(1) The comments saying that it's hard-to-impossible to transition from consulting to product are correct. Two problems: (a) it takes more than just discipline to walk away from money --- it takes reckless speculation, and that's painful; (b) consulting hours don't bucket neatly, and don't schedule neatly, and so you're constantly being disrupted.
(2) That said, we now have multiple full-time people working on product, which we're launching soon. The classic consulting model is a pyramid scheme, where people claw their way to "partner" and get fat off profit sharing. In the product-consulting model, instead of setting aside money for partners, you pay full-time devs. This appears to work.
If I had to choose between VC and consulting, and my consulting practice was lucrative (ours is: software security billable hours are expensive), I'd do consulting again, even though it cost us a year. Reasons:
* I'll trade a year for control over my own destiny.
* The year is a false economy, since, for most companies, getting funding takes many speculative months.
* There are things about running a consultancy as a business that translate to running a product business, and running a business is a valuable skill.
* The networking and customer face time you get from consulting is hugely valuable.
(1) The comments saying that it's hard-to-impossible to transition from consulting to product are correct. Two problems: (a) it takes more than just discipline to walk away from money --- it takes reckless speculation, and that's painful; (b) consulting hours don't bucket neatly, and don't schedule neatly, and so you're constantly being disrupted.
(2) That said, we now have multiple full-time people working on product, which we're launching soon. The classic consulting model is a pyramid scheme, where people claw their way to "partner" and get fat off profit sharing. In the product-consulting model, instead of setting aside money for partners, you pay full-time devs. This appears to work.
If I had to choose between VC and consulting, and my consulting practice was lucrative (ours is: software security billable hours are expensive), I'd do consulting again, even though it cost us a year. Reasons:
* I'll trade a year for control over my own destiny.
* The year is a false economy, since, for most companies, getting funding takes many speculative months.
* There are things about running a consultancy as a business that translate to running a product business, and running a business is a valuable skill.
* The networking and customer face time you get from consulting is hugely valuable.
* Time to market is simply overrated.