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Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

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Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#61

Post by chc »

davidw wrote: post #54
cat9 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you charge more, people don't bother you with nearly as much low-ROI scut work, which means you (assuming you can deliver) find yourself focusing on more interesting & more valuable work that has a stronger connection to attracting and keeping high-value clients.

Well, that, or you can't find work at all.

Yes, there's an Underpants Gnomes quality to this sort of career advice. It's not bad, but there's a giant "?" in the middle that nobody can really help you with, which seems to involve accumulating a huge base of clients beating down your door.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#62

Post by chc »

tomjen3 wrote: post #26
fixxer wrote: post #8

$30k/week? Would love to read more about how that worked. I thought my $180/hour with $1k per diem for on-site was phenomenal. Jeez, I need to charge more.

Patio11 is basically the "charge more" guy. His advice is nearly always "charge more". It is no wonder he gets payed a lot more than you.

He's also a guy who commented toward the end of his consulting career that going out to look for clients rather than having them just appear unasked-for was kind of a new thing for him. I think this also has a lot to do with his above-average income.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#63

Post by sarciszewski »

chc wrote: post #61
davidw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that, or you can't find work at all.

Yes, there's an Underpants Gnomes quality to this sort of career advice. It's not bad, but there's a giant "?" in the middle that nobody can really help you with, which seems to involve accumulating a huge base of clients beating down your door.

Personal and business relationships vary from person to person. I guess the assumption is that, if you are skilled enough at engineering and marketing, you will find yourself getting clients and make money hand over fist.

Unfortunately for me, I'm purely a technology guy, not a people person.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#64

Post by tptacek »

chc wrote: post #61
davidw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that, or you can't find work at all.

Yes, there's an Underpants Gnomes quality to this sort of career advice. It's not bad, but there's a giant "?" in the middle that nobody can really help you with, which seems to involve accumulating a huge base of clients beating down your door.

Serious question:

Patrick was about as well known on the Business of Software message boards as you are on HN when his consulting career started. Those boards no longer exist and were always smaller than HN. Prior to consulting he held what is probably the lowest- status job in software development. What do you think the secret ???'s were for him?

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#65

Post by chc »

tptacek wrote: post #64
chc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there's an Underpants Gnomes quality to this sort of career advice. It's not bad, but there's a giant "?" in the middle that nobody can really help you with, which seems to involve accumulating a huge base of clients beating down your door.

Serious question: Patrick was about as well known on the Business of Software message boards as you are on HN when his consulting career started. Those boards no longer exist and were always smaller than HN. Prior to consulting he held what is probably the lowest- status job in software development. What do you think the secret ???'s were for him?

Well, if I knew what went there, it wouldn't be a question mark. My best guess is "luck," though I feel like that's kind of a facile answer. I don't have a better one, at any rate.

What do you think it is?

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#66

Post by tptacek »

chc wrote: post #65
tptacek wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Patrick was about as well known on the Business of Software message boards as you are on HN when his consulting career started. Those boards no longer exist and were always smaller than HN. Prior to consulting he held what is probably the lowest- status job in software development. What do you think the secret ???'s were for him?

Well, if I knew what went there, it wouldn't be a question mark. My best guess is "luck," though I feel like that's kind of a facile answer. I don't have a better one, at any rate. What do you think it is?

The most important two secrets to sales: know how to qualify a deal, and ask for the sale.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#68

Post by davidw »

tptacek wrote: post #64
chc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there's an Underpants Gnomes quality to this sort of career advice. It's not bad, but there's a giant "?" in the middle that nobody can really help you with, which seems to involve accumulating a huge base of clients beating down your door.

Serious question: Patrick was about as well known on the Business of Software message boards as you are on HN when his consulting career started. Those boards no longer exist and were always smaller than HN. Prior to consulting he held what is probably the lowest- status job in software development. What do you think the secret ???'s were for him?

The secret sauce is that he's a good developer, and really good at "engineered marketing" in a way few people are. In addition to communicating really well.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#69

Post by bricabrac »

the_rosentotter wrote: post #58
nish1500 wrote: post #51

Making 30k a week, is very different from saying he made 30k some weeks. 120k in Profit is hardly something I would call an 'Empire'. I appreciate the sentiments of this community, its unquestioning reverence towards Patrick, but the article is full of misleading statements. What is factually correct, can still be grossly misleading.

> I appreciate the sentiments of this community, its unquestioning reverence towards Patrick I honestly don't. I mean, nice guy, sure, and a great writer, but I don't see that he has built anything I consider particularly inspiring, or successful. In fact he has had quite a few misses, which were announced with the usual self-assured write-ups, only to disappear later. (I only say this in light of the surprisingly la…

Personally, I think he's one of the most inspiring examples of personal success that I've seen on HN.

I know I'm not brilliant enough to change the world with some new revolutionary invention or discovery, and spending years killing myself to try and build some ultimately ephemeral business empire holds zero attraction for me. Achieving a comfortable lifestyle in which I work for myself and can reserve most of my time for my friends, family, and hobbies is my main aspiration, and patio11's success at building that lifestyle is enormously inspirational.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#70

Post by chc »

tptacek wrote: post #66
chc wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if I knew what went there, it wouldn't be a question mark. My best guess is "luck," though I feel like that's kind of a facile answer. I don't have a better one, at any rate. What do you think it is?

The most important two secrets to sales: know how to qualify a deal, and ask for the sale .

That's good advice, but the problem is that the ??? comes at the point where your only sources of prospects are morally equivalent to oDesk. No matter how good you are at qualifying and closing deals, it does no good if deals.filter(:is_qualified?) == []. Based on Patrick's account, it sounds like good consulting work mostly just came to him — he commented late in his consulting career how strange it was having to actually go out and hit people up for work lately. You do need to close the deal when you find a good prospect, but we're still jumping over the ???, which is where you get that steady stream of good prospects in the first place.

That's why my best guess is "luck" — because I've never heard anyone say anything about what they did beyond, "Eh, I found good clients and became a successful consultant" or "I did not find good clients and struggled in my consulting career."

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