[patio11]

You'll notice the lack of "And then I was bitten by a radioactive spider and anointed the designated iOS consultant by Steve Jobs."

I only mention this because so many geeks think consultants are a special breed apart, and in the main, they're geeks just like you who a) got good at something and b) started charging appropriate amounts of money for it.

[Silhouette]

...in the main, they're geeks just like you who a) got good at something and b) started charging appropriate amounts of money for it...

...and c) had sufficient sales skills to make a credible pitch to potential clients or attract clients enough that they made the approach and d) had sufficiently broad understanding of their chosen industry to interact with non-technical people at the client whose problem they were going to solve and e) had sufficient patience, diligence, legal and accounting knowledge, and general acumen to successfully run a small business...

...in their spare time, when they weren't doing what they thought they were actually going to be paid for.

[smoyer]

"make a credible pitch"

Exactly, but this is actually a specialization of a more generic feature of what my wife has termed "nerds who can talk". Her background is in psychology, but what she's referring to is the ability to function at a high level socially - or in my case, do a reasonably good impression of an extrovert (yes ... it's tiring!)

[r00fus]

< e) had sufficient patience, diligence, legal and accounting knowledge, and general acumen to successfully run a small business…

One generally outsources legal/accounting/tax. However, it does require extra time/effort to manage.

Like the saying goes you can work 8hr/day for someone else or 16hr/day for yourself - some of this can be outsourced, but the extra cost/effort never goes to zero.

[Silhouette]

One generally outsources legal/accounting/tax.

That is true up to a point, but you still need to make sure your lawyer/accountant understands enough about your circumstances to do their job properly. They are experts in their field, not yours, and they aren't telepathic.

Whether or not you spend enough time liaising with your professional help and checking their work, you're still the responsible person ultimately signing contracts and tax returns, and you're still going to be on the hook if the contract doesn't stand up in court or you get audited and something incorrect is found.

[brandontreb]

I love this and it's precisely why I wrote this post. I just looked at what others were doing and realized "These guys are no smarter or riskier than I am. The only difference is, they just did it".

Thanks for the comment.

[throwaway1982]

Your comment implies that "divine intervention" has little to do with it, but I would argue that he was at the right place, at the right time, with the right passion, and then did a lot of hard work that could have easily turned into nothing (financially), but just so happened to turn into something. He implies that he was close to working in a cube farm himself.

Just supplying the more jaded view here...coming from someone who has tried to take his skills into the freelance market for a few months and is now going back to the cube farm. :)

[glimcat]

Steps to being a consultant:

1. Decide to call yourself a consultant.

2. Make it stick by doing the job.

The "something" can be quite a lot of things, while "good enough" is more or less driven by "it would take one of our senior staff at least few weeks to get up to speed with it."

(For a more in-depth walkthrough, go read this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4247615)

[chc]

Ten thousand guides have been written to becoming a freelancer or consultant, and all contain the same variety of Underwear Gnomes planning.

1. Decide to call yourself a consultant.

2. ????

3. Keep on doing step 2 and raise your rates.

It's the part where you find decent paying clients that is most people's stumbling block, and yet that part is always elided. Really, how many times have you heard someone say, "I have so many great consulting prospects, but I don't know how to call myself a consultant and I can't figure out how to write quotes based on a figure of $1000 per day"?

[glimcat]

Okay, here's how you find clients.

1. Know some narrow segment of businesses well enough to have an idea what problems they're facing and how it translates to dollars, or do enough research to learn same.

2. Track down people matching that segment and pitch them. Use your existing connections if you have them, make connections or go cold if you don't. You will spend enormous effort making new connections either way, so having connections to start with isn't the long-term advantage it might seem.

Note: this requires sales skills. If that's a problem, consulting may not be for you - at least, not as an independent. One of the key selling points of an agency is having the principals deal with much of the lead generation, sales, reputation building, and so forth.

But seriously, if you want to start, start. Stop worrying that you'll be bad at it at first - because you will be, no longer how long you worry about it. And at the same time, they're hiring you because they expect to get value from it.

Go out, make a fool of yourself in front of a few prospective clients, learn stuff in so doing, then do a better job pitching the next few.

If you're half decent at public speaking, see posts by patio11 & bdunn re: throwing events related to the topic you consult on. Being the person in the front of the room at a professional event automatically positions you as an authority figure. If you're terrible at public speaking, this still mostly works if you run the event but invite other people to give the actual talks.

[bennyg]

Exactly. I think most of this comes from the confidence in making technical things work and lack of confidence in making the business/sales aspects work. Like all things, you get better the more you attempt them, and if you don't even try to get these contracts, then you won't.

[benched]

And learned how to find clients. That seems like the biggest leap I'd have to make.

[brandontreb]

Make sure to subscribe, that post will be in my upcoming series :)