A Year of Indie Consulting (Year Two)
All entries in the series
- A Year of Indie Consulting (Year One)
- A Year of Indie Consulting (Year Two)
Recently I read somewhere, that instead of using only December 31st to review and plan the year, you should allow yourself the whole of January to do so.
I like that idea. So in the same spirit I write my 2024 recap in mid-january. I am still working two jobs as an independent consultant as well as for one of the bigger digital agencies in Germany, move:elevator. So this marks the second split as a part-time independent consultant (what a mouthful).
In this post, I want to look at
- The Highlights
- My Low-lights
- The Numbers
- A couple of patterns, I recognized
- Get a feeling for what’s next
The Highlights of 2024
Getting my second client
This, in itself, is a reason to celebrate. What is especially note-worthy for me: I got in touch with this client because of my session on experiments in strategy and innovation in early 2024.
Strategy Collective
I have had the please to participate in the 15-week-program of the Strategy Collective. Knowledge-wise, it was THE single best decision of 2024. The very engaged participants shared a lot of their respective contexts regarding strategy and Markus made an awesome overview of how adaptive strategy looks like (and spoiler, looked like for the past 50-ish years). If you have the chance: be part of an upcoming cohort!
CLOQ does not stop growing
It just works. I don’t do advertising, I don’t do marketing. Still, CLOQ had a year-over-year growth of almost 81 % in returning users and 15 % growth in created timers. It never fails to amaze me, how the product keeps going without me doing anything whatsoever.
My low-light
There wasn’t really a low-light for 2024. If it’s one thing: I scheduled too many half-day and full-day workshops stealing myself of valuable time between sessions. It lead to missing depth in post-workshop work, time to reset and re-energize.
The numbers
I have worked with three clients on a total of six projects. This lead to my independent consulting being roughly a third of my total income. Together with 2023’s decision to decrease weekly hours for the agency, this this lead to almost equal income in independent consulting and employment.
Though barely perceptable, there is still a revenue stream through CLOQ, which made 6 € in 2024.
For a long-term decision towards independent consulting, I would still need to double the revenue to account for a switch in taxing and mandatory state insurances. This is roughly equal to two more long-term client relationships.
A couple of patterns…
Making strategy more lightweight
While working through the Strategy Collective, one theme stuck with me: making strategy more inclusive and lightweight. We can do this by reducing the time spent per session/meeting to lower height of fall and generate momentum earlier. As well as prioritizing shorter intervals over longer sessions.
I also realized in my work with clients that reducing complex and overloaded vocabulary helped with clarity in the discussions.
For 2025, I want to be more mindful of those two observations.
What I do for clients
My current, always in flux, value proposition:
I work with leadership and their teams. Together we gain clarity about strategic decisions and execute on initiatives.
I do this by facilitating strategic rituals and stewarding strategic initiatives through research and innovation work.
What’s next…
Looking at my 2023 forecast, I might as well skip that all together.
- Finding my second
and third client. Get in touch, if you are interested in working together. Monetizing CLOQ or lyrn.tools.- Making a decision regarding employment and independent consulting. I kind of made a decision in keeping the current status.
Writing more thought-out texts (kinda like this one).Failed miserably! Not enough focus on that. No continuous habit to write more.
For our end-of-2025-amusement, let’s try the crystal ball…
- Transforming a one-off project with a new-ish client into a long-term relationship.
- Securing my third, ongoing client.
- No noteworthy increase in product revenue.
- Writng more in general, but especially for this site. 🫣
- Trying two or more events as a way marketing.