help to redefine my business

[Marq]

I guess private messaging was invented for a reason.

??? Confused??

[Dave A]

And from that thought I'd quietly suggest that Duncan should keep an eye out for an opportunity to apply his talent to making/inventing some widget that will make him a fortune or two.

There is probably more prospects of big financial success this way as opposed to a consulting engineer. Sure, the consultant role can make decent money, but there's very little leverage.

[Dave A]

??? Confused??

The "More info" part. I think our posts were overlapping.

[duncan drennan]

And from that thought I'd quietly suggest that Duncan should keep an eye out for an opportunity to apply his talent to making/inventing some widget that will make him a fortune or two.

There is probably more prospects of big financial success this way as opposed to a consulting engineer. Sure, the consultant role can make decent money, but there's very little leverage.

Dave, that is exactly my line of thinking, but there are a couple of things to take into account.

That is definitely the end goal, but there is a lot of work in between. Specifically the consulting work acts in a number of ways,

• It supports me financially while I develop my own widgets (at least it is supposed to)
• It will help expose me to new businesses and therefore more ideas
• It forms one small aspect of a long term goal (just the most pressing aspect

If I wanted to me a hard core engineer I would go find a job and apply my trade that way. Couple of problems with this,

• I have to work for my money
• My time is not mine
• Freedom
• This is a much longer path to financial freedom

Most of this process is to help me identify what I need to focus on, and how I need to position myself so that people will be willing to pay money for my services.

I went to see some guys that do product development and prototyping (mainly mechanical and plastics), and it seems like there is definitely work out there, it is just a matter of making people think - "Oooh, Engineer Simplcity can solve this for me"

[duncan drennan]

It's been a couple of weeks now....

I've updated my website to better reflect who I am and what I can do. Hopefully this is progress in the right direction.

I also have a much better "elevator pitch" which has been helping me to get in contact with more people, and moving my business forward.

I've also started more seriously with my blog which I hope will develop into a great place to read about design engineering and business. You can subscribe and get the latest posts delivered directly to your RSS reader or email.

Thanks for the help and encouragement so far

[Dave A]

WOW! Much better.

Well done Duncan.

Just missing a link to The Forum SA and it'll be perfect

[duncan drennan]

I'll be writing in my blog about that sometime....

I'll also add a link to my blog's sidebar.

Thanks!

[duncan drennan]

Thinking about links...how about a nice little logo that can be used for links? Say about the size of the iStockPhoto link in my blog?

[Dave A]

Something like this? (Just right click and save the image if you want to use it)

[duncan drennan]

Something like that - I might just generate a slightly smaller one for my site. I'll play around with it a bit and post the results