Cottage Programming
-
I was wondering how many of you had developed your own programs in your own time (at home) and were selling it on the internet. Has anyone done this and made a business out of it? How much are you selling your software for? How many units do you sell? What are you selling? I've got some ideas of my own for a product. I guess you could call this my market research. :)
-
I was wondering how many of you had developed your own programs in your own time (at home) and were selling it on the internet. Has anyone done this and made a business out of it? How much are you selling your software for? How many units do you sell? What are you selling? I've got some ideas of my own for a product. I guess you could call this my market research. :)
me. yes, it's a business. i sell for very cheap. some of the people i have joint products with sell their own stuff for much more. i like to keep apps between $20 and $40. right now i have 6000+ users of my biggest seller: ThumbNailer[^] -c
To explain Donald Knuth's relevance to computing is like explaining Paul's relevance to the Catholic Church. He isn't God, he isn't the Son of God, but he was sent by God to explain God to the masses.
/. #3848917 -
I was wondering how many of you had developed your own programs in your own time (at home) and were selling it on the internet. Has anyone done this and made a business out of it? How much are you selling your software for? How many units do you sell? What are you selling? I've got some ideas of my own for a product. I guess you could call this my market research. :)
Good luck at making a killer App, But I think consulting or making to order is actually easier. Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.
-
I was wondering how many of you had developed your own programs in your own time (at home) and were selling it on the internet. Has anyone done this and made a business out of it? How much are you selling your software for? How many units do you sell? What are you selling? I've got some ideas of my own for a product. I guess you could call this my market research. :)
-
I was wondering how many of you had developed your own programs in your own time (at home) and were selling it on the internet. Has anyone done this and made a business out of it? How much are you selling your software for? How many units do you sell? What are you selling? I've got some ideas of my own for a product. I guess you could call this my market research. :)
I think having an app to sell and actually being able to sell it are 2 very different things. Also selling over the internet (eg: without tech. invention / installation) is a little tricky for anything but the simplest app. I've seen apps similar to mine being sold for +-$200 a license, which is big money as far as I'm concerned. Typical scenario would include: 2 x user licenses and a server component. Some of the prices I see for apps are rediculous. I've also thought about the rental model too. Anyone done this successfully? Cheers, Simon "Sign up for a chance to be among the first to experience the wrath of the gods.", Microsoft's home page (24/06/2002)
-
me. yes, it's a business. i sell for very cheap. some of the people i have joint products with sell their own stuff for much more. i like to keep apps between $20 and $40. right now i have 6000+ users of my biggest seller: ThumbNailer[^] -c
To explain Donald Knuth's relevance to computing is like explaining Paul's relevance to the Catholic Church. He isn't God, he isn't the Son of God, but he was sent by God to explain God to the masses.
/. #3848917What't the best way of people paying: Paypal, a 3rd party site? bibamus, edamus, cras moriemur
[eat, drink, for tomorrow we die]
-
I was wondering how many of you had developed your own programs in your own time (at home) and were selling it on the internet. Has anyone done this and made a business out of it? How much are you selling your software for? How many units do you sell? What are you selling? I've got some ideas of my own for a product. I guess you could call this my market research. :)
I've made a few (one of them's been registered almost 3000 times in the last three years), I don't make enough to live on, but I'm a student, so it helps a bit, although it's a lot of work, and the number of cracks and serials out there is just rediculous, and that's annoying. It's a lot of work in terms of answering questions, and promising improvements, etc. Some of the questions are just plain rediculous :- "When I close it, it doesn't save my document" Well, erm, A. there's a save button on the toolbar, and B. it asks you if you want to save like most apps when you quit. And questions like these really annoy me - I've just about had enough of it now, so I'm probably going to just let people register it if they want to, but say there isn't going to be any further versions or support. Cheers, Peter Pearson
-
What't the best way of people paying: Paypal, a 3rd party site? bibamus, edamus, cras moriemur
[eat, drink, for tomorrow we die]
There are a few dedicated Shareware payment sites, one's called Kagi (http://www.kagi.com[^] I believe). Might be worth checking them out. I've never sold software over the web so I can't vouch for it first hand.
-
I think having an app to sell and actually being able to sell it are 2 very different things. Also selling over the internet (eg: without tech. invention / installation) is a little tricky for anything but the simplest app. I've seen apps similar to mine being sold for +-$200 a license, which is big money as far as I'm concerned. Typical scenario would include: 2 x user licenses and a server component. Some of the prices I see for apps are rediculous. I've also thought about the rental model too. Anyone done this successfully? Cheers, Simon "Sign up for a chance to be among the first to experience the wrath of the gods.", Microsoft's home page (24/06/2002)
SimonS wrote: I've also thought about the rental model too. Anyone done this successfully? No, not me, but I'm thinking about it seriously. What I might well go for is a credit model, where the customer pays for so many executions or yrs in advance. Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.
-
SimonS wrote: I've also thought about the rental model too. Anyone done this successfully? No, not me, but I'm thinking about it seriously. What I might well go for is a credit model, where the customer pays for so many executions or yrs in advance. Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.
Colin^Davies wrote: credit model Pay per use. Nice. I suppose you could easily reuse the same functionality to distrib demo/limited use versions of your app too. Cheers, Simon "Sign up for a chance to be among the first to experience the wrath of the gods.", Microsoft's home page (24/06/2002)
-
Colin^Davies wrote: credit model Pay per use. Nice. I suppose you could easily reuse the same functionality to distrib demo/limited use versions of your app too. Cheers, Simon "Sign up for a chance to be among the first to experience the wrath of the gods.", Microsoft's home page (24/06/2002)
SimonS wrote: I suppose you could easily reuse the same functionality to distrib demo/limited use versions of your app too. Yes, I think pretty much the same functions could be used. I personally prefer a long trial period to get folk hooked on using an app. Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.
-
I was wondering how many of you had developed your own programs in your own time (at home) and were selling it on the internet. Has anyone done this and made a business out of it? How much are you selling your software for? How many units do you sell? What are you selling? I've got some ideas of my own for a product. I guess you could call this my market research. :)
The first, and ultimately most important aspect of such a venture is your marketing plan. The idea of a web site being a kind of "if you build it, they will come" scenario is pure fiction. It doesn't matter if the quality of what you're selling is fabulous or pure crap - your marketing plan is what will determine the overall level of your sales. When I ran a sales consulting company in my previous lifetime, I was amazed at how people in all sorts of businesses shared one crucial mistake in common. Everyone thought about the product or service they were going to sell, the funding they'd need, physical locations, payroll, etc. Marketing was always an afterthought. But then, maybe that's why they hired me. Nonetheless, before you write your first line of code, you need to answer some very fundamental questions satisfactorily. If you can't, then ditch the project.
- Who will buy this product?
- What geographical areas do they encompass?
- How do we let them know we exist?
- How do we convince them to give their money us instead of the competition?
- How much will it cost to do enough advertising and promotion to effectively reach them?
- Can we afford it?
- How do we acquire people for our team who have skill and experience in sales and marketing?
- Can we afford them?
- After we've calculated how much money we need to spend each month on marketing issues, how much product do we need to sell in order to break even on the expenses and then turn a profit?
Regardless of whether you sell on the web, mail order, via telemarketing, TV infomercials or a retail store, you must have good answers to these questions. If you don't, your project is a financial disaster waiting to happen. It ain't as fun and sexy as coding, but it's the way it is. Chistopher Duncan Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
-
What't the best way of people paying: Paypal, a 3rd party site? bibamus, edamus, cras moriemur
[eat, drink, for tomorrow we die]
To explain Donald Knuth's relevance to computing is like explaining Paul's relevance to the Catholic Church. He isn't God, he isn't the Son of God, but he was sent by God to explain God to the masses.
/. #3848917