Hey all,

I am contemplating creating a small consulting practice for schools, which focuses purely on Open Source (Niche) This is what I'm thinking for my personal bag of tricks Tell me what you think:

Web Site Design:
Joomla!Content Managment System,
so school administrators and teachers can update content in case of bad weather etc.

Moodle Learning management system
Can "backend" into their existing site so students and teachers can create online classes or classroom extensions

Linux Server Builds
LDAP/Kerberos
Servers in Debian stable
Eventually move over to terminal servers/thin clients.

Linux Workstations
Kubuntu (personal taste: KDE) (Xubuntu or the like in low resource settings)


Does this seem like a good mix to learn about? What would you add or take away?

Thank you,
Mohtech

I think you need to look at this in a slightly different way. My experience is that you're falling into a fairly common trap, namely your focusing on how your delivering your service rather than what your service is. Most people don't think in terms of open source/closed source/Joomla/Moodle etc, but rather they think in terms of the problem they need solved.

If you walk into a potential customer's office and start talking about the wonders of open source and how Joomla or Moodle are great, you're going to get blank stares. However, if you go in and start talking about the problems their having (getting their website updated with current information, extending their classrooms into peoples homes) THAT will get their attention. Then the open source nature of your solution simply becomes part of the value proposition. In other words, you're selling a service, not software.

I have learned a great deal from Joomla! As consultancy goes, there are two parts: the technical backend and the visual front end.

When I can speak to LQ, I know that I can use the backend jargon, However, as the technicians of Geek Squad demonstrate: there is little knowledge about the Open Source particulars.

All the users are concerned about is "Does it work"

There are ways of not only "gettings things to work" but doing so for cheaper and "better".

I agree with you, but again, if you're out there talking to customers, OSS doesn't always translate into "better" in their minds.

I'll give you an example of where, despite good intentions and a lot of development, an OSS project has largely gotten it wrong because they weren't focusing on the right things. The project is caBIG and it is run out of the National Cancer Institute. In terms of the problem their addressing, they are spot on. However, they've ignored (or perhaps misinterpreted) their market quite badly and instead of focusing on serious downstream issues like bug-fixes, service and support, they've been waving the "its open source" banner and hoping that those issues will all go away.

The problem is they won't. The software behind caBIG has been developed almost exclusively in academic labs around the country, funded by grants from NCI. What this typically translates into is a grad student or postdoc devoting 10%-50% of their time to writing caBIG software. Having had to deal with the receiving end of this stuff, it is uniformly poorly documented, so no matter how well it is written, you need the original developers to make heads of tails of it. Now try thinking in terms of trying to use this stuff form mission critical research in a major cancer center. Since the original authors are usually on to other projects, using the software would mean that the IT departments have to devote time and people to understanding the code and adapting it to their needs. Most don't have either the budget or the expertise and instead end up going with a closed source commercial vendor that offers the support and customization they need. OSS loses because it didn't focus on the right problems, or at least not all of them.

Which means if you're going to be successful in your consultancy, you need to develop an eye for seeing the real breadth of the problem and not assuming that waving the OSS flag will get you anywhere. Free can be brutally expensive if done wrong as caBIG shows.

I wish I had a local guru like you near by so I can get my mind around what I am trying to accomplish, and for setting me straight.

I agree that there is no "magic-Program, OS, or Project" that can solve the problems 100% of the time. Believing so could lead to much wasted time.

I want to focus purely on schools and educational institutions in my geographic area. I have been in and near that industry for a number of years. I think in education, there are many teachers who are not technicians and many technicians who are not teachers. I want to keep one foot in each door.

I am looking at several OS projects that look invaluable...the ones that I have listed, along with Schooltool and a few others can be an effective way for an independent school or small district to improve their IT infrastructure.

While I know that I must (and will) keep a purely objective eye on how to solve the particular problems, I do think when Micosoft end of lifes XP, many schools already strapped for cash may be forced to look at alternative rather than purchasing a lot of new computers.

Thank you for making me a little less green

Actually, I'd be surprised if there aren't a fair number of them in your area. On of the major keys to success in a consultancy is networking. There are probably local groups and trade associations that throw networking breakfasts/lunches/seminars and you need to become a regular at those. That is where you'll meet people in the same situation as you and others who are farther down the path. And if you want, we can take this off the forum. Just drop me an email.

That sounds like an excellent strategy. The consultancy I started a couple of years ago does a similar straddle only between biologists and IT. Being fluent in both worlds is really a valuable asset.

Okay, in your last posting, you lost a very-slight bit of your green-sheen, but my key point is that you have not yet publicly said anything that would trigger my first inquiry to see if I would possibly want to hire you. A lot of that, by the way, is almost subliminal.

Ah! A qualification, of sorts. When you first said "school" I thought "high-school kid."

Okay, so let's get one thing straight: what is it your business to do? Do you "sell hardware?" Do you understand the public school procurement process? If you want to sell software, the same thing applies. Do you know who in "a school system," let alone the one "in your geographic area," actually has the authority to sign a check with your name on it?

Much too vague: you are identifying various bits of "pain," but as IBM put it, remember "the MAP Principle." MAP=Money, Authority, and Pain. If you are not talking to the person who has all three, you're merely in the business of providing people with free cups of coffee, or worse.

Once again, are you selling hardware? If so, do you honestly know how cash-strapped a school might be? And if they are cash-strapped, how do you intend to make money from them? Do you know how the school got its Microsoft software to begin with? When Microsoft EOL's XP, they'll have a plan by then. And you probably will be in no position to be in it.

Think about it... a school system. An entire school system. And you waltz into the superintendent's door (knowing that you'll have to get approval from the entire school board), to offer ... exactly what? What problem are you going to solve, how are you going to solve it, how much (no, really...) is it going to cost, and so on. Give that man one puppy-look and the meeting is over.

No, don't do that please.

I am also contemplating a linux consultancy and these are very helpful comments. Let everyone gain from your experience and insights. What else is this site for?

thanks,

tariq butt

That needs to be printed out in a very nice font, put in an expensive frame, and hung on a spot in the office where everyone will see it at least fifteen times a day.

A salesman I used to work with had a different name for the same thing: "The Horizontal Eye Shuffle". You gotta know what you do, and do not offer, and how it relates to the pain they are currently experiencing. Nothing is deadlier to the sales process than not knowing both your stuff, and the client.

No worries, I'm always happy to toss my 2 cents out here, but sometimes conversations end up being VERY specific to a situation. Sometimes people need to ask questions that really don't belong in a forum. But I do agree with you. The skill level of the people that frequent LQ is pretty amazing, and I like their opinions as much as you do and you don't get that if you take it off line.

Since there seems to be some interest, I'm posting an email I sent to Mohtech about some of the general aspects of starting a consulting biz.......



I think you've identified a decent potential market for your services, but there are a few things to consider. First off is how long you can keep the business going without taking any pay. I read a Business Week article a couple of years ago about starting a consulting company, and as far as pay goes, the first year as a full time business, you essentially make nothing. The second year is when you'll be able to make enough to cover your basic expenses, and it isn't until the third year that you really start to make the kind of income you would in a "normal" job. From my experience with my firm, that is pretty much on the mark.

Since you're aiming at a government service business, you might consider adding some extra time on to that. Our work with government agencies has been agonizingly slow. Where a private company can make decisions pretty quickly, government agencies like a school district have all sorts of extra layers in place to make sure that tax dollars aren't being mis-spent. That means you could be looking at a 18 month sales cycle easily. You'll also have to get up to speed on how the school district contracts out for work. I can pretty much guarantee that not many people in a school district can spend money without going through a lot of red tape. This usually means that the work has to be put out for bid which means that you'll be competing against much larger companies. You can use your small business status to your advantage, but be aware that the competition for government dollars is pretty fierce.

If you do go ahead and start this, your success will largely be determined by the network of people you know. As dispiriting as it sounds, frequently who you know is a more important factor than what you know. The best advice anyone ever gave me was that one of the first things you need to do as a new business is to write a short, and understandable, introduction to your business. You then need to send it to everyone you directly know. You're not spamming the planet, but you are letting friends, relatives and business contacts know what you are up to. None of these people will give you business directly, but if they hear of something, and they know you can do it, they can give you a nice lead. You also need to start attending networking functions and conferences around where you live. Meeting people, listening to what they do and explaining what you do is a key component of success. The vast majority of these contacts lead nowhere, but by doing it you not only refine your message, but the longer you do it the more legitimate you look as a business. Also, a small business needs only one or two gigs to keep going. I can honestly say that absolutely every one of the jobs that we've landed has been a direct result of working our network.

As far as creating demand goes, that is a hard proposition unless you've got some really unique product. A more tried and true approach is identifying existing problems and getting potential customers to see that you are a good solution to that problem. If you want to do some general searching, this is frequently called "Solution Selling". Basically you identify a significant pain that the potential customer has and then put that in a context that shows your solution is the right one. Oh, and if you have any hang-ups about being a sales person, you need to get over that in a hurry. Starting your own company means you are the sales force. All the time. Every day.