EP 112: How Do You Start a Consulting Firm After Leaving Corporate?
Starting a Consulting Firm After Corporate: What No One Warns You Will Shift
This episode is a turning point for Don’t Waste the Chaos.
Two years in, I’ve learned something important about how people are consuming the show: Spotify and Apple grow slowly. YouTube is growing faster. And the bigger evolution is not the platform—it’s the content.
I’ve talked a lot about HR and leadership because that’s my background. But I also get asked personal questions constantly—about leaving corporate, building a firm, identity, ambition, faith, marriage, and the cost of growth.
So I’m starting a series that leans more personal.
And I want your feedback as I go—what you want more of, what hits home, and what you’d like me to prioritize next.
Today’s topic is one I’m asked all the time:
How did you start a consulting firm after 20 years in corporate?
The honest answer: it’s not hard because you lack skill.
It’s hard because you don’t fully understand what is about to shift.
If you understand the shifts before you step out, you can build cleaner, steadier, and far more profitably than most people do in year one.
Here’s what changed for me—and what I’d want you to understand before you do it.
1) You’re not just building a business. You’re leaving a compensation identity.
For 20 years, my nervous system was conditioned to predictability: salary, base + variable, structured cycles, steady income.
Then that predictability disappeared.
The hardest part wasn’t the strategy.
It was income volatility—not because I couldn’t earn, but because I was recalibrating where my security lived.
If you don’t name this shift, you’ll build from panic.
And panic is expensive.
2) You don’t have to jump without a bridge.
There’s a loud narrative out there: you’re not a real entrepreneur unless you leap.
I reject that.
You don’t need drama.
You need leverage.
Here’s what I did: I negotiated a contractor arrangement with my former employer.
It reduced panic. It stabilized revenue. It gave me runway. And it let me test entrepreneurship without full exposure from day one.
Entrepreneurship doesn’t always begin with a leap.
Sometimes it begins with a renegotiation.
3) You will overbuild the business if you don’t watch yourself.
Corporate trained me to operate inside massive complexity.
So when I started my firm, I built like a corporate executive:
tools layered on tools
tech I didn’t need
systems before clarity
complexity before proof
If you’re starting out, I’d reverse that:
start with one offer
solve one clear problem
use minimal tech
go manual before automated
earn complexity later
Solopreneur simplicity is not amateur.
It’s margin.
4) You’ll be tempted to hire before you’re ready.
I hired early because it felt like growth.
But I didn’t have:
clean margins
predictable revenue
an operational rhythm
Hiring too soon creates pressure you don’t need.
It turns “growth” into urgency.
And urgency is how founders start making expensive decisions.
A simple line that would’ve saved me time:
Hire when you’re constrained—not when you’re flattered.
5) Corporate competence is not the same as entrepreneurial wiring.
You can be exceptional inside structure and still struggle when you’re the one creating it.
Entrepreneurship asks different questions:
Can you create momentum alone?
Can you validate your own decisions?
Can you tolerate ambiguity?
Can you sit through slow months without spiraling?
The first winters in business will reveal things you didn’t know about yourself.
That doesn’t mean you’re unstable.
It means you’re expanding.
Three practical starting points
If you want the simple version, here it is:
Start with revenue before branding.
Get paid first. Polish later.Negotiate a bridge if possible.
Contracting, retainers, a transition project—reduce risk while you build clarity.Stay solo longer than your ego wants.
Simplicity builds margin. Margin builds options. Options build power.
A note on what I’m building next
This show is becoming a channel for high-capacity women navigating leadership and faith—women who want ambition and simplicity to coexist, and who are done pretending the personal side doesn’t touch the professional side.
If that’s you, you’re in the right place.
And if you’re standing on the edge of starting your own consulting firm: don’t go in blind.
You’re not just replacing a salary.
You’re recalibrating identity, money, power, and trust.
Build consciously—and you’ll build cleaner.
Until next time: don’t waste the chaos.
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