Not really a consultancy story, as we were an aspiring start-up. We had created a homepage and a LinkedIn page for our company, we wrote a business plan and talked to VCs and business angels and other start-ups to learn and raise funds - completely in vain for a year.

Then, out of the blue, a client - a Belgian space company - contacted us with a project request to serve as a sub-contractor of theirs. The scope was sall, budget was $25,000 and it lifted up our spirits enormously. They had found us with a LinkedIn search, and told us we were the only company in Europe to offer what we did.

It was not directly what our start-up was about, but we balanced the risk of being seen as distracted by investors against the opporunity that investors could see that we can earn real money from real customers. Sadly, the budget ended up being too small to include the required travel for regular site visits as well as the code to be developed, so we asked to exit the project early. We would never have thought to talk to a space company because we considered our technology early stage; but we learned the space sector is very open minded, because most of what they do, they do for the first time.