CONTEST: Free One-Hour Business Consultation

27 Mar

Posted by admin as Mentoring

I’m offering a free one-hour business consultation valued at $125 to the lucky winner of this contest. The rules are simple:

Write a comment to this post, explaining why you deserve or need the consultation
Sign up for my daily email

When the comment count reaches 100, I will choose one lucky winner….so, what’s so special about a consultation with me? Well let me take a minute to boast…

A little about me

I graduated Summa Cum Laude in Math from Occidental College in 2003. I had two jobs at online publishing companies as web developer, then as IT/Web Manager, before taking the leap to full-time freelance work as a PHP/MySQL developer and consultant.

Within 3 months I had doubled my income at my previous job and within 1 year I was able to purchase a home for myself and my wife here in LA.

In summary, I was able to quickly identify the skills needed to become a successful freelance developer, and then I moved on to incorporate my business and currently, I manage manage around five developers at any given time depending on workload.

I had to learn almost everything about business on my own, and while I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity and for all it allowed me to learn, I hope to smooth out the transition for some of you who may not be as far along this path as I am.

I really look forward to working with you! You can ask any and all questions you may have - from how to manage your transition from a full time position, to how to sharpen you development skills, client negotiation skills, all the way through legal documents and best practices with contracts, project scopes, and other documents.

DEADLINE: May 1, 2008

Popularity: 5% [?]

Bookmark CONTEST: Free One-Hour Business Consultation at del.icio.us

Digg CONTEST: Free One-Hour Business Consultation at Digg.com

Bookmark CONTEST: Free One-Hour Business Consultation at Spurl.net

Bookmark CONTEST: Free One-Hour Business Consultation at reddit.com

Bookmark CONTEST: Free One-Hour Business Consultation at YahooMyWeb

5 Responses

DFectuoso

March 27th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
1

I am a engineering student in mexico and i have developed a lot in PHP(on Zend)/MySQL/JS and im starting to get a lot of diferent projects and oportunities everyday. I would love to know your opinion on how to select what is worth investing time and what not. So basicly if you want to give your opinnion to a, maybe less lucky, younger you, contact me!

Kudos for the idea!
Abe

March 30th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
2

99 more comments!!
kalen_jordan

March 30th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
3

Yep, looks like we have a lil way to go…I’m gonna have to help out a little bit also by replying to comments here….

@Abe - no email or contact info…huh?

@DFectuoso - sounds like you’re in a good place, look forward to hearing more!
Laughing At You

March 31st, 2008 at 3:19 am
4

First of all, it’s spelled “summa cum laude” — one would think the possessor of such honors would know how to spell that correctly.

Second, you’re Just Another Freelancer. You’ve hardly been in the field at ALL. Where do you see yourself as having value as a consultant? You haven’t even seen one full economic cycle as a professional in the field, much less can you possibly have seen much in the way of the breadth or depth of business, given the limited description of your background you provide. Talk to me after you’ve seen clients go out of business en mass, practically overnight, and you’re still making a payroll.

You smell like Yet Another Social Networking Yahoo.
kalen_jordan

March 31st, 2008 at 12:21 pm
5

Hey, I said I was smart and good at math, never said anything about spelling (here’s the link - http://departments.oxy.edu/registrar/catalog2004/degrees.html)….So it sounds like you’re not signing up for the contest

Well first let me say thanks for sharing your (very) honest opinion. I guess any comment’s a good comment and I’d like to learn something from your criticism.

I agree with you that I am not the most experienced freelancer / consultant / biz owner out there. I also agree that there is probly a lot of skill I will gain from the experience your talking about - being thru multiple economic cycles, etc. At the same time, I feel confident that I was able to learn both the biz side, PM side, and dev side of things very quickly and I’m proud of my achievements.

I could probly take the self promotional tone of my bio down a notch or two. I guess I got a little excited with that and it can definitely be a turn-off to people, point taken.

I probably should clarify my contest and my blog in general (about page) that my audience is for less experienced freelancers or people who are just considering freelancing, as I’m probly not as appropriate for very skilled and experienced freelancers - I’m guessing you fall into that category.

So I still feel strongly that a consultation with myself could be an awesome kick start for someone getting started or even someone with some experience who I may have a few tips and tricks I learned on the battle field which I could share with them. I have worked with many people at least 10 years my senior who I feel saw me as a peer in terms of maturity, communication level, and technical skill.

p.s. As a professional who stands behind your words and reputation, I would have thought you’d at least post your email/link in your comment. Hope you’ll read my reply somehow….