> I could build something superior to this with an ancient laptop, an internet connection, and spreadsheets. It would take me a month tops.
^^^ Then do it... and then strangler fig the original.
^^^ Then do it... and then strangler fig the original.
I've sought advice from various people on this, some who are famous-ish or quiet sales powerhouses in the US. My question was "What are executives buying when they hire consultants?", and the answer is consistently "Comfort". No one is actually comforted by Deloitte, KPMG, whoever.
The moment I had confidence in an ethical consulting practice is the moment someone said "I don't even know where I would hire good consultants". This was someone with 30 years or something absurd of industry experience, including mentoring people that went on to become staff engineers. After processing that, I realized I don't know where to hire a consultancy that isn't going to bait-and-switch me with mediocre talent. They obviously exist, but they probably can only support something like 1 to 10 clients each.
Even Thoughtworks, a place that I used to hear mentioned positively, was flagged by the CTO of a >$1B company over lunch last week as "shifting to bait-and-switch" tactics.
tl;dr Pretty sure you can absolutely do better and make a living off that, but you have to think very carefully, do research, read a bunch of sales/marketing books, have great communication skills and at least adequate engineering skills. I still don't know if I have some of those, but if I fail it'll be a skill issue, not because the problem is not tractable.