People regularly ask, \u201chow\u2019s that consulting thing going?\u201d It\u2019s a fair question, and I don\u2019t mind answering. The short answer is that it\u2019s going better than I ever expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conditions were basically perfect when I created my LLC in 2013: I had been employed by BioTeam <\/a>for nine years. Since 2011, I had been dedicated nearly full time to a single customer, the NY Genome Center<\/a>. The work with the genome center was all-consuming, so Bioteam had transitioned my day to day management responsibilities to other members of the team. That made it minimally disruptive to ease myself out and \u201cgo direct\u201d with the Genome Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About a year later, NYGC was to the point where it didn\u2019t make sense for them to rely on consultants anymore. I have great respect and love for the team and the mission, but I didn\u2019t want to live in Manhattan. I came back to Boston and hired on as the leader of research computing at the Broad Institute<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During that first round of independence, I didn\u2019t give much thought at all to business development or process. I had NYGC to rely on, and a few other small gigs sort of landed in my lap along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fast forward to March of 2017. I decided to depart the Broad and give the \u201cindependent\u201d thing another go. It was a very different situation. Without that single large \u201canchor\u201d customer in hand, business development was essential. I started blogging (yes, this blog is a business development activity), meeting friends and colleagues, tweeting more actively, and generally hustling to raise my profile and build a client base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two years in, I\u2019ve closed deals with twenty different companies: Seven biotechs, four technology vendors, three other consulting groups (mostly subcontracting for specialized skills and expertise), two universities, a pharmaceutical company, a regional hospital system, a government agency, and an independent research institute. Two of my clients are coming up on their two year anniversary of working with me. Eight others were brief \u201cone and done\u201d engagements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s going well enough that I\u2019ve had to deal with some of the challenges of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a fair amount of road time. I\u2019m platinum status with Marriott, \u201cselect executive\u201d on Amtrak, and Mosaic with Jetblue. It\u2019s frankly disheartening that, in terms of lifetime totals, I\u2019ve spent nearly two full years worth of nights sleeping in hotels. On the other hand, I benefit from the ongoing biotech miracle that is Kendall Square: Nine of my clients are within an easy bicycle ride from my house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Managing travel time is among the most important things that I do for my health, happiness, and profitability. It turns out to be straightforward for me to book myself into travel hell, which certainly -feels- like being productive. However, for me at least, that productivity is an illusion. Looking at the numbers, the months when I was running myself ragged going back and forth across the country were actually among my -least- profitable, especially factoring in the downtime that I need to recover from even a few weeks of being flat-out on the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n