Advice for Going Solo

Two years ago I left my job at MD Anderson to become an independent consultant. When people ask me what I learned or what advice I’d give, here are some of the things I usually say.

You Can’t Transition Gradually

I’ve done consulting on the side throughout my career, and I planned to ramp up my consulting to the point that I could gradually transition into doing it full time. That never happened. I had to quit my day job before I had the time and credibility to find projects.

When you have a job and you tell someone you can work 10 hours a week on their project, working evenings and weekends, you sound like an amateur. But when you have your own business and tell someone you can only allocate 10 hours a week to their project, you sound like you’re in high demand and they’re glad you could squeeze them in.

When I left MD Anderson, I had one small consulting project lined up. I had been working on a second project, but it ended sooner than expected. (I was an expert witness on a case that settled out of court.) The result was that I started my consulting career with little work, and I imagine that’s common.

Things Move Slowly

As soon as I announced on my blog that I was going out on my own, someone from a pharmaceutical company contacted me saying he was hoping I’d quit my job because he had a project for me, helping improve his company’s statistical software development. First day, first lead. This is going to be easy! Even though he was eager to get started, it was months before the project started and months more before I got paid.

In general, the larger a client is, the longer it takes to get projects started, and the longer they sit on invoices. (Google is an exception to the latter; they pay invoices fairly quickly.) Small clients negotiate projects quickly and pay quickly. They can help with your cash flow while you’re waiting on bigger clients.

Build Up Savings

This is a corollary to the discussion above. You might not have much income for the first few months, so you need several month’s living expenses in the bank before you start.

Other Lessons

If you’re thinking about going out on your own and would like to talk about it, give me a call or send me an email. My contact information is listed here.