In talking to a bunch of companies and signing some up and turning some down (either by me or by them turning me down), I have determined the sweet spot for team size at which it seems to maximize my participation.
It ranges from one and maxing out around 10 or so.
Why is this so?
I find that in my areas of contribution (User experience, Product strategy, Online advertising, etc.) I can make the most impact if there is not someone there at the moment covering that area. While in my role as advisor I do not get on critical path by actually doing the work, I help give them direction on hiring, what they need to do, developing their strategy (in all those areas), and give them an expert to bounce things off of. One goal I try to set for myself in my advisor term is to find resources, internal or external, to replace whatever functions I am advising on so that by the end of the term, they have support in those areas.
I have found that if companies already have people covering that area, then my impact is much less. It also is difficult for company personnel to envision how to integrate my help as well. For example, if there is already a GUI person there, then does it justify giving me my advisor compensation to just be a evaluator of what that GUI person does? For things like GUI and product strategy, it is difficult to express your opinion AND make the team members internalize that thought enough to be able to take it further. And, if you are not an employee and not there 24/7 to drive a direction, it becomes really tough to make that direction stick when someone else is already working on it, and has their own opinion on how things should be done.
That is fine. I do not take this personally. I think that if a company already has support in that area, then that’s perfectly fine. I don’t want to get into a situation where I am constantly butting heads with already present resources.
By the time a company reaches approximately 10 people, typically many of the areas I would help on are already covered. Time to move on to the next company where I CAN make a large impact…