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Comment by theli0nheart | Hacker News Reader

I've been doing software consulting for startups for ~10 years.

My best generic advice is to try to put yourself in the mind of your perfect client/customer.

It can be easy to forget this, but they're just as desperate to find help as you might be trying to find work. Think about where they might go—online or offline—to find help, and go there. Rinse and repeat. You may not even meet your actual client this way, but may meet someone who knows someone. That's just about nearly as good.

Once you have a few stable clients, that's where a good network comes into play. Do good work, be nice, and tell people what you do, and the work will keep coming in (and likely in amounts greater than you can handle).

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Can I ask what kind of work do you usually do for startups?

Are these companies that have minimal funding and no or very few full-time engineers, and you're building them a prototype to help them get off the ground? Or are you doing something very specialized, like setting up a Kubernetes cluster or something and training the team to maintain it after you leave?

Or, are these companies that have existing well-functioning engineering teams, and you basically join the team building product features alongside them but as a consultant?

Just asking because I've worked at a lot of startups but haven't ever been in a situation where we've hired a consultant. So I'm curious what the working relationship is like, I feel like there might be some friction between full-time employees who are often super committed, working long hours, maybe taking a pay cut to work there, and a consultant who's just in for a few months.

Most of my clients are non-technical founders. My role is generally that of an early stage CTO.

I do pretty much everything on the technical side to get the product off the ground and scale it, from wireframing, to writing the code, and ultimately helping build the team or onboarding a FT CTO or VP Eng. My period of involvement varies from about 6 months (generally takes at least this long to find a good CTO candidate) to 4-5 years, at which point I'm usually leading the tech team.

Do you do this for several companies at once?

And how do they pay you, if not with equity to offset low co-founder salary?

Really intrigued to know; I wasn't aware this was a model that worked.

Thank you for sharing this. I am in the early stages (just a few months in) and I am hoping to work towards this level.

How long did it take for you to go from a few stable clients to too much work to handle?

> I am in the early stages (just a few months in) and I am hoping to work towards this level.

Congrats!

> How long did it take for you to go from a few stable clients to too much work to handle?

About 4 years. It's definitely a long game. The first years were pretty rough. Although, to be fair, I started doing work right in the middle of a recession.

Good luck! Also, I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have. Feel free to contact me directly, too (email in profile).

How big is your team? To be honest, I am most excited about closing about 2 more sales (at this rate we close about 1 per month) and having the cash to hire help.

We most need it in our content and sales efforts. These would speed up our growth like crazy.

Do you still do the work yourself or do you just manage?

I'd love to know how you end up with this! I'm in the process of accepting new work myself. Feel free to reach out – email in profile.

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