Consulting

Since last year I’ve done a bunch of consulting jobs. It’s great. You get to learn a lot that you can apply to your day job. For many of my Twitter followers, freelance consulting is their bread and butter.

I’ll be lying to say I’ve never thought of jumping into full time freelance consulting. It gives you the freedom to work when you want and honestly the pay is good.

Only if companies paid on time. In India, there’s a nasty behaviour among companies to get the work done and pay months later. This is one of the reason why I wouldn’t jump into full time consulting. That said, I’ve noticed this behaviour mostly among non-IT companies. And it’s not just for consulting work, if you work on a contract basis you’re screwed too. A construction company where I did a bit of consulting wasn’t paid for about a year and the amount was no less than Rs 1crore.

This chain of not paying on time is continuous. I have increased respect for anyone who “tries” to a business in India, specially in non-IT sector.