Customers are not as inevitable as gravity. How do they find their customers?
Then, if your delivery establishes any kind of track record at all and you're working in a "hot" area (Rails in 2008-2009, iOS in the last 3 years, &c) you can start picking up cold inbounds just by putting your name out there (on a website, with a blog, posting on message boards).
Things snowball after that.
Most small consultancies I'm acquainted with never advertise and don't have salespeople.
One thing you really need to understand is that successful consultancies don't treat clients the way HN tends to think about customers. If the process of extracting recurring engagements and referrals from customers is mysterious to you, it's because you're thinking too transactionally. You see this all the time on HN on threads about people's time tracking and invoicing techniques. The people on those threads often sound like they can't wait to get away from their customers. Of course they have trouble finding new ones. Their business processes are client-aversive.
Who are these companies hiring Pivotal or whoever less famous?
Believe me, the demand is huge. I can't name my company's clients, but we have consulted for a good deal of very big names.
"The people on those threads often sound like they can't wait to get away from their customers."
Great point obviously. Some people are bad business people plain and simple.
A good business person is totally separate from a good programmer or a good anything.
A good business person knows how to make a buck and most certainly knows how to treat a customer (or a lead, see below) and how to encourage more business.
An actual email from a contractor we found (who paid adsense for the lead this was for a joomla upgrade we were looking into as a favor) after a back and forth string of similar conversations:
--------- "Honestly, their site is completely outdated. Whoever built it put no love into the project. For what they do and the audience they are trying to target, they need a more professional image. Additionally, their content is NOT content. It is images that Google cannot detect. No one can find them on the net if they were looking for such a company because Google can't read images of text. Their security is at risk as well. We found at least two weak areas that were patched with the upgraded versions.
Tell them we would do the complete rebuild/design for $10,000 if they provide all content in text format." ----------
We weren't the people who did the site and we weren't the people who embedded graphics and while the points are valid the tone and the approach is way off. I mean how did this person know that the person writing to them wasn't the fuck up? Ooops.
I mean, it seems like if someone went to their employer and said, "I'm going to stop working for you, but if you pay me more than you are now, I will sell you software," they would say, "No thanks."
I am developing a niche tool for business at the moment. To get my initial customers I expect I will go visit them in their offices, ask questions and show them the prototype. Old fashioned, but I've picked an area where improving performance by a few percent can mean millions of dollars difference in outcomes.
This apart from the fact that transforming an employee to a contractor is often a net financial win for a company. Not just because of benefits, but also because when the contractor finishes, you don't have to find a way to fire them.
Another thing that contractors are good for is mopping up the unspent money allocated to various line items. Most places with a union/enterprise bargain contract don't allow the employer to a project without a full time equivalent wage attached somewhere in the budget. So when there's a few thousand left, it might be difficult to spend.
Enter, stage right, the contractor, to whom no such rules apply.
Instead what happens is:
someone went to their employer and said, "I'm going to stop working for you, sorry, but I'm quitting to set up my own buisiness. I know about the business, I know about the technology. I know you and know what you're like to work for. You know me, and know what I'm like to work with. You know that I will know what you mean when you say 'The featured image for this works for a promoter, but not a sales client'. You don't have to take the time & effort to find someone new who might not work out, We can have a productive and mutually benefitial business relationship."
The paycheck might be higher, but the company doesn't have to pay hidden costs like tax, pension, schedule maternity/paternity leave, sick days or pay holidays.