Other incubator. 2004-2007. We had a good product, but didn't focus enough and instead pivoted twice to arguably worse products. The company barely scraped by until last year, when it was sold to a well-known market player. We founders were so diluted by then that we only got a minor amount. Was a great journey but won't be repeating it until I find a product I believe 100% in. You have to be in it to win it. Working as a consultant now and one thing I can say for sure is that running a startup gives you one hell of a headstart competence-wise.
To me, consulting is 'providing outside expertise and advice, to teach a client what to do and how'. For instance, you might have a sales consultant teach you how to build a better sales pipeline. A software consultant would show you how to commission outsource work, or design a service architecture, but not actually implement them.
I get the feeling that on HN it means something else?
Often, people here transition very easily into consulting, and treat it as a worst case fallback job, which is crazy because I figured the kind of consulting mentioned above is engaging, well paid, really hard to get started in, and a business in itself.
I think a lot of people use it interchangeably with "contracting". i.e. working as an expert temporary employee on a specific product/problem usually at a higher wage than the "permanent" employees.
As an ex-consultant/contractor, you're exactly right - it's often confusing because different companies call it different things. I've done both types (consulting on the high level goals, and actually implementing things) and I've rarely seen a company that draws much of a distinction, oftentimes the first leads into the second anyways, usually at the same rate.
Terminology, meh...these days I just say I was a hired gun, because some people think there's an actual distinction between consultant and contractor, but I was never clear on what it was, even though I was doing it...
