>I'm interested to hear stories from consultants about when they realized the time was right to go out on their own.

In my case I worked for a guy who was a consultant for 3 years and was his ONLY employee. During that time I learned how he went about handling the business side of running a company. I already had 10+ years of programming experience when I met him and had worked for small and large organziations in the past. After working for him for several years I took another position somewhere else for a few months, then stumbled across a 'tele-commute' gig - so I started that and never looked back. The 3 years I spent sharing a tiny office with the consultant has proved to be quite handy.

> What were the major factors in your decision?
1. Being able to work from anywhere, anytime.
2. Money.
As it turns out of course the 'anywhere, anytime' isn't always the case unless you restrict yourself to telecommuting - which I did for years, but I kinda like being onsite these days because I tend to work 70 or 80 hours a week if I'm at home..haha.


> What would you have done differently?
I've learned to NEVER EVER take a 'flat rate' gig - always by the hour.

>How did you approach it?
I guess I kinda already answered that. One thing I noticed though is that word of mouth is the best advertising - I've never done any advertising whatsoever.