Becoming an Outsourcing Consultancy?

[Shimano105]

Tongue in cheek post, obviously harder than it sounds or everyone would do it.

However I think it could be the only way forward - and it gets me off the skills-update treadmill which I need to do for my sanity.

Do you have a sales person or do you rely on old contacts?

[d000hg]

That's kind of what I do, BUT if you think you can just through a spec across to your 'monkeys' and get something good back, you're in for a nasty shock. You firstly need to spend a good amount of time hand-picking the skilled chimps from the huge number of dumb apes, using a proper interview process, demanding to see examples of code or get them to take a test.
Then you need to make sure you understand the requirements of a project well enough to explain it to your team... that's if you can get the client to write the requirements before you begin work. You need to estimate/quote how long it will take to do the project, without knowing how fast your monkeys can work.

etc. It's a route to make some money, but I don't find it any easier than a 'real' job.

[Shimano105]

How hard can it be?

Nice website, list all your previous clients, employ a sales-person to drum up some business.

Then put the work on rent-a-monkey or whatever. Got to be the best plan B yet?