living outside of US, will probably never be able to charge $100+ hour my clients, I'm fully aware of that. But no matter who you are, you probably still can push for a little bit more, and that's where Patrick's advices are solid. Often, it's just a matter of askin…

Since this is something of a hobbyhorse of mine: You know all my invoices had “Ogaki, Gifu, Japan” on them, right? The only thing you have to do to charge $100 an hour is successfully pitch any firm in the world on paying you that. They exist, in quantity, and substantially all of them are on the same Internet we are.

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

#275

Post by corporateguy5 » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:25 PM UTC

amazingman wrote: post #264

Steeeve wrote: post #249

Addressing several of the threads here: If you're doing contract development that can be done half as well for a quarter of the cost by an offshore team, you are not doing consulting. You are competing in an arena that you will never be able to win. If you want to consult for good money, you have to create your market and you have to have the confidence of that market. You have to be able to give C-level execs advice…

I’m sure you meant nothing by it, but I just want to point out that using the word “guy” here is needlessly exclusionary. I’m personally working to grow beyond similar habits in my own speech.

Get a grip on reality

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

#276

Post by kirubakaran » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:27 PM UTC

bastijn wrote: post #270

kirubakaran wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. Could you point me to the typos please? I'd like to fix them.

Noticed the word "design" was written as "degsin".

> Noticed the word "design" was written as "degsin".

It isn't. For reference: https://web.archive.org/web/20170927012427/https://kirubakar...

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

#277

Post by ivanhoe » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:27 PM UTC

putnam wrote: post #132

ivanhoe wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it's a mistake to focus on his particular fees, that's what he managed to make for himself. You need to find your own realistic path. For instance I, living outside of US, will probably never be able to charge $100+ hour my clients, I'm fully aware of that. But no matter who you are, you probably still can push for a little bit more, and that's where Patrick's advices are solid. Often, it's just a matter of askin…

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, helping them with web app architecture and performance, and their budgets are just not as big as when working with well-established corporations.

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

#278

Post by mseebach » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:27 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #243

dsacco wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Step 1: Be popular/famous enough that people know your name. Step 2: Be good/accurate enough at opining in ways that make sense. Neither of these are prerequisites for being extremely successful at consulting. My consulting rates are now approximately $10,000/week with a 70% annual utilization rate. I'm not industry famous at all. I also do not maintain a blog or do "content marketing." For a while I had no website…

You are industry-famous (or at least have the potential to be), to exactly the degree that "virtually all work comes to me via referrals from past clients." To put it in more technical terms, your work seemingly has a positive viral coefficient , such that when you do work, it gets you exponentially (if only with a very slightly-above-1.0 exponent) more work. If you just exist in that state for long enough, you event…

That's a really low bar for "industry famous". Yes, to get to a non-trivial consulting rate, you need to be established and have references, and yes, this probably implies a number of years at a lesser rate.

But "famous" signifies something quite more than having a handful or two of happy, influential clients.

Finally, I'm not sure patio11 is really all that famous outside the HN bubble, and for all it is, it really isn't that big.

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

#279

Post by njarboe » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:29 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #175

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.

Today's pro sports players are, as a rule, far better than pro sports players in the past. Why isn't this happening already? People only have so much time and attention. Also, many leagues operate with salary caps. You also mentioned movies, but a lack of competent actors is far from the biggest reason there aren't more movies being produced.

Are you saying there is not an upward trend in sports salaries? They have been skyrocketing for decades and decades.

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

#280

Post by jasonkester » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:31 PM UTC

pwaai wrote: post #259

zdw wrote: post #17

Step 1: Be popular/famous enough that people know your name. Step 2: Be good/accurate enough at opining in ways that make sense. Most people won't have either 1 or 2 going for them. There's one more thing - charging a lot is how to signal value, which is a a huge thing. I know a guy who used to manage an A-list rock band (everyone knows their songs) who went into consulting, and started out lowballing people, for $1k…

> Step 1: Be popular/famous enough that people know your name. This is what irks me about articles like this being posted on HN and indie hackers--You too can have a six digit MRR if you've spent the past X years building a community or mailing list around the topic...which is not a bad advice but not many people are able to do this. So while not without merit and valuable bits, I feel like you've highlighted a very…

I know, right? Like you, I prefer the articles telling me how to charge $20k/week as a junior developer fresh out of school with no experience.

Sadly, it seems that the world we live in requires us to work for the things we want.

You can spend your energy coming up with reasons why the guy who worked his way up from nothing shouldn't go around giving you step by step instructions on how to do the same. Or you can get started toward doing something similar.