Starting One's Own Consulting Firm After Passing the PE Exam.

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JB66money

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To everyone who has taken and passed the PE, has any of you ever thought about starting your own consulting firm after passing the PE Exam? What are your opinions about going for yourself as a consulting engineer? Please include engineering discipline and date of passing the PE.

 
The first thing I would consider with starting my own firm would be the amount of legitimate contacts you have who can offer work. Maintaining a sufficient backlog of billable work is what will make or break a small company.

 
Can you give me the charge # for reading this thread?

But yeah I think about it all the time but you really need a couple decades of contacts and some

Name recognition... Or to qualify as a DBE/WBE firm and then you can get work without knowing anyone or anything.

 
Consulting in what?

I started my own consulting firm for part-time to provide electrical construction documents. I have zero clients so far so if you ask later I'll let you know how it's going.

Right now I do lots of cold calling before work, during lunch and after work and go to meetings during those times as well.

My goals right now are to:

Get one paying client

Get three paying clients

Generate $1,000/month in fees

Generate $25,000/year in fees

Then hopefully begin to get repeat business so I spend less time cold calling, hire a contract designer to do the CAD work for me

 
Yes I am considering it- civil is the discipline- I got 10 yrs of contacts- I can be a DBE/WBE Firm, but do not have the staff to manage the size of a project that comes with DBE/WBE paperwork. I plan to continue on my current pace for at least a few yrs, then make the move. BUT I may have new opportunity at my current employer when I am ready to bounce, so I got to hang around and see what unfolds there too. But yes, on the side- 'non-compete' work is a sure thing. We all have specialty skills that can be marketable.

 
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