The Once and Future Consultant

Posted on Dec 14, 2016 at 04:10PM

A few weeks ago, I got word that the company I worked for was halving it's workforce and I was among the half that wouldn't be continuing onward. It was a good strategic move for the company and they were generous with notice and a severance package. Priceonomics is a class act and I wish them well.

Prior to taking that job, I'd been working as a consultant under the umbrella of another company and I had a good time of it. But when that company went through some major changes, the amount of work coming through them began to taper off and, having just bought a farm and doubled my household expenses, I went off to the world of the salaried employee where the checks were more regular.

As I'd been working as an employee, I'd been thinking about how I'd do things differently the next time around as a consultant. Must haves are: a value-oriented business model, a marketing effort that's less about my technical prowess and more about how what I do reduces risk and expense for businesses, a content-marketing strategy (I did work for priceonomics, after all).

When I called a friend who works as a consultant and with whom I've worked on several occasions in the past, he said he'd actually been thinking about working with someone to create a larger consultancy. Moreover, he said there was a network of very experienced consultants who were interested in working together on big data, data pipelines, etc. So, with the opportunity to try my hand at consulting again, I've leapt in and produced another website that's all about technical prowess. Sigh

For the moment, it's enough that it's up. It's a proof-of-concept for a larger effort that's proceeding nicely and the design is based around a really nifty way of using Yaml files to spin up a website really quickly in Django. There's definitely going to be a post on this down the road.

So without further adieu, I'm excited to announce Framework Labs! We help companies whose requirements are outpacing their development efforts.