[iamthepieman]

Creating stealth group in a huge Fortune 500 company with the blessing of my immediate boss but no other higher-ups. Trying to productize critical consulting tool sets in the utility industry so we can stop repeating ourselves for the 100th consulting engagement.

Yes, customer is a special snowflake but they still need 90% or whatever every other client in this industry needs.

Feeling increasingly like this is a fools errand.

Even though we've proved this out with tool sets strung together with duct tape and safety pins, and are therefore the most profitable group within our department, we still need to be 100% billable.

It's only because we're the most profitable group that we can pretend we're all billable while I work with two other people to bootstrap this crazy project

Edit: anyone hiring? Just found out my boss is quitting.

[collingreen]

Oof. This post started so good and then got progressively more sad until the edit nailed it home. I hope your story continues and works out as a huge win, either as a new, good boss, you getting to openly lead this kind of thing, someone reading this and poaching/sponsoring you, or maybe even you working on this under your own name.

Good luck and we're rooting for you!

[iamthepieman]

Thank you for the enthusiasm!

It was not intentional but my post really does read like a little story vignette that ends with a gut punch.

Not looking for sympathy so much as fellow appreciators of irony and schadenfreude but here's another kicker.

I pitched this idea to my previous company and was told there was no appetite for it. Just saw on my old company's blog that they released a "digital transformation in a box" program for mid-market clients in this space which is 90% of what I pitched to them. Bad and hilarious timing all around.

[collingreen]

This is EXACTLY what pushed me over the line to quit my last job. Had a big pitch for a spin off I wanted to run, was told not only no appetite for it but is a stupid idea in a dying industry. Literally 2 weeks later it was in the board deck as something the company is going up build.

People are weird!

[all2]

Sometimes you sow a little seed here and there, and sometimes it takes.

[nathan_douglas]

Good lord, how many times are you going to get punched in the gut today?

[toss1]

This sounds very much like an application begging to be done as a stand-alone company supporting these F500 companies. Could be very profitable as the basis for a service-provider model while you gain enough knowledge to product-ize and package it on basically customer-funded development. It seems your company kicking you in the gut is showing you the direction

Good Luck!

[pajop]

Very interesting. Maybe we can chat and explore? DM me on my X.com - it's on my HN about page - copy-paste the HN link here for context :)