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You are here: Home / Guest Appearance / #492 – More Electronics Consultant Impedance Matching

#492 – More Electronics Consultant Impedance Matching

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Another episode with people talking about consulting for electronics! Welcome to our guests, listed clockwise from the top left in the episode photo.

  • Alex Klimaj from ARK Electronics in Utah in the US.
  • Jeremiah Gillis from Embedded Bytes, Inc in Wyoming in the US.
  • Kieran O’Leary from Mixed Signal Systems, Ltd in Scotland in the UK. Kieran has been on the show on his own in the past.
  • We all know each other from the Electronics Consultant Forum. If you’re interested in joining you can apply here.

Notes from the show:

  • Episode 409 was also about Electronic Consulting. That episode inspired the consultant forum as a place to discuss issues related to the field.
  • Working with remote clients, before and during the lockdown.
  • All have considered making hardware for sale outside of client work.
    • Alex has made the LiPow
    • Kieran does courses and has made some demo boards for SI issues
    • Jeremiah will be making some mod hardware for his Mazda RX7
  • Chris liked the idea of building a reference design after Ryan Cousins from KRTKL was on the show talking about how the Snickerdoodle is a lead generation tool.
  • Having a niche is also important.
  • The Long Tail (written by past guest Chris Anderson)
  • Past guest / co-host Greg Charvat has written niche books that lead to opportunities at startups as a CTO.
  • Schedules at home lab are tough, but not that different than before for the attendees. Kieran is used to working in the middle of the night (it was 1 am during the call for him)
  • Alex recorded a video of mountain biking using a Skydio drone
  • Keeping up on the latest trends via podcasts. We didn’t mention it directly but this included the machine learning episode on embedded.fm.
  • Classes are always a good way to learn too, but might be more limited.
  • Looking at job postings also calls out what skills are in demand. Chris referenced the HN who’s hiring posts.
  • Chris wishes there was an Audm for Engineers, that reads you technical articles and/or summaries. If you’re interested email chris@theamphour.com with the subject line “Audm for engineers”
  • How are you rigorous?
    • Standard processes in place
    • Jeremiah is learning from the medical industry, since there are more regulations. This includes things like unit testing that links back to a requirement.
  • Tracking time for quality, including how well they are doing for estimates.
  • Asana with Everhour
  • Book: How to measure anything
  • The important thing is to check whether it’s done or not. “Are we happy? Yes or no”
  • A great tip: Every block in the schematic gets a number for PCB reviews
  • Using a balance sheet as a budget check. Adding custom categories to your Chart of Accounts (with your accountant’s blessing) means you can categorize with more fine control.
  • Some of the accounting/tracking tools we use:
    • Xero
    • Quickbooks
    • Zoho
  • Spend your time billing hours
  • War stories
    • Once there was a layoff, one the employees was nice enough to update Kieran on the situation
    • Jeremiah war story about client
  • “I declare Force Majeure!”
  • So you want to be a consultant. Also referenced in Jack Ganssle’s series on being a consultant.
  • Things to learn in the next 5 years:
    • Business strategy (Trillion dollar coach – Bill Campbell_
    • DC power storage and EVs
    • Measuring progress (Measure What Matters – John Doerr)
  • Consulting forum application
  • Follow our guests online!
    • Kieran O’Leary on Twitter, LinkedIn and his personal site
    • Jeremiah Gillis on LinkedIn, his company site
    • Alex Klimaj on Twitter, LinkedIn and his company site

Comments

  1. Daryn says

    July 17, 2020 at 10:08 am

    Hey Chris, you mentioned some books or course material that you enjoy going through but I couldn’t catch the name. It sounded like Baververse……? Could you please confirm? Thank you for another interesting show.

    • Chris Gammell says

      July 17, 2020 at 10:10 am

      I often talk about the “Bobiverse” books, this is the first book: https://www.amazon.com/Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse-Book-ebook/dp/B01LWAESYQ

      It’s sci-fi though. Does that sound like what I was talking about?

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