Life as an Independent Consultant

It’s been almost a month since I left Notion Solutions to embark on a new adventure of driving an independent consulting company.  Chris Menegay was the greatest to work with at Notion, so I truly appreciate what I learned and gave back to them.  With the new gig it’s not all easy.  There are some ups and downs that have been a challenge.  The hardest parts have been expensive insurance policies, a formal payroll, and becoming a registered Microsoft partner for an upcoming product.  With all of that behind us, it’s just work, work, work.

I’ve been holding two contracts now to make the startup ends meet.  With one client, I’m performing back-end socket, threading, and SQL work.  With the other client, I’m performing high level ASP.NET and SQL SSIS work.  To top that, I’m also advising and assisting one client with TFS configuration, one of my biggest passions.  I’m using Subversion with the other client.  So I’m keeping the skills going across the board.  This is what it’s all about (and making a profit).  Now I’m wondering how to add more hours in the day to get the work done without hiring an employee.  In consulting, as many consultants would know from experience, you must give the client their dollar’s worth or it’s back to the W2 and the nine-to-five.  It almost sounds good, but I do like being around people more than being a cubicle mushroom that a W2 tends to make you.  So that's where I'm at in this long history of blog entries.  Enough about me.

-Vince