Blue Start Incubator

Your expertise, on your terms.

Blue Start is Vibrant Blue's incubator for experienced professionals moving into independent consulting. It provides the contracts, business setup, and hands-on support a new practice needs while you find your own clients, then helps you take it all on yourself.

Book a free 30-minute call What Blue Start provides
Andrew Johnson
Andrew JohnsonMBA, PMP, PMI-PMOCP

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Is this you?

The professionals Blue Start is built for.

Deep experience, ready for autonomy

You've built real expertise and want to apply it on your own terms, not inside someone else's org chart.

Curious, but unsure about going solo

Independent consulting appeals to you, but the practical mechanics of doing it alone feel like the real barrier.

Self-directed and professional

You want to build something that's yours rather than be handed work indefinitely, and you take how you represent yourself and others seriously.

An expert in your field, whatever it is

Energy and utilities, project management, technology, data, operations, and procurement are natural fits, but any deep skillset is welcome.

Built from experience

Built by someone who made the leap.

I started Vibrant Blue in 2018 as a side practice while working full time. With no model to follow, the contracts, insurance, billing, and the rest came together one piece at a time: all the parts of a practice that have nothing to do with expertise but decide whether it lasts.

Blue Start passes that experience on. The move from employee to independent consultant is far more manageable with someone beside you who has already made it. More about me.

Blue Start professionals work under the same AI standard I hold myself to, set out in How I Use AI. For anyone building a practice on their own expertise, Keep the Ability to Do explains why the skills behind your reputation are worth protecting as the tools get better.

The arrangement

What Blue Start provides.

Blue Start is a runway for the business side of consulting. While you build your client base, Vibrant Blue carries the contracts, invoicing, and collections, and you learn how each one is done well: how a statement of work is scoped, how a rate is set, how an invoice gets paid on time. When you're ready to go fully independent, you take those skills with you, along with your clients.

Blue Start provides

  • Help building a professional profile for your own website, LinkedIn, and proposals
  • Contract and business-side infrastructure, so you're not building it from scratch
  • Support finding, pursuing, and bringing on your own clients
  • A growing network of Blue Start professionals, each with their own skills to share
  • Direct guidance from someone who's made this exact transition
  • Introductions to Vibrant Blue client opportunities when the fit is right

You bring

  • Your expertise and reputation
  • Finding and pursuing your own clients
  • A commitment to professionalism
  • A signed Independent Contractor Agreement
  • A general and professional liability insurance quote, or proof you can obtain coverage

Active insurance coverage is required before any Statement of Work is issued or any work begins.

Get in touch

Thinking about going independent?

If you're an experienced professional curious about independent consulting and what Blue Start might offer, a conversation is the right first step.

Book a free 30-minute call

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