My Journey from Consultant to Female Founder

Or “How I Started to Enjoy Grunt Work”

Checking the boxes:
My background up until this point has been pretty linear — I studied economics at a top ten school, worked in consulting for three years, and currently work in tech in Silicon Valley.

When I was in consulting, I lived big. I traveled to New York City, San Francisco, Atlanta, and other cities for projects, ate at several Michelins (my first and last), and effortlessly racked up hotel and airline points. In between memorable trips and fine dining, I learned how to transform a blank Excel into a robust model, present confidently to a room of people much more senior than me, and develop an intuition for growing and operating businesses.

There were long hours and I wasn’t always passionate about the work, but I enjoyed my time in consulting. I learned a lot and worked with incredibly intelligent people on a broad range of projects. I helped a healthcare payor forecast headcount, a special education school grow its enrollment, a foundation ensure more college students pass introductory courses, and more.

Back in college, I used to ask junior consultants how much ownership they had over their work. But once I started working, I quickly realized that I was definitely not the one calling the shots. Heck, even the partner usually didn’t have the final say. He (almost always a “he”) was still beholden to the client. I didn’t love this dynamic, but accustomed to East Asian values that codified hierarchy, I assumed obedience and following the leader were inherent parts of holding down any job.

New York City was the first and last city I traveled to as a consultant. I stayed right by the 9/11 memorial during one of my projects. (Image by author)

Trying something new:
I’d always admired founders and the way they worked to execute their vision, even when there wasn’t a clear payoff. But because almost all of the founders I know personally are men, the path to being a founder seemed nebulous and unattainable. This isn’t unique to my personal network: in 2018, only 24% of all registered companies were founded by women. The narrative that guys are better suited for entrepreneurship unconsciously formed in my head.

However, the discomfort of COVID-19 dismantled a lot of my previous assumptions (including some of my faith in the government, but that’s another story). Like most people, I quickly grew restless from staying at home all the time. To pass the time, I bought a ukulele and set out to learn my favorite songs. But despite this new hobby, I still wanted to find new ways to be productive. I started listening to podcasts about businesses started by women and learned about Vicky Tsai’s persistence (Tatcha), Katrina Lake’s innovation (Stitch Fix), and Wendy Wen and Coral Chung’s dedication (Senreve). Becoming a founder started to feel less elusive.

I thought about my skills and potential services I’d be able to offer. When I worked in consulting, I frequently fielded calls about consulting and helped people prepare for interviews. I wondered if there was a way to scale this kind of hands-on, personalized help. Once I had the idea, it ricocheted around in my head, demanding to exist in the real world. The idea slowly took shape as I texted my brother (now co-founder).

Over the past few months, I’ve worked alongside my brother turning this idea into a business. I created a business plan and a project plan, the latter of which exemplifies the breadth of tasks we’ve worked on. From creating a website, deciding on our services, designing a logo, writing consulting cases, and more, it’s been a lot of work. But this time, I’m the one calling the shots. I’m the one creating the marketing strategy to reach customers and also the one finding and emailing hundreds of college listservs, career centers, newspapers, and other potential partners. Yes, the latter is about as fun as it sounds sometimes, but having ownership over my work has shifted my mindset. Even the grunt work is an essential part to building my business.

I founded Helium Consulting Coaches to make strategy consulting jobs more accessible to people of different backgrounds. Consulting has accelerated my professional development, expanded my network, and springboarded me to subsequent roles. Consulting has brought me some of my closest friends and instilled a fierce work ethic in me. And I want more people to have these experiences.

Helium prepares people for consulting interviews through mock case and fit interviews, resume reviews, and candid accounts of working in consulting. We also offer free ten-minute consultations to help you develop a game plan for consulting recruitment.

Early learnings:
My journey into entrepreneurship has just begun, and I’m definitely still learning as I go. However, here are a few of my learnings so far:

1. Work doesn’t have to look the same for everyone. When I was in college, recruiters, career center advisers, and peers all talked about working at small to large corporations. No one ever talked about working for themself. This experience has redefined what work is for me and I’ve realized that work doesn’t have to be at a company executing someone else’s dreams. Work can be a mother running a store on Etsy, an accountant creating podcasts after his 9–5+, a grad student selling baked goods on the side — the list goes on and on. ​​
2. Productivity can foster happiness. Everyone wants to be happy, but we all find it in different ways. During my brief stint on Bumble BFF, many women had similar interests: they mostly enjoyed having brunch, watching Netflix, and traveling. It’s easy to laugh at this, but I bet most of us (including myself!) find happiness in these things. But I’ve realized I need to balance these activities with periods of productivity. I don’t generally espouse the workaholic lifestyle, but being productive fulfills me. I love setting ambitious goals, breaking them down into smaller pieces, and working toward something one step at a time. This is the reason I love training for and running road races and why working on Helium has energized me.
3. We have more agency than we realize. When I worked in consulting, work consumed my identity. I was frequently working 70+ hours during the week. On Sundays I was usually packing for work, thinking about the upcoming week of work, and sleeping early in preparation for my 6am flight the next day. Because of this taxing routine, it sometimes felt like I had little control over my life and was just going through the motions. It took switching to the tech industry (no more long hours and fire drills because a client changed their mind about your deck) and the discomfort of COVID for me to try working for myself. It’s been empowering hatching Helium from just an idea into an LLC with a soul of its own. If there’s something that you want to try, but have convinced yourself that it was unattainable, now is a good time to quiet the self-doubt and give it a go. Maybe you start small and talk to a friend about your idea, Google whether there are similar companies out there, or write down your idea. Just start somewhere.

Rebecca Liu is the co-founder of Helium Consulting Coaches LLC.