On Consulting

There's substantial ink spilled on what to work on, but far less on how to structure that work. Over the first five years of my career, I worked as an employee with demanding hours, then as a startup founder for three years where work consumed most of my waking life. What followed in the next two years was a complete revolution in how I view work and life—I started selling my extremely niche set of skills as a consultant.

My pitch was simple: I help rapidly launch new products and features for AI and crypto startups, focusing on early-stage teams who need their ideas validated as quickly as possible. I work in short bursts, roughly 20% of the year, while making a medium-range tech salary. This allows me to spend the rest of my time on new ideas, learning areas that interest me, and traveling around the world with my girlfriend.

Why Consulting Works

Consulting requires advanced business skills and deep self-knowledge about what you're uniquely good at. It's not an entry-level strategy—substantial experience is needed before this approach becomes effective. But once you have that foundation, you can set your own rules on how you work, as long as you provide value to others and can test that value in the market.

The most striking difference is how consulting breaks the typical coupling between time and money. In a normal job or as a startup founder, time is tied to earning—the higher your salary, the more demanding your work and responsibility. Consulting shatters this relationship. You can charge a higher rate but work less, creating space for other pursuits without sacrificing income.

You gain complete control over what you work on and who you work with. I choose to take on some clients and projects while turning down others, working only on exciting problems. This means I do better work, enjoy it more, and keep pushing myself by selecting challenging projects. When I worked with a poorly organized and somewhat dishonest founder, I structured my contract to reduce ongoing commitments, allowing me to drop the client with only a few days' notice. Conversely, when I really enjoy working with a client, I prioritize taking on their contracts.

The Learning Accelerator

Consulting exposes you to many problems, companies, and approaches. It's easy to become nearsighted working with just one company or project. At 31, I'm still fairly early in my career, and experiencing many different teams, projects, codebases, and problems in just a few years is accelerating my experience dramatically. There are simply more things to learn from a bigger pool of people and projects than from just one of each.

Working on your own terms provides direct feedback on what your time is worth and how others value your skills. The flipside is that you need enough business experience—especially in product and hiring—to understand how to optimally sell your skills and price both the value you create and the time it takes.

The Path Forward

It's hard to commit to certain perspectives, but as it stands right now, I don't see myself returning to full-time employment anytime soon. I value my autonomy too much, so I'll likely be working on my own revenue-generating projects or contracting my time while I look for the next one, as I'm doing right now. Now that I've exited my last project—clank.fun—I will be back to helping other founders whilst finding my next idea.

Consulting isn't for everyone—it requires significant upfront investment in skills and experience. But for those who can navigate its demands, it offers something rare: the ability to decouple time from money while maintaining control over your work and continuing to learn at an accelerated pace.

If you're working on an AI or crypto project and need help rapidly launching new products or features, you can learn more about working with me on my consulting page.