[calvinmorrison]

I work at a small consulting firm that focuses on business software. My best consultants are not programmers by trade. Some worked up from help desk to IT Manager or CTO, some were accountants and learned enough about ERP imports they took a leap. A good way to do this is to work at a consulting firm. You will learn within a few years how to deal with dozens to hundreds of clients, how to keep an organized client file, manage quoting, billing or delivery of projects from end to end. How do deal with upset customers, how to close a sales call, you will do it all and you will be constantly learning. You will implement a client at one company that works and call up another company and pitch them the same idea, software or tool (I have clients doing AI.....) or whatever it is.

You will become tool agnostic. you will see to the end. you will find tools to do it.

So a good way to go independent is to go into a consultancy based business - you will get a feel for AR, AP, contracts and so forth in a way that you won't really often see at a service provider, ISP, software company or SaaS tech company.