I’m writing this from a hotel in China. Tomorrow I tour the new Yealink showroom in Xiamen. Earlier this week I walked the Unilumin factory in Shenzhen, which for someone who grew up taking apart electronics is roughly the equivalent of Disneyland for a six-year-old. I still can’t quite believe this is my job.

Less than a year ago I left a perfectly good AV career to start my own independent consulting firm in Vancouver. No safety net, no guaranteed clients, just a long-running suspicion that I could do better work on my own terms than I could inside someone else’s structure. This post is a quick honest look at the seven months since — what changed, what surprised me, and what it actually means to be an independent AV consultant in the Lower Mainland.

Why I left

The short version: I wanted to be the person making the recommendation, not the person carrying out someone else’s. After 15 years in pro AV, I’d sat through enough projects where the right answer was obvious to anyone in the room and the project got built differently anyway — because of brand allegiance, because of margin, because of inertia. I kept thinking, “If this were my call, I’d do it like this, and the client would save money and end up with a better room.”

Eventually that thought stops being interesting and becomes annoying. So I quit and built the consulting practice that I’d wanted to hire myself for, years earlier.

What I didn’t expect

I expected the technical work to be the easy part. It was. I’ve been doing Q-SYS programming, system design, and Microsoft Teams Rooms commissioning for years. None of that got harder when the business cards had my own logo on them.

What I didn’t expect was how much of the first six months would be everything except the technical work:

  • Setting up corporate accounting in Canada that doesn’t blow up at year-end.
  • Reading boring legal contracts at midnight before signing them.
  • Picking insurance, picking software, picking a CRM, picking a phone system — and then realising half of those decisions are wrong six weeks later and rolling them back.
  • Marketing. I genuinely had no idea how much of running a small consulting firm is just talking to people, writing blog posts like this one, showing up where clients can find you.
  • Quoting work. Pricing your own time is its own emotional sport.

Honestly, I think I’ve learned more in seven months running this thing than I did in the previous two years as an employee. Not because the previous job was bad — it wasn’t — but because suddenly every decision is yours, and there’s no one else to defer to.

The China trip is part of the job

Walking the Unilumin factory wasn’t a holiday. Neither is the Yealink showroom this week. When you’re an independent, your value to clients is your judgment, and your judgment is only as good as the things you’ve actually seen and touched.

I want to be able to look a Vancouver client in the eye and say, “I’ve been to where this LED wall is built and I’ve watched the QC process,” or, “I’ve sat in the room where Yealink is designing their next-gen video bar, and here’s what they’re betting on.” That kind of context doesn’t come out of a vendor brochure. It comes out of getting on a plane.

The whole point of an independent consultant is informed independence. Without the second half, you’re just a guy with no boss.

What “independent” actually means for clients

I get this question a lot from IT and facilities managers in Vancouver who’ve only worked with integrators before: what’s actually different about working with an independent consultant?

Three things, in my experience:

  • I don’t sell hardware. Whatever ends up in your rack, I don’t make a margin on. So when I tell you “you don’t need that DSP, the bar will do the job,” there’s nothing in it for me except a happier client.
  • I’m not loyal to a brand. I’ll spec Q-SYS where it’s the right answer and skip it where it isn’t. Same with Crestron, Cisco, Logitech, Yealink, anyone.
  • You get one person, all the way through. The person who scoped the project is the person designing it, programming it, and signing it off. Nothing gets lost in the handoff between sales and engineering, because there is no handoff.

The leap, in retrospect

Was it scary? Of course. The night before I gave notice I sat at my kitchen table with a spreadsheet trying to figure out how many months of runway I had if nothing landed. I’m extremely grateful to my partner, who believed in this from before I did, and who is currently doubling as my translator and Mandarin guide on this trip. I would not have made the leap without her.

But seven months in, every problem I’m solving is a problem I chose. Every client I’m working with is one I want to work with. Every recommendation I make is one I actually believe. That’s the trade. The accounting and the late-night invoicing are the price you pay for it, and it turns out to be a very fair price.

If you’re thinking of working with an independent

If you’re an IT or facilities manager in Vancouver or the Lower Mainland and you’ve been wondering whether an independent AV consultant is right for your next project — whether that’s a single boardroom refresh, a multi-floor refit, or just a second opinion on a quote you’ve already received — let’s have a conversation. No pitch deck. Just a 30-minute call to see whether I can help.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone who’s been part of the first year of this thing. Onward.