Ask HN: Starting a Software Development Consultancy. Need Advice

[motivatednoobie]

Hey guys,

I’m starting a software development company. I have 4 people in my team currently all based remotely around North America.

We have experience with technologies like React, React Native, PHP, Laravel, Python, Flask, Django, Ruby, Sinatra, Angular.js, Vue.js, Node.js etc.

All of us have decided to form a company and try to get work as a company/team. Currently, we have a lot of inbound work coming to us via LinkedIn but those are as jobs at existing firms. We're looking to scale it up.

We would love to work on project to project basis and that’s why looking to build the software company.

Any advice on how we could market the company and find clients would be great and really appreciated.

Thank you so much in advance.

[davismwfl]

The best way I found when I ran mine was to network. Trying to get jobs from advertising and marketing is an expensive way to do it, and you will go through a long and expensive learning curve. Best thing for consultancy is to keep the queue full and to do that you need the networking going 24/7. Use existing clients that are happy with you to find the next client. Do this while the client is happy with your work.

Some people I have talked to about running a consultancy think they will never upset or disappoint a client, don't fall into that trap. You could do everything right and still have a client pissed off cause their coffee was too hot, shit happens. So after a few weeks, the client is happy with you and most importantly you have delivered something to them, pick the right time and ask for recommendations or introductions to other teams or companies. I found a ton of work that way. Even when I would have the unavoidable client that was a douchebag in the end, I usually got at least 1 reference that led to work. I got better about client selection as we grew since we could be more picky, so that also helps a lot, but in the early days you generally don't get to be as picky as you'd like.

If you have specific questions let me know, I did it more than once, with two successfully exited as product/consultancy companies. Others here have done similar so hopefully you'll get other opinions too.