Hey readers,

It’s our first-ever edition of Portfolio Path. Pinch me. 🤯 

And what better way to kick off than to reveal the secrets from our private fireside chats?

Today, in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

• 🌟 Real stories of 7 professionals from Canva, Hubspot, Stripe, and more who cracked the code to launching their consulting business

• 🎯 How to avoid the most common pitfalls that keep new side hustlers stuck

• ⚡ Essential strategies to land your first clients (hint: you don't need social media)

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🔥 Zero to One Secrets From $1M+ Consulting Revenue

The best way to learn is by doing. The next best way is learning from your peers.

Over the past 6 months, we hosted private fireside chats with thriving part-time and full-time consultants—plus, alumni from Part-Time Consulting Launchpad.

They have worked for top brands like Canva, Hubspot, Stripe, Square, and Ali Abdaal as well as startups.

Their stages ranged from just starting out (first few clients) to scaling up (7-figures).

In this newsletter, I’m going to synthesize some of my favorite 0-to-1 strategies from our private fireside chat speakers.

First off, let me introduce our stellar speakers:

Fireside Speakers

🇦🇺 Audrey Thehamihardja (Product Lead, Lorikeet; ex-Canva) - went from Canva PM to building a 7-figure design agency in 1 year to scaling back into a side hustle

🇺🇸 Chase Damiano (Founder, Human at Scale) - went from coffee brand COO to starting an ops agency that served 85+ clients

🇸🇬 Sophie Syed (Product Ops, SG GovTech; ex-Hubspot) - leveraged her expertise onboarding 500+ clients at Hubspot into Fractional Customer Ops consulting

🇺🇸 🇫🇷 Aman Manik (Product Designer, NiaHealth; ex-Square) - fractional PM/designer for multiple startups

🇬🇧 Ines Lee (Head of Content, Ali Abdaal) - cohort alum, content consultant on the side for 7-figure creator businesses and startups

🇸🇬 Shilpa Nath (Founder, What The Fail) - cohort alum, Fractional Marketing Leader & organizer of one the biggest communities of its kind of Asia

🇸🇬 🇺🇸 Lily Wu (BD Director, MeetSocial; ex-Stripe) - BD consultant for startups entering the Australia/North America markets

5 countries represented. Proud of our global flavor.

Here are 7 of my favorite lessons. Let’s get into it:

7 Secrets on Going From Zero to One

1/ Get crystal clear on your goals in the first place.

You’ll hear TONS of noise on the internet (“build a 7-figure creator business!”). But the most important voice to listen to is your own.

Think carefully about what you want vs what you think you should want.

Example 1: Ines realized her goal was to generate side income for holidays/family support. Her main income was still her full-time job.

Example 2: Despite hearing “never do free work!” advice, Audrey started designing for free to gain experience in a new field. This helped her accelerate her freelance design business while being a PM at Canva.

2/ Start broad, then iterate towards a specific ideal client profile.

Our speakers generally started with a broader client hypothesis, tested it in the market, and then got more specific about who they served as they learned more.

Example 1: Lily initially targeted Series B-D startups because they:

• Make decisions quickly

• Have consulting budgets

• Can act on recommendations

Along the way, she realized a sub-segment of these startups sought market expansion, so she doubled down on this need.

Example 2: Audrey focused on recently funded startups with <10 employees because:

• They lack in-house designers

• Have product-market fit

• Can move fast

Along the way, she learned it’s important that these startups ALSO have technical product experience, so they better understand the value of design.

3/ Win the game of one.