How Engineering PhDs can turn their industry job or academic research position into a Profitable B2B Consulting Firm and scale it to a Million-Dollar in 12 months or less using the OptimScale 5-Point Modeling Framework

By Fabrice Abunde (ScientistMBA, PhD)

Today, everyone’s talking about building a passive stream of income, investing, being entrepreneurial, etc. I am sure you must have heard of this.

As Engineering PhDs, we all know that to gain financial freedom, you must invest in a vehicle (project or business) that would someday put money into your pocket whether you work or not.

Mainstream media says to gain financial freedom, you either start a side business (e.g., real estate or agriculture investment etc.) or quit your job to go learn and start a business in a completely new field. But running a side project alongside your job is not easy. Quitting a job that feeds you is difficult and going to learn a new field all over is complicated, especially when you already have a family.

But what almost no one understands is how to turn your current industry job or academic research position into an investment vehicle that gives you the financial freedom you want.

Every successful business requires 3 core aspects:

Specialized Knowledge, which as an Engineering PhD Employee, you already have from your experience at your industry job or academic research position.
Business Acumen, you don’t have this, but you can leverage OptimScale’s 5-Point modeling framework. The same model-based framework you use to take engineering systems from lab to industry scale adapted to scale startups to million-dollar companies.
The Mastermind. You need the right mindset, discipline, and a group to hold you accountable during every step of the journey, in summary you need emotional intelligence.

So, when you choose to run a business project in a completely new area, you’ll need to learn the specialized knowledge before the business acumen and the emotional intelligence.

But when you choose to turn your job into an investment vehicle (consulting firm), you only learn the business aspects and emotional intelligence since you already have the specialized knowledge.

Succeeding in building a passive stream of income is not about changing sector or quitting your job, but about ensuring that you have all the 3 components required to be successful.

In this Economy of Layoffs, your bills and living expenses are permanent, but your job is not.

Engineering PhD employees are stuck in low paying academic positions where they only teach and do theoretical research without getting to feel the true practical and financial value of their knowledge.

For those that work in the industry, the routine 9 – 5 working hours is always so exhausting, and the pay, even though higher than academia, doesn’t really match the time and efforts you spent at graduate school to obtain an Engineering PhD degree.

For post docs who have a temporal research position and planning to stay in academia, full-time lecturing positions are decreasing and being replaced by low-paying part-time lecturers.

In this current economy of layoffs, the problem is not about getting a job, but about sustaining a job. Your bills and living expenses are permanent, but your job is not. Once you find a job, the only way to gain financial freedom is to build a business of your own.

So, Engineering PhDs who don’t think of leveraging the specialized knowledge gotten from their jobs to build a business will face an uncertain future.

Who is this Article For?

If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance that you hold an Engineering PhD degree, and you’re underpaid, or unsatisfied with the working conditions at your university or industry job.

First you learned that you need to start a side business or project which you can generate some additional/passive source of income and help you gain financial freedom. But now you are stuck for a couple of reasons.

Maybe you are too passionate about your current job or professional career, but the pay is not sufficient and you neither want to quit the job nor have the time to invest in starting a business in a completely new area.
You probably learned that to run a successful business, you need to quit your current job and devote your entire time to the business, but you’re scared to quit your current job without being sure if the business will succeed or not.
You probably tried out a couple of investment projects, which didn’t turn out successful, either due to poor management or infighting between project partners
Maybe you spent time to write and win research grants for your university or gain contracts for your company, but you get poor rewards due to the terrible job system coupled to the delays from your university/company accountant to release funds which discourages you to search for further grants/contracts.
Maybe you or your research group faces funding issues since research allowances for most lecturers and university staffs have been slashed as governments claim they cannot measure the direct impact of scientific research to the economy.
Perhaps you’re tired of your 9 – 5 working hours but don’t even know where to start, you have no idea of what project to invest in that can predictably and surely generate huge returns on investment for you.

I want you to know I’ve been where you are now, and I have felt all the frustrations you feel.

I have written this article just for you, so that it can become your companion on your journey gaining financial freedom, by turning your current industry job or academic research position into a Profitable B2B Consulting Firm and scale it to a Million-Dollar in 12 months or less.

I will show you why and where certain things happen in the business or investment world for Engineering PhDs.

This will help you see everything in the business world with a new perspective, which in turn will better prepare you to position yourself to succeed in building a side business to help you gain financial freedom.

Whether you’re: (1) An industry professional wanting to turn your routine and low paying job into a high-paying consultancy firm; or (2) You have a high-paying job but you want a more flexible work schedule where you generate more income still doing the same things you love at your current job; or (2) A university professor/lecturer and researcher wanting to leverage your current academic experience to start a sustainable side business, this article is for you.

Government and Universities Deliberately hide this from you.

It’s not your fault that you can’t quit your job or that you don’t have 100% time to invest in starting a new business from scratch. It is normal that you should be passionate about your current job.

Yes, we all want financial freedom but:

You can’t quit your job or change the professional career you’re passionate about just because everyone out there is saying entrepreneurs have financial freedom, or that you must start a side hustle to gain financial freedom.
You can’t quit your job when you are not sure of what to survive on just because everyone out there is saying you must start a business.
You can’t abandon all your expertise gained over the years and go start learning a completely new area such as real estate, stocks, bons, agriculture, etc. just because you need to start a side hustle and gain financial freedom.
Not everyone has the courage or ability to just quit their job to start and scale a successful business from scratch. Its not that easy as people claim.

As an Engineering PhD, it’s not all about the money you also need to feel the satisfaction of applying your high-level technical knowledge to advance research and solve practical problems.

If you suspect that you need to first confirm to be sure that the business will work before quitting your job, or that you can still start a business where you do the same things you love in your current job but with a more flexible schedule and more pay- then you’ve arrived at the right place.

I am about to show you a proven system that will help you turn your current industry job or academic research position into a Profitable B2B Consulting Firm and scale it to a Million-Dollar in 12 months or less.

Also, my team and I are ready to guide you through out every step of the process in case you need additional assistance in implementing the framework.

Do you know why universities will never teach you the knowledge I’m about to show you?

The system has been designed to make Engineering PhDs like you to purely focus on adding new knowledge and publishing papers so that the university can continue to secure state and international funding.

They know if you master the skill I’m about to show you, no Engineering PhD will be willing to work in academia for the low pay or in industry for the tight work schedule.

It’s time for you to look beyond publications & teaching and start exploring the greater potential of your Engineering PhD degree.

The Big Idea about gaining Financial Freedom.

First, here’s the truth … it’s possible to turn your industry job or academic research position into a Profitable B2B Consulting Firm and scale it to a Million-Dollar in 12 months or less.

However, there has been no framework to help Engineering PhDs do so.

Consequently, Engineering PhDs fail to gain financial freedom not because they don’t know they have to do so, but because they think they must quit their jobs and/go learn a completely new field (mostly real estate, agriculture, stocks, bons,) before they can become successful.

But here’s the big idea, you don’t need to quit your job and go learn a completely new field to gain financial freedom. You can just leverage the experience and expertise from your current job to create a business that gives you the financial freedom you desire.

How I discovered the OptimScale 5-Point Modeling Framework

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Fabrice Abunde (PhD), an Engineering PhD like you. A few years ago, I wanted to gain financial freedom.

I looked everywhere for a strategy on how to do this, but I found nothing other than a few books & articles on how to start a business, how to invest in sectors like real estate, agriculture, stocks, etc.

All the different tactics I learned required that I either quit my job and go learn a completely new field, or I invest for others (usually unreliable) people to manage my investments for me before I could gain financial freedom.

Those options were pretty difficult for me as I couldn’t just quit my job, which I was passionate about without being sure if the business will succeed or not. Also, I couldn’t just take my hard-earned savings to go invest in someone’s project. I already lost a lot of money through this route and learned many of my colleagues also incurred similar losses.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and run a series of experiments to find the best strategies that could help an engineering PhD like me leverage the experience and expertise from your current job to create a business that gives me the financial freedom I desired while still doing the things I am passionate about.

Then I discovered the OptimScale 5-Point Modeling Framework that Engineering PhDs could just use to turn their industry job or academic research position into a Profitable B2B Consulting Firm and scale it to a Million-Dollar in 12 months or less.

My strategy worked so well, that I now earn 4 times the pay of average Engineering PhDs by Consulting with different companies to help them scale. First, within 3 months working with a water Tech Group, I brought in over $100k using my research approach.

I went on to consult and scale 2 other companies within 12 months: one in the developed world to over $1M in Annual Recurrent Revenue and one in developing world to over $250k all while being hilariously profitable.

Every other company wanted to employ me so that I could do the same for them and every Engineering PhD wanted to know how I managed to get jobs and scale companies just using process modeling and the scientific method (the OptimScale Framework)

To date, my OptimScale Framework has not only gotten me launch a highly profitable consulting firm, but earned me board seats for several other companies, invited speaker at leading companies, universities, and institutions, and breaking a world record for developing the first Model-Based Framework to get jobs and help the companies scale.

Now, I don’t share this with you to impress you, but to show you that it is possible to turn your industry job or academic research position into a Profitable B2B Consulting Firm and scale it to a Million-Dollar Company in 12 months or less, where you still do the things you love with the only difference being higher earnings and a more flexible work schedule. But you need the right framework to help you do so.

The Traditional Vs New Approach to starting a side business Project as an Engineering PhD Employee.

My core concept is that Engineering PhD fail when trying to build a business project not because they don’t how to build, identify markets, sell, or price products, but because they conduct these activities in the wrong order and run out of money and motivation before the project becomes profitable.

I know by now; you would be wondering how it all works. Now let me show you but first, I will look at the old method to gaining financial freedom before I show you the new approach so that you can better appreciate it. Ready for it??, let’s go…

STEP 1: CHOOSE A SECTOR AND STRATEGY TO START A SIDE BUSINESS PROJECT

Old Method-Use a Project Broker

In the old method of choosing a niche or sector to launch a project, you choose a sector completely different from your professional background. You go into all the shiny sectors everyone is talking about such as real estate, agriculture, stocks, bonds, etc. For the strategy, you invest your money and depend on a broker or third party who will manage everything for while you focus on your main job until your investment becomes profitable.

You think you must quit your job from the very beginning before you start the project, and you need to learn a completely new area. This is why you decide to go in for a project broker because you don’t even see yourself quitting your job.

Old Result

You waste your hard-earn savings on a project that ends up failing. Here is why… Any project broker, worth his/her salt is already rich and not looking for a job (sorry, but it’s true).

Simply put, anyone who can successfully manage your project until it becomes profitable will not waste the time doing it for your own project. He/she will just do it for himself.

Also, we now live in a world where people only think of themselves. As pilferage (stealing in the professional setting) and dishonesty is almost the leading cause of project failure for employees who dedicate their investments to a third-party broker for management.

Also, you have a high learning curve since you have no specialized knowledge in the project area.

In some cases, you rarely start because fear won’t let you quit your job. The energy It takes to quit your job is so high even greater than the energy it takes not to gain financial freedom. As such you never even start, or you start and abandon it.

New Method- Employpreneur approach.

In the new method, you choose a sector that matches your background i.e., you Invest in the leverage the specialized knowledge obtained from your job experience to start a job. That way you are actively involved in the management of your business right from the beginning and everything mainly depends on you.

Simply put, you use your job to build a business. You know you must start within the area of your expertise, wait until the project becomes profitable before you think of quitting your job to invest your full attention.

New Result

You succeed provided you master the business and emotional components. You reduce the learning curve since you already have the specialized knowledge.

Bottomline

No matter the domaining of activity build a successful stream of passive income requires three key components: specialized (domain-specific) knowledge, business acumen and a mastermind.

So, when you choose to run a business project in a completely new area, you’ll have a very steep learning curve because you need to learn the specialized knowledge before the business acumen and the emotional intelligence.

But when you choose to turn your job into an investment vehicle (consulting firm), you only learn the business aspects and emotional intelligence since you already have the specialized knowledge.

Also, no one will do for you what you must do for yourself. Anyone who can successfully manage your project until it becomes profitable will not waste the time doing it for your project. He will just do it for himself.

STEP 2: LAUNCH THE BUSINESS PROJECT

Old Method

In the old method of launching a business from your job, you make use of a serial approach that proceed step-by-step with little if any feedback from the customers who you think might need the skills from your job. You assume you understand customer problems/needs.

You pre-maturely hire a team and raise money. You assume the market is huge, and you want to quickly quit your job or build something out of the specialized knowledge obtained from your job. You spend months or even years building stuffs (register a company, getting a lease, furnishing your office, etc.) without ever pre-selling to a customer or understanding the financial viability of the project.

You want everything to be perfect, so you build make sure everything is set before coming in contact with the potential end users.

While some Engineering PhDs might share their project ideas with potential end users, the goal of early customer access to the product is usually to uncover bugs or make people know they are building a consulting firm and not to provide feedback on desirability.

When the optimal version of your consulting firm is ready, you then try to ship to market hoping to sell to potential users. So, you use the Build-Market-Sell Approach

Old Result

Too often, after months or even years of development, you learn the hard way that customers are not buying your product because they don’t need or want most of its features.

At this stage, many PhD Entrepreneurs just abandon their business project and stick back with their jobs. The project becomes history.

New Method

In the new method, you Sell the project idea validate the price customers are willing to pay before you build anything to Save Money and Time.

You start by Testing for Desirability (get companies who pay you money for your consulting service). You focus on one customer segment and go heavy on research using sound principles to get first hand customer data without writing one line of code or without hiring any single employee.

You understand that as an Employpreneur, your goal is to increase the pressure (P) you apply to the market. Since you don’t have enough time and money to invest in your business project, as a full-time entrepreneurs do, it means your Force (F) is fixed.

So, the only way to increase the pressure you apply to the market is to reduce the size (A) of the customer segment you target since (P=F/A). That is why you only focus on one customer segment and one project aspect from the start.

Next, you Test for Feasibility. You Combine customer data with your unique insights to hypothesize useful offers. You spin up a working model of your consulting service using lean engineering and sign up your first customers without hiring anyone.

So, you market, sell before you build. Also, with first customers signed up you have a proof that the market needs the skills from your job. At this stage, you are confident if you quit your job, it won’t be in vain.

At this point, you have sound evidence to recruit investors (but only recruit an investor if your solution is capital intensive).

Last you Test for Viability. Using information, you gather from the customers; you solve for an end-to-end distribution channel that can deliver your consulting service at scale while being profitable. When you scale the business in the first customer segment and reach a maximum, you then gradually start extending to other adjacent customer segments.

New Result

You avoid financial and time wastage that comes with team complexity and drama. You build a highly profitable and scalable business based on real-time market facts and not faith. You become a PhDCEO.

Bottomline

The Error most researchers make is to think that if they own a good office, hire a team, and register a company, then you’ll have a successful consulting firm. An office, a team or company registration documents has extremely little to do with succeeding in your consulting business.

No matter how beautiful your office is, your business will not be successful only if you have a profitable business model. The market doesn’t care about your team size, office, or company registration documents, but the outcome they will get from working with you.

Using a good framework, you can clearly demonstrate to a target how the specialized knowledge from your job can take them from a current state to a desired state.

That way, you can sell your specialized knowledge and validate the market before you even think of someday quitting your job or setting up a consulting office. All you need is a framework to sell your specialized knowledge to a potential industry target.

Actionable Steps to Build a PhD Consultancy Business

The 2 concepts all boil down to the following 5 actionable steps to turn your industry job or academic research position into a Profitable B2B Consulting Firm and scale it to a Million-Dollar in 12 months or less.

Search for a Problem:

Choose an industry segment and identify a problem that is preventing them from scaling. Problems that you know can be solved by the specialized knowledge you acquired during your job.

Build a Solution Framework:

Skilfully organize and intelligently direct your specialized knowledge to build a solution framework and a marketing thesis (also known as job search (consulting) thesis or whitepaper) for solving the problem.

Stimulate and Attract Companies:

Using elements from your Consulting Thesis, attract, add value, nurture, and trigger companies to book an appointment and request working with you.

Position yourself as a Growth Partner:

Position yourself as a growth partner by visually showing companies how you plan to help them scale & grow their company using your specialized knowledge.

Onboard and Scale Company:

Onboard the company and apply your specialized knowledge to scale the company. This proceeds as follow: First you develop a test model (minimum viable product) of your consultancy solution, simulate it with 1 or 2 companies to see if it truly delivers value to them & perform any required optimizations, next you validate the optimal operation with 2 other companies, before you think of quitting your job and going in full time.

The 5 steps are also known as the OptimScale Job Search Methodology because you can apply the same steps to get a high-paying industry job.

How to Get Started

There are a couple of ways you can achieve this…

Option 1: You do it yourself.

Option one is to follow the 5 steps to launching a B2B business by yourself and take the time to learn everything I have shown you. However:

You will find it difficult to identify the right industry problem, which when solved will help the company scale to the millions. If the problem is wrongly identified, all the other steps will be irrelevant.
It will take you so much time and many trials and errors to be able to organize your research idea/discovery to build a framework and a marketing thesis that clearly illustrates how you can solve the problem. This might end up frustrating you to giving up and returning to your old ways.

I know as engineering PhDs we are tough and can easily learn things faster. But if you try to research online, you’ll only find snippets of information. You can’t find a cohesive body of knowledge that can help you achieve this.

This means you might have to devote months or even years of research to be able to figure out everything by yourself. So, it’s possible trying to do it yourself but it will be painful, costly and time consuming.

Now because you have read this article up to this point, I know you are an Engineering PhD who really wants to succeed. So, I will provide you two other options to help you get started.

Option 2: Watch full training video here and take a quiz.

I have prepared a 2-hour free training video for you on how Engineering PhDs can use the Job Search Thesis to get jobs that pay 200k to 1M per year. The Job search thesis is part of my proprietary OptimScale Job Search Methodology exclusive for Engineering PhDs.

Option 3: Book a Free Industry Strategy Call here and talk to a Growth Specialist

On this call, I will help you figure out where you are now in terms of your industry job search and the steps you need to take to get a high-ticket industry job where you earn between $200k to $1M per year while enjoying a flexible work schedule and feeling fulfilled because you apply your PhD level knowledge or research discovery to help companies scale to significant profits.

Benefits of using the Job Market Formula

The greatest attribute of the OptimScale Framework is that it helps you break the financial barrier for starting a successful business and ensures that you identify a business model that is scalable. The Framework teaches you how you can identify a problem and leverage model-based techniques to sell your solution to generate funds for starting your business.

Summarily, the OptimScale Startup Framework offers five main benefits for aspiring and existing entrepreneurs. These benefits include.

Reduce competition: by niching down to a specific segment of the market and identifying a problem which is unique to that segment, you reduce competition from existing players in the market.
Reduce risk. By identifying a problem which is associated to a financial burden, you are sure people will be able to pay for your product. In other words, people will happily pay money if your product/ service helps them make money.
Start-up capital: By using model-based engineering, you can sell your product/solution before you produce it. This helps you generate start-up capital to kick-start your business.
Scalable business: By starting small you can search, test, and validate a successful business model which is scalable.
Human Resource: Identifying a problem that has financial cost is like a pain point to your target client. When you identify a pain point, they are willing to work with you to help solve the problem. Your required human resources become your partners.

Now that you understand the how juicy the OptimScale Framework is, I will carefully illustrate to you some proofs.

Proofs to show that the Job Search Thesis Really Works

The OptimScale Startup Framework is not only used to launch a B2B business from your research discovery, but you can also use it to get a high-paying industry job where you apply your engineering knowledge to help companies scale.

Using this methodology, I now earn 4 times the pay of Engineering PhDs by working with different companies to help them scale.

First, within 3 months working with a water Tech Group, I brought in over $100k.

I went on to scale 2 other companies within 12 months: one in the developed world to over $1M in Annual Recurrent Revenue and one in developing world to over $250k all while being hilariously profitable.

Also, don’t just take me for my word. OptimScale is built on my proprietary modeling framework for system scale up that been vetted and recognized by some of the world’s greatest publishers and news agencies such as:

Also, others have made use of the same 4-step approach to earning millions of dollars by helping startups scale.

Professor Steve Blank (USA) who scaled 8 startups to the billions of dollars,
Russell Brunson (USA), worked with over 30,000 startups to help them scale to the millions.
Sabri Suby (Australia) who generated over $1.33 billion scaling thousands of startups in over 215 different niches,
Nick Kozmin (Canada) repeatedly scaled over 2000 tech startups to the millions,

And the list goes on……

If you need help on how to use your academic knowledge or research discovery to get a highly paid industry job, where you earn between $200k to $1M per year by using the New Process Modeling and the Scientific Scaling Method (OptimScale) to Help Companies Scale, even if you have No Industry Experience, then watch full training video here or book an Industry Strategy call here to talk with me or one of our growth specialists.

For Engineering PhDs:

Hi, I'm Fabrice Abunde, PhD

After 7 years of research, I discovered the OptimScale Methodology, that helps Engineering Masters/PhDs Earn between $200k to $1M per year using Process Modeling and the Scientific Scaling Method to Help Companies Scale, Even if you have no Industry Experience.

If you want a highly-paid industry job or consulting project where you apply your academic knowledge or research discovery to help industries grow, watch full training video on how to use OptimScale Method in doing so.

About the Author: Fabrice Abunde, PhD

Fabrice Abunde

re are the most common results you'll get if you are trained and certified in the OptimScale Methodology. Here are the most common results you'll get if you are trained and certified in the OptimScale Methodology. Here are the most common r

2 Reasons why using A CV/Resume Is Rather Killing your Industry Job Search: Engineering PhDs now use the Job Search Thesis to Get Hilariously High-Paying Jobs.

By Fabrice Abunde (PhD)

Engineering PhDs end up unemployed, underpaid or trapped in routine average pay industry jobs not because they aren’t good at what they do, but because they use the wrong approach and assets to search & apply for jobs.

As an Engineering PhD you can’t search & apply for an industry job the same way regular job candidates do. Getting a highly paid industry job at the PhD Level is not about having the best CV/Resume but about having a Job Search Concept that will differentiate you from other candidates in the job market and help recruiters see you as a partner in growth and not simply a candidate searching for a job and salary to survive.

How I discovered the OptimScale Job Search Methodology that can help any Engineering PhD Transition to Industry and earn $200k to $1M per year

By Fabrice Abunde (PhD)

Consequently, Engineering PhDs end up underpaid in academia, unemployed or trapped in routine average pay industry jobs not because they aren’t good at what they do, but because they search, apply, and execute jobs, using the wrong approach and lack a Framework to translate their academic knowledge into measurable financial results for companies.

I realized that instead of starting a company or searching for a job to work for companies, Engineering PhDs can now use the OptimScale Methodology to pair with startups, apply modeling, simulation, and optimization Framework to scale the startups to Millions-Dollar companies and earn a percentage of revenue.

Get the OptimScale white paper for Free.

Step-by-step guide on how to make $200k to 1M per year using the Process Modeling
and the Scientific Scaling Method to help Companies Grow.

Join other Engineering PhDs

Become a Respected and Highly-Paid Industry Consultant. Learn How to Apply the New Process Modeling and the Scientific Scaling Method to help Companies Grow