I've been involved in a couple of basement-style engineering startups.  We
bid each job such that we should be able to make a profit on each job from
the very start.  Although the first couple of jobs were, of course, under
budget and past deadline, we soon got more into the swing of things.
Although we didn't make the expected profit on early jobs, they did pay the
bills and keep us fed.  Lack of capital meant some lean times between jobs,
though, and I took outside jobs while the boss stayed in the basement
answering the phones to get the thing off the ground.  I worked fulltime for
somebody else and part-time in the basement for two years until we got it
going steady enough that I could stay on fulltime.

We also started with fairly low hourly rates, $35 in the 1980's.  We finally
had to raise our rates to $60/hour.  We were pretty hesitant about this, but
suddenly we had more business when we raised our rates.  Lowballing in
consulting is NOT always the way to get jobs.  Eventually we moved out of
the basement into a real office.  A long time later we went broke and folded
up the business altogether.

--Lawrence
>
> > > -----Original Message-----
>
> > > Well I have a client who wants a bid for a project.  The design is
> > > straightforward, it is half-clone & half-modernization/update of an
> > > existing product that I'm very familiar with.  Sorry for the vagueness
> > > but there is an NDA involved.
> > >
> > > Now he needs a revamp of this thing for use with other stuff in a
> > > "packaged kit" that he will sell.  This is a critical piece of the kit
> > > and there is no reasonable currently-existing alternative.  He has a
> > > small line of various products (that he doesn't manufacture, he's the
> > > retailer) into a niche market for years and knows his
> > > audience well.
>
>
> Hi Jesse, I will take the opposite stance to John above
> and suggest that since your consulting business is a

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