I want to become a consultant that helps startups scale. Where do I start? | Hacker News Reader

I want to become a consultant that helps startups scale. Where do I start?

4 pointsFabbLM7 comments

You have a startup that is struggling to scale your business model. So you hire someone to work as a consultant and solve this problem. How do I become this someone? What should I read or do?

(Btw, I'm 17)

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I am about to do that part-time. Here is how it happened to me. I worked on various idea full time for about 2 years now and I joined a new accelerator about 10 months ago, working on my last project <a href="http://www.relinkdevice.com"> Relink </a>. I use to talk a lot with the other startups about their problems and give them as many advises possible based on my previous experiences or what I learned in books (Lean startup, rework, blogs, marketing books, etc.). Now, everyone come to talk with me about their problems and look for my point of view. People managing the accelerator have a background in finance, lacks sometimes marketing or entrepreneur skills and noticed I become quite central in the accelerator.

I think the key take-over is you need to be credible to do so. There is some people who advice startup having a background in business but I believe it's much easier if you have/had a startup yourself.

You can contact me on twitter (@Atresontani) if you want to discuss that further and see if I can help you.

What is scaling to you? I will assume that scaling means keeping up with increasing load on servers.

The number of different scaling problems are about the same number that startups having problems with scaling. It's a different thing for every company.

You should probably specialise in a tech that many startups use and learn how to deal with high load on that service. Learning this takes experience, gain that experience by working/consulting/running you own startup using the tech you want to specialise in.

When you feel comfortable with one tech, learn another, repeat.

When you have enough tools in your belt you could apply to a senior position at a fast growing company.

> How do I become this someone? What should I read or do?

Go direct. Start meeting with local founders. Simply ask, 'Give me your toughest problem, what have you not been able to accomplish?' Some one will recognize your raw talent, take a flyer, and give you a break. That's how you build experience and track record.

Recommend reading the many books of Alan Weiss on the art of consulting > http://www.alanweiss.com/store/books/

Silicon Valley has several documented cases of someone being the first growth person at successful startup A being hired to scale startup B (which becomes successful as well). Each time you add one success to your resume, you become more valuable for the next startup. That's important because you want to choose potential winners. A bad startup (in a bad market or with a bad product), no matter how good you are, will not grow.

Experience in business dev, sales, marketing. Perhaps theoretical but you better have some proven successes behind you.

Try do your own startup, prove the business model, scale it and gain millions in revenue.

I will hire you then, guaranteed.

make a list of startup companies that are of interest to you and approach them directly. Tell them you like what they're doing and would like to help them grow. Any amt of reading wont help you add sustainable value as real world projects.

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