I make more as a freelance consultant than I did in private equity, and I'm working half as much. Here's how I made the switch. (2024)

At the end of 2019, I'd been working for more than a decade, felt like I'd developed specialized skills, and had built up a foundational network from all my professional experience — so I figured it was time to just give it a go.

I'd always enjoyed building financial models, so I wanted to find clients who needed this kind of help on a part-time basis. There was certainly a need in middle-market private equity, especially at the portfolio-company level, so those were my target clients.

Right after I got things started, COVID-19 hit and the world pretty much shut down

No one was hiring for anything — full time, part time, or contractors. Suddenly, I had no pipeline of work to start building the business. Plus, my wife is a pediatric nurse, and she was needed at work more than ever. So she went back to work full time, and I stayed home with the kids.

Moving from working full time in a corporate setting for a company to full-time parenting was really weird at first. But I honestly just enjoyed the freedom. I was taking walks, playing with my kids, and reading books.

Initially, I would wake up, make the kids breakfast, figure out a morning activity, make lunch, put everyone down for naps, plan an afternoon activity, and make dinner.

I found out quickly that parenting is a lot of hard work

It's wonderful but exhausting. You're "always on," and that breather you get during nap time is sacred (if everyone sleeps).

I think it's important to address this stigma that for some reason still exists — we have this tendency to think stay-at-home parents have it easy. They don't. It's hard work.

Don't get me wrong: You're motivated by love, so it's much easier to keep yourself going and it definitely beats a "pls fix" email at 11 p.m., but it's hard, nonetheless.

Plus, I still had a business to build

Since the consulting pipeline was quiet, I decided that I could build an online course to teach newer professionals to build a financial model to evaluate private-equity transactions.

I bought some screen-recording software, grabbed an old Xbox headset, did zero research on the competition, and just went for it. I was lucky that we had grandma in town for a lot of this, as she was able to help watch the kids while I produced a few videos here and there.

My new schedule included waking up at 5 a.m. to get work done before the kids were up

Slowly but surely, I was able to complete my self-study online course, "Financial Modeling for Private Equity." I posted about it online, asked for some beta testers on Reddit, and, much to my relief, it received great reviews.

About this time, while many companies weren't open to hiring, the pandemic lent itself to the prolific expansion of remote work. This turned into a great opportunity for me to start promoting my consulting work again, since people wanted to keep costs down and no one could travel. Prospective clients slowly but surely started to hire contractors again. My business picked up in fall 2020.

I reached out to several contacts in my network who already knew my work

They needed some "extra hands," as it were, and I was able to sign my first few clients. One of the nicest things I had going at this point was that I now had an online course I could use to prove my skill set.

I worked as hard as I could for my clients to deliver excellent work. Having kids at home made this really hard at first — schools were still closed — especially if I had multiple projects going at once. I found my fuse was shorter, or I was checking my phone more, things I just didn't want to do around my kids.

So I had to optimize my schedule to get my work done. I alternate my schedule throughout the day to be "working" or "parenting." It's busy but the flexibility of working for myself allows me to do both, which is something I couldn't do at a corporate job.

The thing that's had the most effect is waking up early

It's not a "rise and grind" thing like you might expect. It's just quiet time when no one else is awake.

I can focus and produce two hours of high-quality work and send out any emails for the day. This gives me some breathing room for the rest of the day, since it usually takes a half day to a full day for someone to respond.

One of my biggest takeaways through all this is that you don't need to put in some minimum number of hours at a desk to be effective at your job. Focusing for four to six hours on quality work is a lot, and I can accomplish the same, if not more, working on my own time than I did for an employer.

My salary was in the six figures before I left my corporate job. Last year, in my business, I made about 43% more than my old salary, while working much less. Hours at my old job would vary based on demand, but I'd say the average was about 50 hours a week. Today, I work 20 to 25 hours a week.

One thing I wish I knew beforehand is that your existing network is amazing but finite

If you have solid relationships with people from your network, they're usually happy to help you out, but that resource can take you only so far.

That's why you need to start building a personal brand. An often overlooked benefit of having a traditional job is that work is usually given to you. When you work for yourself, you have to find the work.

Because I'm an introvert, this whole branding thing doesn't come naturally to me. I'm not inclined to "sell." But I've learned you just have to.

One thing I've done that I suggest others try is generating content to put yourself out there. I think for professionals, LinkedIn is the best place to get started. There are countless decision-makers on that platform, and it's more professional than traditional social media.

Another thing you can do is start a website and blog about your niche. This is a little harder because you have to also learn search-engine optimization in the process, and it's a slower build. With a place like LinkedIn, where you don't have to think about SEO as much, I've found putting out content that's truly helpful to other people is a great place to start.

This post of mine was seen by about 10,500 people — it was a short pitch for my consulting services. This post — a miniseries on financial modeling — was seen by about 3,000 people and helped me gain a bunch of followers. Another post asking people for their favorite Excel tricks was seen by about 41,000 people.

You may believe that protecting your knowledge is the key to growth, but giving it away is what helps you grow.