Ask HN: What type of consulting do you do? Advice for a generalist?

[Terry_B]

Hey guys

I'm trying to transition out of a regular day job into consulting work so that I can better free up time and money to bootstrap a product. Being trapped in someone else's office all day is getting old.

In trying to get going with some clients and a regular stream of work I realize that I'm much more a generalist than a specialist and haven't got a great idea of how to pitch my skills or where the demand is.

On HN, when people say 'consulting' they seem to mostly mean web development. I'm more of a software guy but can certainly do web.

Web seems like a path of least resistance because people often realize they need a new website and go looking for someone to do it.

For other tasks, they may not realize they have a problem or what the solution looks like perhaps. It is usually less defined perhaps. Do people agree?

So my question is, what types of consulting do you guys do? Where do you think the demand is? Is it mostly web development? 

I'd set up a poll but I'm not sure what all the fields would be :)

Cheers!

[sosuke]

Either go your own way through free lancing websites, craigslist etc or you can team up with an existing ad agency to pickup their overflow work. Quote prices that make you feel good about doing the work versus how many hours it might take you because the variety varies so much you'll be giving estimates for something you may have never done before. Before long you'll have more work than you can handle and you're price and confidence can increase to manage your work load and time better.

I like working with other agencies better than seeking clients for direct sales better personally. Seek out overflow work from local companies so you can have face to face meetings from time to time.

This works great for me but I don't do it full time, it's just to keep the development spice in my life.

[retroafroman]

I'm terribly disappointed no one is replying to this, as I am also curious about this topic. I don't have any experience consulting, but I'm thinking about it, and may turn to it in the future.

On that note, my thought is that not unlike you, small to medium size businesses don't really know where to begin to establish their online presence. Perhaps there is some value in consulting with companies to establish an online marketing plan, then connecting them with companies who will do the web design, social media work, etc. Does anyone do that sort of thing?