Ask HN: How do you control consulting work and concentrate on startup work?

Paul was right when he said not to do side consulting work.<p>For me it was simple; a 3-month consulting gig will give me a financial runway for the next year. So I am doing it, and nothing else. Come December 1st I will have enough to live comfortably for the next year, probably 2 years if I move to somewhere cheaper and bring my fiancee over.

I'm not free from consulting (and want to continue doing it as well actually!), but a few points:<p>* I treat each of my own projects just like a regular client<p>* I consider all the projects like a 'scrum' of 'scrums' (ie: I get to prioritize between projects just like I prioritize inside a given project)<p>* for billable and non-billable projects, I take great care to ensure I keep a sustainable rhythm (I work a lot periodically when required, but not on the long run)<p>* I keep track of my 'pulse' with Freckle, very helpful<p>* for each project (home-made or not) I try hard to limit the amount of time I dedicate to it<p>* I keep high rates<p>* we've lowered our expenses quite far (including moving to a very cheap area in France, considering buying a house without a mortgage as a result etc)<p>In my case and when it's in control, consulting is both a risk-splitter and a great way to keep up to date and financially 'confident'.<p>As well I get to work in various, real-world situations that give me ideas for my own projects.<p>Last point: as I consider myself an investor investing in ourselves, where my resources (time/money/energy) are scarce, I find it great and sustainable to work this way, slowly building what I like.

I've been doing exactly this transition for the last couple of months -- transitioning from consulting to running a business and working on services (basically, a startup, just under my company's brand).<p>For me, trying to schedule "startup time" didn't work. There was always too much immediate consulting-type work to take care of.<p>So about a year ago I ran a Craigslist ad, spent a day wading through applications and making phone calls, and found someone that was willing to work on a part-time, on-call basis, for good wages but less than my consulting fees.<p>A year later, I've got a couple of people that I work with now -- sort-of employees-on-call -- and I was just able to take my first real vacation in 2.5 years. Everything was handled fine while I was unreachable. So now I've got plenty of time to work on software.<p>So, one solution is to run your consulting like a business for a while, grow it, get some contract help, stabilize it, and then manage it part-time.

Treat the startup like a client. Juggle it into your schedule with the same priority as your other clients.

For me, it's been very important to just "keep moving forward" on my startup. At the end of every day if I'm at least one step closer to my destination, it's a win. Some days I get a huge surge of startup movement, some days my "money maker" zaps all of my energy and maybe I only answer one FAQ in my knowledgebase.<p>The bottom line is keep moving forward, and eventually you'll exit the workload brackish and emerge on the other end full-time on your startup.<p>I'm 100% bootstrapped and I'm going full-time on my startup November 1st - until then, babysteps shall continue!

Charge more.

Have you tried prioritizing your startup like you do your consulting? I'm sure you meet all your consulting deadlines and requirements. I'm addicted to consulting right now and I've been using it to help bootstrap my startup ideas as well. I don't think I'll be backing off consulting until my startup ventures actually make as much money as my consulting and even then the consulting dollars will give me more options in promoting my startups!<p>I love the variety of consulting so much that even after my ventures bring success I will still want to do consulting because it gives me that instant achievement satisfaction.<p>Don't focus on breaking free from consulting and before working on any other ideas get that first product released. Set milestones and treat it like your other work.<p>I'm still consulting until I get my own projects off the ground, my first launch took 1.5 years to finish, my next launch will be in a fraction of the time.

I can only do one large thing at work at a time, probably because I refuse to give up my leisure activities: I enjoy them and they keep me sane.<p>So I did a substantial 7-month consulting gig last year, collected the cash and have been working on my startup since.<p>Incidental details: 1. I blew two months on a startup idea that was going nowhere. 2. I live cheaply.

Launch. Maybe see if you can postpone some of your features until v2 and just get something out there ASAP that people can use and ultimately pay you for. Easier said than done of course, but that's your real answer I think.

1. Can you contract out any elements of consulting work to others to free up time? Perhaps some of the lower-value work? You'll make the spread b/w the rate you get and what you pay them. You'll profit less but gain incremental hours for your venture.<p>2. Pick or find consulting work that "scales well" meaning it allows you to leverage (sorry for jargon) knowledge/things you've already done or built. This type of work will be more efficient for you, more profitable and you can reinvest saved time into your startup.<p>3. Regarding multiple startup ideas, I'd pick one to focus on. Diversifying amongst startup ideas esp if unrelated doesn't work in my experience. It leads to doing them all half-baked which ultimately won't get you further from consulting which is where you want to be.<p>4. As mentioned below, we treated our own company as a client which meant we acted with same sense of urgency as we would with other clients. It is a good way to make your own venture a priority else it always gets back burnered.<p>5. This one is a bit drastic but exit the mortgage if you can by selling your home and renting. Fixed costs like mortgages can be like anchors for an entrepreneur. Take the money you may make and put some away for a rainy day fund for the wife/kids/you and a portion can be used to give your own venture some additional fuel or runway.<p>In same boat as you my friend so "feel your pain" although sounds like you have too much consulting biz which is a high class problem IMO.<p>Good luck. And if you figure out a "solution", pls let me know.

In his book The Innovators Dilemma (<a href="http://astore.amazon.com/hypernumbersc-20/detail/B001I05ZVK)Christensen" rel="nofollow">http://astore.amazon.com/hypernumbersc-20/detail/B001I05ZVK)...</a> makes a throw-away line that rocked me back on my heels.<p>He said something like "resources are allocated by customers not managers, so choose your first customers carefully".<p>The point is if your customers are for your consulting business they will allocate your resources in that direction.

As soon as your startup brings in money this is no longer a problem.<p>Thus the solution is simple, at least in theory: make money. Now.

To break fre, the way i would recommend is to save up enough money that you have a reasonable runway to pick one startup idea and pursue/iterate it intensely. Set a goal for how much money that is and save as rigorously as you can. During this time of earning money, you can at least do some customer development around your ideas. And my advice is that unless your consulting and your product are really tightly tied together, you are better off keeping them entirely separate from a legal perspective. If one or both start growing, keeping them together can get really messy. Obviously there are are exceptions to that.

I'm still struggling with this myself, but these things are the ones I've tried that seem to be working:<p>1) Confine your contract time. I try to basically do contract work between 8am and 1pm. Other people only work on certain days.<p>2) Work with your clients to set priorities. Know what are the most important things to them, and tackle those first. This helps with....<p>3) Work a fixed number of hours. Don't do overtime. If you stay organized, estimate well, and stay on task, you can do your job and then stop.<p>4) Whoever else said to launch, I second this. You need someone yelling at you to get your startup shit done. Customers are very good at this job.

Thank you for all your replies. I'm learning a lot from them. I think I'd move towards hiring a promising junior dev to help me with my tasks. But I'm not yet sure if I'll have the dev work fully on the consulting side or the startup side. It might depend on the type of consulting work needed.<p>I guess my problem is also really because I'm a one-man startup. So finding a co-founder or startup team to help me on the startup side could solve my problem. Or it might be another problem too...

Just curious as an outsider: what kind of consulting do you do? How did you get into it?<p>... guess this might be an "Ask HN"

If there are at least two people in the company and one consulting can cover their expenses I think that's the way to go. MSFT (Paul Allen and Bill Gates) did consulting in Microsoft.

Hire a junior programmer with potential. Go for cheap and good, not fast. Cash expense should exceed any opportunity cost of waiting if idea is good.

I used to restrict to 4hr/day max and stick to it.

Hire.