People ask how we run a consulting practice and build products at the same time. On paper, they're two different businesses. The honest answer? It's not a balance — it's a feedback loop.
Consulting Gives You the Problems
Every product we've built started as a pain point we discovered through consulting work. Not hypothetical — real, observed in the field. VOSS came from watching a neurologist spend more time on documentation than on their patient. GRYD came from sitting next to a consultant at 10 p.m. while they manually checked exceedance tables.
Consulting puts you in the room where the pain is. You don't get that proximity from a product-only company.
Products Give You the Leverage
Consulting trades time for money — it scales linearly. Products, once built, serve thousands without proportional effort. More importantly, products force you to systematize your expertise. The environmental workflow we learned through consulting now lives in GRYD's automation engine. The clinical insights are embedded in VOSS's interaction design.
Without products, that knowledge stays locked in our heads. With products, it compounds.
The Hard Part: Saying No
The hardest skill is saying no to billable work. Every week on client work is a week off your product roadmap, and product development doesn't pause gracefully. We take engagements that either inform our products, fund specific milestones, or build relationships with potential users. Everything else gets a polite "not right now."
Dedicated product development blocks — usually Tuesday through Thursday — where consulting work doesn't intrude.
The Takeaway
Don't think of consulting and products as separate businesses. Think of consulting as your R&D department and products as the scalable output. The moment you treat them as competing priorities, you'll burn out choosing. But if you see them as one system — with consulting generating insights and products capturing them — it works. Not easily. But it works.
Want to Work With Us?
Whether it's consulting, product collaboration, or just a conversation — we'd love to hear from you.
Let's Talk →