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You are here: Home / Guest Appearance / Impedance Matching episode / #409 – Electronics Consultant Impedance Matching

#409 – Electronics Consultant Impedance Matching

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Welcome (counterclockwise) Piotr, Eric and Dave!

  • Dave is 30% local to 70% remote, 75% fixed, 25% hourly
    • 0h 16m 20s
  • Eric is 80-90 local, 10% remote. 50-50 split on hourly vs fixed.
    • 0h 17m 55s
  • Piotr was 100% remote and , but his remaining job is local and hourly
    • 0h 19m 21s
  • Client archetypes
    • 0h 20m 34s
  • Stability
    • 0h 22m 34s
  • Past guest Philip Freidin wrote about being a consultant
    • 0h 24m 04s
  • “So you want to be a consultant?”
    • 0h 25m 43s
  • Do you bill for software?
    • 0h 27m 17s
  • Time tracking
    • 0h 28m 51s
  • Consulting specialty
    • 0h 29m 31s
  • Dave: likes diversity and depth of work
    • 0h 29m 47s
  • Eric: smaller projects beginning to end
    • 0h 30m 36s
  • Piotr: Vertically integrated
    • 0h 31m 4s
  • 0 hour billable weeks
    • 0h 36m 51s
  • Let’s figure out what’s best for that
    • 0h 37m 59s
  • Learning the personality of a client
    • 0h 40m 58s
  • Playing the timeline all the way forward
    • 0h 41m 37s
  • Client communication
    • 0h 43m 16s
  • Setting expectations
    • 0h 43m 22s
  • Firing a client
    • 0h 43m 52s
  • 3 strikes
    • 0h 43m 56s
  • Growing empathy for customers
    • 0h 45m 24s
  • Language barriers with clients
    • 0h 47m 37s
  • “This SHOULD be done by…”
    • 0h 48m 2s
  • Dealing with impostor syndrome
    • 0h 51m 58s
  • Known risks
    • 0h 53m 18s
  • Communicating to the client about lack of knowledge
    • 0h 53m 39s
  • When your startup client who suddenly gets funding, is woo’d and ultimately stolen by a bigger design firm promising the world….how does one manage ones anger?
    • 0h 55m 22s
  • Working through some of the design houses
    • 0h 56m 57s
  • Focal points – distributor FAEs, design houses, contract manufacturers
    • 0h 58m 32s
  • Getting recommendations from past clients
    • 0h 59m 38s
  • How to get started
    • 1h 0m 36s
  • Judging potential hires by their pull requests
    • 1h 2m 56s
  • Insurance
    • 1h 8m 51s
  • Usually on a product basis and not the design basis
    • 1h 9m 35s
  • LLCs all around
    • 1h 10m 53s
  • Good resources from IEEE
    • 1h 11m 31s
  • Consultant survey
    • 1h 12m 28s
  • What I really want to know is: why engineers feel they must *undercharge* for time as a consultant? No one should be blanching at $100+/hr.
    • 1h 14m 4s
  • Hourly rate goe down for billing more hours
    • 1h 14m 18s
  • Dave changes billing for if there’s more risk
    • 1h 14m 35s
  • Lowering hourly rate for things you like. Piotr does this for open source hardware.
    • 1h 16m 25s
  • Should you work for equity?
    • 1h 17m 18s
  • Working with startups
    • 1h 18m 12s
  • Changes the nature of the relationship
    • 1h 18m 38s
  • Rainy days cash
    • 1h 20m 17s
  • Getting personal finance stuff in order
    • 1h 21m 42s
  • Check out our guests’ sites to learn more:
    • 1bitsquared.com
    • LowVoltageLabs.com
    • YoungCircuitDesigns.com

Comments

  1. Michael Moore says

    October 3, 2018 at 9:19 am

    This is a great episode! I was glad to hear that you are doing consulting because I hoped it meant there would be more consulting related episodes. I know you are already really busy, but I think you could make a spin-off podcast sharing your adventures in getting started as a consultant.

    I started consulting a little over a year ago, and there have definitely been some times when it would have helped to have heard this advice a long time ago.

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