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When you’re building your own consultancy, too much success too early can often be a huge curse.

You spend all this time trying to generate new clients, more projects, more work. Then all of a sudden you get them, and you try to scramble to continue building your company while trying to deliver to them what you promised.

So you get stuck, can’t take on more clients, can’t grow your company, and most importantly:

You get burnt out because you’re doing all the work.

And avoiding all of this requires hiring someone to help you.

The problem is that hiring as a Data & AI consultancy founder is basically like solving the world’s worst Rubik’s Cube: full of options, insane amounts of possibility, looking for both technical and non-technical skills, way more complexity than you thought, and more often than not, frustration like no other.

The more I talk to other nerds like me, the more I realize a large part of the reason they’re often unable to scale effectively is that they’re scared of navigating that ridiculous web of factors, many of which include having a real, honest look at the things you suck at for the very first time in your career.

The number one thing you need to know, however, is that the process of hiring doesn’t have to be scary at all.

You just need to know the right questions to ask.

What happens a lot is that consultancies tend to either underappreciate the fact they should be asking these questions (causing the founder significant burnout as they need to handle everything for the company to grow) or solve them in the most maximalist way possible by hiring fast, often, and early (creating a huge financial burden that the company is not ready to withstand) - which forces the consultancy into an existential question:

Did we even hire the right people to grow the way we want, or do we need to downsize and restart everything?

At the end of the day, remember, this is a “measure twice, cut once” type of situation.

So if you’re growing and you’ve decided it’s time to hire, focus on the simple math of what your company is ready for, what you need to service your clients, and whether your pipeline can support the expanded team sustainably.

Everything else is noise.

When you’re considering hiring someone to join your Data & AI consultancy, you’re simultaneously trying to solve 2 problems: finding people with the right technical skills and making sure they fit your vision of how you want to grow your company.

For the first, you’re trying to basically clone yourself.

For the second, you’re trying to answer the existential question I mentioned earlier: how to build a company that doesn’t just grow, but grows sustainably (without you developing stress-induced insomnia)?

And in many cases, solving both of these feels like you’re trying to find a missing piece within both you and your company.

Most people overcomplicate the whole process, but it really comes down to 5 questions above all else:

If you can’t answer these, the very real (and a little harsh) truth is that you’re not ready to hire.

That being said, it all doesn’t have to be fully black and white, because you have SO MANY OPTIONS when it comes to hiring:

The important thing is that you know this: Hiring is not an afterthought.

When you hire, you become responsible for people’s livelihoods, their careers, and the growth of your consultancy as a unit beyond yourself. Take that responsibility seriously, and treat the process of getting there with the respect it deserves.

And if you need help answering those 5 questions in more detail, let’s chat.

For those of you who don’t know, in addition to being your favorite Data & AI meta-consultant, I also have a side gig as a game show host:

The story behind this show is that I wanted a way to showcase to other consultants what the workshops I build for them are like, both from the perspective of using them for discovery and ideation sprints with their clients, or to serve as the structure for the advisory I provide for their own shops.

But rather than doing your good ol’ fashioned podcast, I decided to make mine a game show, because what are workshops if not really elaborate games where we talk about extremely technical subjects!

Last year, I hosted 43 experts across the world of Data & AI consulting, highlighting areas like the power of facilitation for consulting work, why storytelling is the skill that matters as a consultant, or how our work can affect the lives of our best furry friends - and it was all an incredible time.

But as I continue growing the show, I’ve been looking far and wide for opportunities to do it bigger and better.

Which is why I’m super excited to announce that for the first time, I’ll be hosting an episode LIVE, and you’re invited!

The incredible team at Mind and Machine DFW is trusting me to headline their 1st anniversary event, and you won’t want to miss what I have up my sleeve as we celebrate their amazing community of AI experts and enthusiasts!

So clear your calendar and join us at 4:30 pm CT at II Brothers Grill & Bar in Plano!

Expect insane games, plenty of opportunities for the crowd to participate, and 3 of the sharpest AI minds in DFW sharing the stories of their careers, passions, and (of course) their spiciest hot takes, all while I put them through the same workshop frameworks I use to help Data & AI consultancies sell, deliver, and scale.

So if you're in the DFW area this upcoming Thursday (June 18th), make sure to register using this link, and let’s meet in person if we haven’t already!

And if you want to learn more about the game show, let me know - would love to share more of the story around it.

We’ve all had one of those really vivid stress dreams where we oversleep and miss a really important meeting at work. In Gillian’s case, though, it wasn’t just a dream, and it didn’t just happen once!

This week, she joins me for the latest episode of This is Fine, the only show where the best Data & AI consulting experts on the planet tell you all about the biggest mistakes of their careers to share that story with you.

In this episode, Gillian Salerno-Rebic (Co-Founder of North & Form) tells us:

Check out the video above, leave a comment to let me know what you think, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for more episodes just like this one!

Also, let me know if you’d like to jump on the hot seat and tell the entire world the story of your most embarrassing career mistakes - it’s very cathartic and educational!

As somebody whose entire business centers around helping other nerds like himself figure out systems to build and scale their consultancies, you’d think I was an extremely type-A person. Which I am.

But the reality is that the way I (and most other Data & AI nerds) run a consultancy is more like:

The sooner we embrace that this is true, the sooner we can get better at running our businesses. We may all be systems thinkers obsessed with formulas and tracking every single data point possible, but part of the fun of building your own company is leaning into the chaos a little bit and letting it grow whichever way it does.

So loosen up, friend, and enjoy the ride. The chaos is the fun part!

Since I launched this newsletter, I’ve talked about basically every basic point of how you should be thinking about your consultancy, with the notable exception of a very major one: pricing!

Pricing is the thorn on the side of basically every consultancy, and the problem is that in many ways we face a Goldilocks problem, trying to hit the perfect balance between what our clients will pay, what we need to make to sustain our companies, and what level we need to hit to feel all the effort was worth it.

So make sure to join me next week as I go into how you should be thinking about your own pricing models, how they can evolve over time, and what each of them mean for the future of the consulting industry as a whole!

If you’ve enjoyed the topics I talked about today and want to learn more about my work - let’s chat!

I specialize in helping founders of boutique Data & AI consultancies that have brute-forced their growth and feel like they need an external perspective to get unstuck.

So if you’re stuck yourself, I’m here to help!

Get in touch to learn more about how I enable Data & AI consultancies to sell, deliver and scale more effectively through my workshops. If you haven’t already, visit my:

And let’s chat more about where you’re struggling with your consultancy!

Otherwise, thank you so much for reading, and see you next week!

P.S.: A reminder that if you enjoyed this newsletter, you should click the ad below because running a newsletter every week ain’t cheap, and the internet company doesn’t like it when I pay with funny jokes 🤣

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