Back when I worked at the Department of State, I created an imaginary machine called The Complexinator. This machine could take in anything - a problem, a program, an idea, etc... - as long and whatever was being passed in was simple and understandable. The Complexinator would then churn and chug...typically emitting clouds of noxious smoke...and then return to you an extremely complex morass of indecipherable results - thus your input was Complexinated using the process of Complexination.
The purpose, of course, was to teach more novice developers and business analysts the value of keeping things simple...
Little did I know that Mr. DT got a hold of my Complexinator behind my back, increased the Complexination process by a magnitude of absurdity, and used it on our proof of concept.
Never have I seen such a pit of intertwined, over-engineered, simply frustrating code as I see when I look at what was built. I will admit that I am a hack - I typically only write code sufficient to complete a given task and I never try to write "reusable code" or code frameworks. To me they are simply wastes of time as everything changes too much to make those approaches worth the effort.
Mr. DT somehow started to created a framework several times, stopped, started on another framework, etc... And then he left them all in the solution and is using bits and pieces from each.
When I write code and there is a bug, I immediately know where that issue originates - I might not know how to fix the problem but it usually does not take very long. This project? It can take DAYS just to figure out where an issue originates and fixing one issue typically results in a series of systemic bugs that can take weeks to resolve. Case in point, we have been trying to get images to paint on a screen for 3 weeks. Most of the issues have been resolved now - total UI bug count - 4. Total systemic issues from those 4 fixes - endless.
If I had been Really Smart, I would have also developer the Decomplexinator to decomplexinate this mess...oh well...time to dive back down the rabbit hole...
Showing posts with label consulting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consulting. Show all posts
Monday, November 30, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Hourly vs. Monthly
While we are building our proof-of-concept - and if anybody knows how to go from 32-bit images to 8-bit images please LET ME KNOW!!! - I will post some things on non-VC-related items. Today is all about hourly vs. monthly payments.
In the hourly corner, I have clients that blissfully pay me rather large hourly rates, completely screw up what they want and then pay me even more money to fix their mistakes. Based on these clients, the hourly game is a good thing.
On the other hand, I can get many more clients to sign up for a monthly retainer based on the number of hours they think they need from me - and this is what takes me to the next level. In the hourly game, I am limited to about 240 hours per month (60 hours per week) and at, let's say for this example, $250 per hour, that comes out to $60,000 per month. Good money but not the end game.
When I book monthly contracts I ask people how much work they want from me and then how many hours they feel this work will take. Now I have a great capacity to work significantly faster than most people so this type of negotiation really works in my favor. I then give about a 20% discount off of my hourly rate and then sign people up to 6- to 12-month contracts. Back in July, I had 5 such contracts each paying an average of $20K per month - MUCH better money!
Of course I gave all of those contracts up to build my new company because, in the end, even the monthly contract game has a low ceiling. While $100K sounds awesome per month, it fluctuates wildly and I have yet to break $600K for a year. To put that in perspective, most lawyers I know consistently make $800K to over $1M with much less experience in their field than I have in mine.
However, even starting up a single company is not really the end game - rather starting a company that generates companies is the final goal. To that end, I do have yet another patented invention that, once built, will automatically generated 12 spin-off companies (at least) without further effort on my part. While this is a good start, I am constantly noodling for better company-generating concepts as this, to me, is the ultimate money-generating solution.
In the hourly corner, I have clients that blissfully pay me rather large hourly rates, completely screw up what they want and then pay me even more money to fix their mistakes. Based on these clients, the hourly game is a good thing.
On the other hand, I can get many more clients to sign up for a monthly retainer based on the number of hours they think they need from me - and this is what takes me to the next level. In the hourly game, I am limited to about 240 hours per month (60 hours per week) and at, let's say for this example, $250 per hour, that comes out to $60,000 per month. Good money but not the end game.
When I book monthly contracts I ask people how much work they want from me and then how many hours they feel this work will take. Now I have a great capacity to work significantly faster than most people so this type of negotiation really works in my favor. I then give about a 20% discount off of my hourly rate and then sign people up to 6- to 12-month contracts. Back in July, I had 5 such contracts each paying an average of $20K per month - MUCH better money!
Of course I gave all of those contracts up to build my new company because, in the end, even the monthly contract game has a low ceiling. While $100K sounds awesome per month, it fluctuates wildly and I have yet to break $600K for a year. To put that in perspective, most lawyers I know consistently make $800K to over $1M with much less experience in their field than I have in mine.
However, even starting up a single company is not really the end game - rather starting a company that generates companies is the final goal. To that end, I do have yet another patented invention that, once built, will automatically generated 12 spin-off companies (at least) without further effort on my part. While this is a good start, I am constantly noodling for better company-generating concepts as this, to me, is the ultimate money-generating solution.
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