Are you tired of being hostage to §1706, hopping from payroll to payroll, having to become a W-2 employee of whichever consulting firm finds your next contract? If you have gone through the hassle of setting up your own business, are you still having trouble getting clients or brokers to do business with you; do they ignore your business and still want to put you on their payroll? Have you put up with the additional expense and paperwork of incorporating and even getting certain types of insurance, only to find that some places have additional requirements beyond these before they will take your business seriously - requirements impossible for you to satisfy? Pretty unfair, isn't it? Whatever happened to free market competition?

We've noticed that, with or without the above requirements, it often boils down to perception - a one-person business just doesn't get any respect. Incorporated or not, to be taken seriously by some people, you need multiple clients and especially multiple personnel. This is ridiculous for the independent consultant who just wants to do free-lance contracting. All you really wanted to do was to do your technical work and get paid - you don't have time to hassle with recruiting and the extra risk of being responsible for other people; it's hard enough just finding time to market so you can keep working. I know exactly what you're going through, I've been there. This company was built by a consultant for consultants.

That's why I set up our unique structure. I had to go through all this hassle myself, even split into multiple businesses to better cope with these problems. Then I realized that, having already done it, I could use the same setup to save others from having to do it themselves. All I had to do was make it modular enough to add individual consultants, so they could each run their own business within our overall business. And this was long before I ever heard of umbrellas. So now you can finally just do the technical work you do best, and let us take care of most of the business hassles, and yet you still get to be a self-employed independent contractor. And now you won't even have to put up with the disrespect you had as a one-person business!

Now, how is our own independent contractor status? Very good. In fact, we've been able to subcontract to some consulting firms who usually put everyone else on W-2's - probably because we've been incorporated for years, we have multiple clients and multiple personnel, and we've even had the IRS as a client (so they can't say we don't exist). And every time we add another member, our independent contractor status gets even stronger, and we further diversify our skill set and client base.