Consulting is addicting and it ruins your startup

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

Ah, damn. This is exactly what I am doing right now.

Taryn East writes:

Consulting is like selling crack. If you get hooked on the consulting lifestyle (and income), it can be hard to give that up to work on your own startups, yet many people get into consulting with the dream of working on their own projects on the side.

Yet it seems that consulting work can actually be detrimental to your startup-founding prospects. Read more from the original article

I have to admit I’ve fallen foul of this myself. It’s very hard to prioritise spending a lot of time on a “maybe it’ll go nowhere” startup, if you’ve got definite paid work to do right now (especially if it’s well paid). In my case, my startup is MatchFounders, a site dedicated to matching potential founders for startups.

When prioritising, the “bird in the hand” mentality kicks in automatically – and there’s a lot to be said about that particular proverb. But I also have to think hard about whether or not I’m selling my long-term future for short-term cash results.

It’s not an easy choice to make, by any stretch.

Just how much do I want to work my own startup (and build something for the future) vs current, well-paid consulting.

Don’t hold your breath for an answer – I’ll probably struggle with this for a long time. But it has served as a reminder that I also have my own ideas on the boil – and should maybe give a little more love on their behalf.

Right now I’m doing both PHP and Ruby work for ShermansTravel. And it is distracting me, in a serious way, from launching Tailor Made Answers.

Post external references

  1. 1
    http://rubyglasses.blogspot.com/2011/07/consulting-harms-your-chance-at.html
  2. 2
    http://www.shermanstravel.com/
  3. 3
    http://blog.tailormadeanswers.com/
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