Sure. So I had a client who wanted us to rewrite their 10 year old MS Access app as a web app.
The engineer in me would have immediately jumped into "OK, how do I migrate this database into Rails and recreate the functionality and UI of this app?" I would have priced the going rate for web development, and tried to gauge how long it would take to complete.
The business owner in me realized that this app is critical to their business. It's the tool they use to manage and close sales, and about 20ish people use it all day, every day. I also knew that the CEO was currently the maintainer of the app, as it was started when the company was a home business and the owner picked up a "Learn MS Access in 21 Days" book.
Knowing this, I went to work learning how I could not only modernize the product by making it web based, but I wanted to leverage my experience in usability to optimize how their team uses the app. How can we not just rewrite the app, but also optimize it? Is there a clear path to adding an hour or so a day of additional productivity per employee, and what would 100 hours of combined additional productivity a week mean (financially) for the business? And how much better would it be if the CEO of this small company wasn't needing to maintain the app himself, but could focus on what he does best — growing his company?
What I sold wasn't software or a rewrite. I ended up selling a better tomorrow for his business, and a more profitable tomorrow. This "decommoditized" what I was doing, and while he paid me a premium, he received a much better product at the end of the day.
> While he paid me a premium, he received a much better prodcut
n.b. That's how good business owners will look at this transaction: in terms of ROI. Sure this client paid a lot of money, but it was an investment in his company. It paid off. When you start framing offers like this, you don't have to feel bad about the price you'd like to charge because both parties come out further ahead.
Edit: Of interest to HN, I had a conversation with a business-owner friend of mine earlier this week. In trying to come up with a business ideas, I'd asked her if there was any software she hated using. This sparked an interesting conversation. When we got to the discussion about pricing, I asked:
"How much would you pay for something like this? $500 a year?" Her response was, and I quote: "I would do it on a monthly basis. Anything between 20-49/month is easy to sell. People <I think she means business owners here> don't even notice it."
tl;dr When you save a company money or time, they will hand you money accordingly.
This makes sense, but unfortunately not all clients are inclined into accepting propositions like these. Some clients do the research and design internally and then they hire a "consultant" to do the development part of the project.
I consider that the term "consultant" is used to freely and most of the time clients advertise that they are looking to hire a consultant when they actually want to hire a freelance developer.
bdunn|11 years ago
The engineer in me would have immediately jumped into "OK, how do I migrate this database into Rails and recreate the functionality and UI of this app?" I would have priced the going rate for web development, and tried to gauge how long it would take to complete.
The business owner in me realized that this app is critical to their business. It's the tool they use to manage and close sales, and about 20ish people use it all day, every day. I also knew that the CEO was currently the maintainer of the app, as it was started when the company was a home business and the owner picked up a "Learn MS Access in 21 Days" book.
Knowing this, I went to work learning how I could not only modernize the product by making it web based, but I wanted to leverage my experience in usability to optimize how their team uses the app. How can we not just rewrite the app, but also optimize it? Is there a clear path to adding an hour or so a day of additional productivity per employee, and what would 100 hours of combined additional productivity a week mean (financially) for the business? And how much better would it be if the CEO of this small company wasn't needing to maintain the app himself, but could focus on what he does best — growing his company?
What I sold wasn't software or a rewrite. I ended up selling a better tomorrow for his business, and a more profitable tomorrow. This "decommoditized" what I was doing, and while he paid me a premium, he received a much better product at the end of the day.
saturdayplace|11 years ago
n.b. That's how good business owners will look at this transaction: in terms of ROI. Sure this client paid a lot of money, but it was an investment in his company. It paid off. When you start framing offers like this, you don't have to feel bad about the price you'd like to charge because both parties come out further ahead.
Edit: Of interest to HN, I had a conversation with a business-owner friend of mine earlier this week. In trying to come up with a business ideas, I'd asked her if there was any software she hated using. This sparked an interesting conversation. When we got to the discussion about pricing, I asked:
"How much would you pay for something like this? $500 a year?" Her response was, and I quote: "I would do it on a monthly basis. Anything between 20-49/month is easy to sell. People <I think she means business owners here> don't even notice it."
tl;dr When you save a company money or time, they will hand you money accordingly.
dragos2|11 years ago
I consider that the term "consultant" is used to freely and most of the time clients advertise that they are looking to hire a consultant when they actually want to hire a freelance developer.
vram22|11 years ago
grecy|11 years ago
Did you charge an hourly rate for your "consulting time", or did you charge a flat fee?