“Micro-consulting – short bursts of knowledge, perspective, insight and opinion that help others make better decisions.” – Wyatt Nordstrom
❓ What You’ll Learn
- How to become a micro-consultant?
- How will AI enhance micro-consulting?
- How to build client communities?
- How to scale your offer?
- How to attract clients?
- How to lower platform risk?
- How to land high-end clients?
💎 Why It Matters
Micro-consulting turns years of experience into a short call.
🔍 Problem
You need expert advice to fix problems fast.
💡 Solution
Micro-consulting is a cost-effective way to get help.
🏁 Players
Micro-Consultants
- Camille Cocaud • Helps with growth strategy and digital marketing
- Valeria Dominguez • Helps with ecommerce building and marketing
- Denise Medley • Helps with children’s language, articulation and behavior
- Ray Deck • Helps with no-code development and automations
- Meredith Marder • Helps with building an exit strategy
- Timothy Ricks • Helps with Webflow development
- Clarissa Harris • Helps with marketing, PR and advertising
Micro-Consulting Platforms
- MentorCruise • On-demand design, tech, business and career mentorship
- Clarity • Get startup advice from industry leaders
- MentorPass • Get personalized advice from the world’s best direct-to-consumer operators
- GrowthMentor • Get 1-on-1 conversations with startup mentors about growth, marketing, product and more
- Growth Collective • Hire marketing and growth specialists
Micro-Consulting Tools
- Podia • Manage clients, calls, scheduling, payments, digital resources and more
- Calendly • Schedule, prepare and follow up on 1-on-1, group and co-hosted meetings
- Calendesk • Manage bookings, payments, landing pages and customer support
- Jitsi Meet • Run free and unlimited online meetings
- Carrd • Create simple and responsive personal websites
🔮 Predictions
- More professionals will become consultants. Marketplaces like Codementor, Clarity and Superpeer make it easier to get started.
- Maxine helps with technical writing.
- Conrad Francis helps with business and leadership.
- Adrienne Kress helps with book writing and publishing.
- Vanessa Paech helps with building online communities.
- Emmie Chang helps with Web3, creator economy and fundraising.
- Chris Messina helps with Product Hunt launch and product strategy.
- Kate Kendall helps with marketing, operations, fundraising and more.
- Vanessa Bolosier helps with branding, marketing and content creation.
- Stefan Georg helps with website development and linux administration.
- William Michael Cunningham helps with corporate governance, crowdfunding and more.
- AI will enhance the micro-consulting experience. Analytical and predictive features will save time on manual analysis.
- Nextyn uses AI to match clients with qualified experts.
- Xperiti uses AI to vet and match experts based on clients’ needs.
- Stitch Fix uses complex AI algorithms that help stylists fit clients’ style and preferences.
- Lex Machina helps lawyers estimate litigation outcomes with AI-powered Outcome Analytics.
- Expert Network Group uses AI and machine learning to match clients and micro-consultants.
- BetterUp asks you to take an assessment and uses IdentifyAI to match you with coaches that meet your goals and needs.
- More professionals will build their own micro-consulting platforms. These are managed marketplaces that foster transactions with curation, ratings, escrow and standardization.
- Dan Martell founded Clarity and advises on entrepreneurship, startups and fundraising.
- Dominic Monn founded MentorCruise and advises on building marketplaces and running paid ads.
- Raad Mobrem founded Intro and advises on product development, design, marketing and fundraising.
- Foti Panagiotakopoulos founded GrowthMentor and advises on validating ideas and building startups.
☁️ Opportunities
- Offer options. Let clients choose what works best for them. Be it 1-on-1, group, online or offline coaching sessions.
- Statechange offers 1-on-1 and group no-code mentoring.
- Marketing Max offers 1-on-1 marketing coaching sessions.
- Gary offers 1-on-1 and group training and consulting on Mailchimp.
- David Henson offers an offline group Slide Presentation Masterclass.
- Capvision offers on-demand over-the-phone and in-person consulting.
- Coleman offers on-demand phone, in-person or conference consultations.
- Kartha Vijaykumar offers 1-on-1 and group mentoring sessions on career development.
- Ste Graham offers both 1-on-1 coaching and group sessions on pitching and marketing.
- Build communities for your clients. Help them support each other and get ongoing support from you.
- Kelsey is building a community for her video editing students.
- Ruben Cespedes is building a private Discord community for his clients.
- Timothy Ricks is a Webflow developer who has a Webflow Wizard community.
- Jason Redman is a personal coach who has a paid Overcome Army community.
- LeLand is a micro-consulting platform that has a community for coaches and customers.
- Femke is a design career coach who has a design community for Superpeer subscribers.
- Kiyoshi is a rap coach who has a paid Kinetic Collective community for aspiring rap students.
- Offer productized services. These are standardized and scalable offers.
- Max Stoiber offers codebase audits of React applications.
- Candice Ward offers coaching plans with additional resources and ongoing support.
- Jhey Tompkins offers 1-hour of pair programming and 1-hour of mentorship packages.
- David Anderson offers 3-minute personalized video messages and live call consultations.
- Ayesha J Bibha offers 3 micro-consulting packages with additional resources and support.
- Mkdev offers audit packages for Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services and Kubernetes.
- Evisors offers 30-minute career consultations, 1-hour mock interview sessions and resume feedback.
- Karen O’Donnell offers 1-hour consultations, 2-hour discovery workshops and 5-hour coaching packages.
- SanJay Shukla offers one-time and in-bulk sessions on life, clarity, self-discovery, leadership and business.
- Thomas Echezabal offers basic, standard and premium micro-consulting packages on marketing for NFT projects.
- Use lead magnets to attract new clients. Offer value to prospects and get contact details in return.
- Marketing Mentors shares professional CV templates.
- Shelley Olsen offers “5 Simple Ways to Makeover your Life”.
- Johner Institute gives free answers in exchange for contact details.
- Mednick Associates offers free legal nurse consulting for attorneys.
- Medizin im Grünen offers free micro-consulting on medical research.
- Kim Hawk offers a free list of the best trip planning tools & discounts.
- Lindie Botes offers a 10% discount off language learning and content creation coaching for newsletter subscribers.
🏔️ Risks
- Scalability • Micro-consulting is hard to scale. Your time is limited.
- Reputation Risk • A lack of knowledge will lead to loss of trust and clients.
- Platform Risk • You’re subject to platforms’ roadmaps, outages and fees. Prefershut down after many failed pivots. Set up multiple profiles to mitigate platform risk. Davide Pollicino has profiles on Codementor, Mentor Cruise and Clarity.
🔑 Key Lessons
- Micro-consulting sessions can lead to long-term projects. Kevin C. Whelan offers strategy calls that can lead to higher-end opportunities.
- You can take on more clients than traditional consultants. This reduces customer concentration.
- Offering productized services helps solve scalability problems. These don’t require your participation.
🔥 Hot Takes
- In spite of shorter sessions, some clients will expect you to deliver the same value as traditional consultants.
- Micro-consulting sessions don’t have to be cheap. Meredith Marder offers her Better Exit Strategy session for $10,000.
- Speaking at events, conferences and workshops is micro-consulting. These are non-recurring, one-off engagements.
😠 Haters
“How can you solve my problem in 1 hour?”
Micro-consulting has its limits. One hour may not be enough to solve a complex problem. But an experienced micro-consultant can find the root cause and suggest a valid solution.
“People can abuse free advice.”
Pro-bono consulting is a choice. Decide how much you can give away for free. Limit the number of free sessions where necessary.
“Micro-consulting has scalability problems.”
This is true. We shared examples of more scalable products. Productized services, courses and SaaS are great for helping lots of people at once.
“I can turn my knowledge into scalable products right away. Why bother with micro-consulting?”
Talking to clients helps you find and validate valuable problems. Which you can solve at scale.
🔗 Links
- “Micro-Consultant” — Who comes to mind? • The tweet behind this report.
- How to Make $3,000/mo (or more) as a Micro Consultant Without Selling Your Soul • Guide on how to become a micro-consultant by Himanshu Bisht
- Micro Consulting: The Future of Consulting • Learn what part micro-consulting plays in the consulting history.
📁 Related Reports
- Digital Products • How to build scalable online products
- Agencies • How to run and scale an agency
- Value-Based Pricing • How to price your micro-consulting services
- Online Courses • How to build and market online courses
- Cohort-Based Courses • Personalized teaching at scale
🙏 Thanks
Thanks to Krish, Soma Mandal, Maciej Cupial, Davida Pitts, Gajus, Stewart Townsend and Gianni D’Alerta. We had a great time jamming on this report.
✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.
📈 What else?
Trends PRO #0096 — Micro-Consulting has more insights.
What you’ll get:
- 77 Micro-Consulting Examples (353% More)
- 11 Predictions (267% More)
- 18 Opportunities (350% More)
- 6 Risks (100% More)
- 9 Key Lessons (200% More)
- 8 Hot Takes (167% More)12 Links (300% More)
With Trends Pro you’ll learn:
- (📈 Pro) How to build a micro-consulting agency?
- (📈 Pro) What are micro-consulting networks?
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- (📈 Pro) How to lower market risk?
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