Build, Run, and Sell Your Apple Consulting Practice: Business and Marketing for iOS and Mac Start Ups

Starting an app development company is one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do. Or it sends you into bankruptcy and despair. If only there was a guide out there, to help you along the way. This book is your guide to starting, running, expanding, buying, and selling a development consulting firm. But not just any consulting firm, one with a focus on Apple.

Apple has been gaining adoption in businesses ranging from traditional 5 person start ups to some of the largest companies in the world. Author Charles Edge has been there since the days that the Mac was a dying breed in business, then saw the advent of the iPhone and iPad, and has consulted for environments ranging from the home user to the largest Apple deployments in the world. Now there are well over 10,000 shops out there consulting on Apple in business and more appearing every day.Build, Run, and Sell Your Apple Consulting Practice takes you through the journey, from just an idea to start a company all the way through mergers and finally into selling your successful and growing Apple development business.

What You’ll Learn

• Create and deploy grassroots as well as more traditional marketing plans
• Engage in the community of developers and companies that will hire you and vice versa
• Effecively buy and sell your time and talents to grow your business while remaining agile

Who This Book Is For

Business owners looking to grow and diversify their companies as well as developers, engineers, and designers working on Apple apps who would like to branch out into starting their own consulting business.

Table of Contents

Chapter 0: The Joy of Being a Sole Proprietor
Chapter 1: Build the Offer
Chapter 2: Beyond Services
Chapter 3: Hiring and Human Resources
Chapter 4: Accounting 101
Chapter 5: Buy Software to Automate the Business
Chapter 6: Make Friends: Develop Partnerships
Chapter 7: Engage in Free and Guerrilla Marketing
Chapter 8: Using Public Relations
Chapter 9: Advertising
Chapter 10: The Art of Selling
Chapter 11: Diversifying Your Portfolio
Chapter 12: When to Stop Growing
Chapter 13: Sell the Company
Chapter 14: The Part-Time Owner
Chapter 15: Buying Companies
Chapter 16: Running a Consulting Practice Inside a Larger Company
Appendix A: Getting into a Rhythm
Appendix B: Common Apple Terms
Appendix C: Sample Managed Services Agreement
Appendix D: Using Trendlines In Microsoft Excel
Appendix E: Common Job Titles
Appendix F: Device Scorecard
Appendix G: Additional Reading