This sounds like amazing work, the best part of software engineering is coming up with a prototype and experimenting. Most of my personal projects are basically “I wonder if X is easy or hard, and if I can make it work”
Do you stick to a particular business domain? Eg finance, transportation, e-commerce? I’d think it would help you to build MVPs if you stayed in a specific domain, but it could be fun to move around a bit too :)
Also: how do you find clients? I feel like again this would come from having connections in a specific business domain? It feels like it should be hard to sell yourself as the “prototype person”, but how do you convince someone to let you prototype for them for a while?
1. Yeah I stick primarily to hospitality and consumer companies (B2C and B2B2C) with a large amount of tech debt; because they're so mired in keeping their current systems alive, they don't have time to innovate, so thats where I come in.
2. Word of mouth primarily. When they look at what I cost them vs. what the big consultancies – or even the midsize 'innovation consultancies' like Frog or IDEO cost, it's a no-brainer. I just blend basic financial rigor with a bit of visionary thinking and competitive research, and set my clients up for the win when they go ask for permission to go from idea to prototype to MVP to pilot.
Do you stick to a particular business domain? Eg finance, transportation, e-commerce? I’d think it would help you to build MVPs if you stayed in a specific domain, but it could be fun to move around a bit too :)
Also: how do you find clients? I feel like again this would come from having connections in a specific business domain? It feels like it should be hard to sell yourself as the “prototype person”, but how do you convince someone to let you prototype for them for a while?