I'm not disparaging, I'm really just curious. Thanks.
There's a cottage industry of firms specializing in conversion rate optimization for X. (My consulting practice was in no small bit doing this for B2B software firms. "Conversion optimization for e-commerce", "conversion optimization for insurance industry", etc etc are also common specialties.)
If you were hypothetically a client desiring top-tier talent, and you asked what $400 an hour would buy you, I'd say "One journeyman at a boutique firm... if you can find anybody with availability at that price." I was priced rather north of that for some of my consulting career. There were likely folks priced at a substantial premium to me.
There are substantial programming/design skills implicated in this, obviously. (At some firms there is specialization of labor but at boutique firms typically all consultants do everything required to ship.)
Edit to add: You asked who is buying this sort of thing. In my case, largely B2B software companies with revenues in the $10 to $X0 million range. In broader terms, almost every company which either does direct transactions or collects leads with value over $1 million per year should probably be buying this sort of consulting, and many of them do. What's your guesstimate on how many insurance companies there are which sell direct-to-consumer products in the US, for example? All of them are potential customers are this.
(b) Your lawyer is also cheap. Sell a company and see what they charge.
(c) I'm not saying it's wrong not to be charging $400/hr; I'm saying, if you want a representative sample of the spectrum of hourly rates consultant, $150 is much too low. There are technical subspecialties --- not business or vertical-focused --- that routinely beat $150.
Admittedly, my lawyer is general practice, so, yes, what they charge is based on that. But, still, $400/hr for a long term contract for a programmer/developer is very high for the majority of the US market from what I have seen unless you are working on Wall St. as a specialized Quant or something.
Thanks.
In my experience, dealing with US companies from abroad, it is difficult to sell at very high prices. It happens but my company cannot loose prospective customers if the price is lower but convenient.
(he enquires curiously)
HNOfficeHours Designed to allow people to offer advice/expertise, or seek people offering advice for a given problem/specialty. Includes scheduling and search. Fun weekend hack from 2.5 years ago. Now deprecated in favor of better alternatives.
patio11's post in this thread is a good example (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5769870), increasing conversion rates for X will directly effect the bottom line by Y. As long as the price you charge is lower than Y, you should be able to sell it.
Other than that, specialized knowledge is always handy of course. I know of consultants doing compliance/IT systems for banks, highly profitable since the banks only change IT systems every 10 years or so and therefore it makes no sense to keep the cutting edge expertise in house but there are enough banks so they always have work.
It does vary depending on where you live though, I don't know of many charging $400/hr (or equivalent) in Sweden. Same rings true for the limited experience I have in The Netherlands.
Edit: Edited for clarity.
Edit2: Looking at your HN profile: why not consulting in Big data or such? Big data is all the rage at the moment and it is a new niche that everyone wants in on.
This post brings up 2 ideas:
1. Look into marketing or other areas where applied Machine Learning would make a direct impact to the bottom line. I'm guessing it's a lot easier to charge more if your value proposition is "increase sales/revenue by $X" vs. "increase the lift of this random model by Y%".
2.It might be worth looking into banks/hedge funds. They presumably are much more willing to throw large amounts of money at the right problems.
It is still up and coming so I think there are large opportunities for those with enough knowledge how to handle Big Data. If you can visualize the data in a clear and coherent manner you should be able to make some big money :)
Best of luck!
Just as with developers, if you're getting $400/hour you're not an ordinary lawyer working with ordinary people. You can get that if you've experience and knowledge in a particular domain.
Eg, penetration testing. Software project management advice. Audits of IT processes. Requirements gathering workshops. Etc etc.
Also, $400/hr would be high for a general suburban lawyer / solicitor. It's low to mid for a specialist. And suspiciously cheap for a barrister / trial lawyer (multiply by ten).
I see senior PM jobs quoted in thousands per day.
I understand better why people settle all the time - who can afford to defend himself unless he is risking lifetime in jail ?
While 100% exploitable by criminals, provisions like Section 11 are there to mitigate actual miscarriages of justice while keeping all parties in honor.
"Being able to settle is something only the guilty SHOULD find relieving."
That said, if you're in court, you're pretty much guilty. It doesn't matter that you've done nothing wrong (no "innocent" plea, remember?); you're in their court, and that means someone has charged you and is demanding payment. "Guilty" means "to pay", according to Black's/Bouvier's. that means that Not Guilty is somewhere you don't want to be (committing a commercial dishonor in their court == contempt).
Just pay the fine (you can pay with securities/commercial paper if you don't want to use cash/cheques), and be done with the matter. Once you've settled, file a motion to expunge with a higher court in order to clear your record.
As the guilty, I guess I find being able to settle pretty relieving. :)
Typical numbers if you're charged with a federal felony are that the statutory limit might be 50 years, if it goes to court and you lose it might be 5-7 years, if you declare guilty it might be 6 months, and the cost of defending (which could wind up with 0 or 5-7 years) is about 1.5 million.
Even if you're in the right, the cost of fighting frequently exceeds what you're capable of, and the risk of fighting may as well. Thus plenty of innocent people are likely to settle.
(Kafka would be proud. But that is reality today in "the land of the free".)
That innocent people currently find it relieving that they are able to settle (and to be clear, they currently do) is a symptom of an unhealthy justice system.
In a just system, the innocent are not afraid to stand up for themselves. With the system we currently have this is not so.
A really good corporate lawyer? Yep. 20-30k per day for the best of the best; plus various thousands of dollars for their assistants.
(Now you know why Gigaco Inc vs Humunco Inc cases can blow out to millions or even tens of millions of dollars).
A routine contract review is $700/hour.