Shareware development: dying? or, dead?
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I know a majority of the people who will read this post are going to be dedicated shareware professionals, and that is great you're the one whose minds I want to pick :-) Thinking of getting into the shareware industry, but would like to know is it dead? I know with the proliferation of sites like download.com, tucows, etc... it might not seem so, but are the days of a 1 man development team actually making a living or subsidizing one's income, coming to an end? Every time I think of writing something it has already been done, and with the increasing growth of people releasing software for free (and some are really damn good. i.e. powerarchiver, irview, etc...) and the greatest distribution method devised (world wide web), how can one make a sale? Is it still possible? Yet alone feasible? Also, ideas, how do you shareware authors come up with ideas for programs, is your program based on a specific aspect you enjoy? Or, is it based on market conditions, knowing what the consumers want? If so, how do you get to know what consumers are looking for? Or, is developing an application and selling it as shareware a Field Of Dreams motif "If you build it they will come(buy)..."? If anyone can post their comments, suggestions, links, or even anecdotes on their expierence please do, not asking for sensitive company data. I would like to know if the idea of shareware is still alive, and if 1 (or 2) man can make a difference in the application market, or are we all forever confined to endlessly looking for jobs on monster.com? Thanks for any posts!! Sam C ---- Systems Manager Hospitality Marketing Associates
Although software is becoming more and more complex, it can be done by a one man team. It just takes the right idea to make a hit. Many people say ideas are a dime a dozen. I agree with that, but great ones are hard to come by. Take for example, Shawn Fanning (sp?), who created Napster. He did it by himself over a summer after finding a need for trading MP3s. The company almost made him a billionaire over night if it hadn't been for the recording labels and artists suing the pants off them. And he's only a teenager. It goes to show that *anyone* can make a big impact in the world. As you mentioned, many ideas have already been implemented. However, there's still many more ideas waiting to be implemented. It takes some creativity to come up with something unique. One can always build a better mousetrap and improve on something if they look hard enough. But to come up with something original takes patience, lots of brainstorming, try and try again cycles, and a bit of luck. One area in which I'd like to see more programs being developed to try to solve is intelligent agents. They got a lot of hype a few years ago, but have since died down. I know a few companies that are using the technology to predict markets and such, but those products are only being marketed to large companies. What I'd like to see is making intelligent agents more useful and friendlier to the average computer user. Many have tried, but if just one succeeds then this would be a breakthrough and become the talk for a year or so.
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Although software is becoming more and more complex, it can be done by a one man team. It just takes the right idea to make a hit. Many people say ideas are a dime a dozen. I agree with that, but great ones are hard to come by. Take for example, Shawn Fanning (sp?), who created Napster. He did it by himself over a summer after finding a need for trading MP3s. The company almost made him a billionaire over night if it hadn't been for the recording labels and artists suing the pants off them. And he's only a teenager. It goes to show that *anyone* can make a big impact in the world. As you mentioned, many ideas have already been implemented. However, there's still many more ideas waiting to be implemented. It takes some creativity to come up with something unique. One can always build a better mousetrap and improve on something if they look hard enough. But to come up with something original takes patience, lots of brainstorming, try and try again cycles, and a bit of luck. One area in which I'd like to see more programs being developed to try to solve is intelligent agents. They got a lot of hype a few years ago, but have since died down. I know a few companies that are using the technology to predict markets and such, but those products are only being marketed to large companies. What I'd like to see is making intelligent agents more useful and friendlier to the average computer user. Many have tried, but if just one succeeds then this would be a breakthrough and become the talk for a year or so.
That sounds good, however, with the complexity of applications increasing, can one person develop something to make it in time to market? One developer working on idea can easily be beaten by a team of developers (i.e. Microsoft). Shawn Fanning is an excellent example and from what I hear the first version of Napster was overly simplistic to develop as well as implement, the $10k cash infusion from his family and friends helped a lot though :-) But can "garage devlopers" really succeed today with a commercial application, can it be that the proliferation that Napster endured be due to the fact that it was *free*? Because of an idea that sounded good he had an influx of money, but what if he charged from the beginning would it still have succeeded? Are there examples of successful "garage developers" making it? I'd like to think WinZip is one of them, however, I don't know how many people helped develop that application. For me it is hard to start coding just because you come up with an idea do market research and there is already thousands of applications that do the same thing? And, some great ones marketed as freeware. Don't get me wrong I'm an avid proponent for freeware, however, my days in college and being supported by my parents are long gone... And I have a son to feed, I would love to develop apps fulltime, but need to make money, and hence the job :-) But has anyone or does anyone know of people starting small within the last couple of years that blossomed into a thriving business? This could just be shareware that subsidizes one income, or help them get a better job. I would take Napster as an example but the money in that one came from an influx of investors. From my recollection, I believe ICQ started as a small company in some third world country and they where bought out by AOL. That is a success story I know of! Sam C ---- Systems Manager Hospitality Marketing Associates
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Wow, that application was written by a one man team? Amazing you even have time for support. Your program at least give me hope that there is room for people. For one whenever you buy Visual Studio it comes with a code editor of sorts, but you are making a living, or even at least earning money. This is the kind of post and example I was hoping for to at least edge me along!!! If you don't mind Neville, can you give me a time frame for developing this application? Was it first deployed as say a text editor and then you made it feature rich over time based on consumer input or your own feelings, or was it always meant to be a code editor from the onset. And if it did start out as something simple and blossomed can you give some examples of your trial and tribulations you encountered and how you resolved them. This goes for anyone that posts as well, because 1.) I love to hear about stuff like this and 2.) It inspires hope that something like this is possible. Thanks. Sam C ---- Systems Manager Hospitality Marketing Associates
Sam, I started work on the original ED editor some 20 years ago believe it or not. The first version was written in Signetics 2650 Assembler, then Z80 Assembler etc. It all came from the simple fact that full screen editors didn't exist back then. You can see some info on EDs history on the Future Plans page at www.getsoft.com Obviously a lot has happened since those early days, and I started marketing ED for DOS some 12 years ago. It has been a steady evolution since the very start, always heavilly influenced by co-workers and peers, and later customers. Trials and tribulations abound. In the early days the biggest battle was getting resellers to handle it. This is where I learnt a lot about marketing and sales, and the importance of networking and good contacts. I also learnt to enjoy long distance travel, which is something you no choice about when you live here in Australia. The landscape has changed dramatically in the past 6 years or so with the ability to market, sell, distribute and get paid over the Internet. In the same way that anyone can now put up a crappy Web site, lots and lots of "wanna be" developers can write crappy software and inflict it on the world (CP developers excluded of course). :rolleyes: As I write this it strikes me how interesting this anology is. I find that I'm forever filtering out the crap web sites (from search engines etc.) and likewise we all evaluate lots of potentially interesting and usefull software, often to find what may appear to be a gem on the surface has no substance underneath, or if it does support doesn't exist. I don't think you need to only consider apps which you think haven't been tackled before. My gut feel is that there are plenty of opportunities to develop better versions of apps which are already in the marketplace. User interface design weighs in heavily when I'm looking at adopting an application, and as we know most programmers are pretty poor at this. Marketing is probably the number one key to success and another skill most developers don't have, at least initially. You often see mediocre products which are very successfull and think I could write a better xyz than that. And you probably could, but could you market it or would it just be background noise. Enough ranting and raving for me for now. More than happy to keep contibuting in this thread though. Neville Franks, Author of ED for Windows
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I know a majority of the people who will read this post are going to be dedicated shareware professionals, and that is great you're the one whose minds I want to pick :-) Thinking of getting into the shareware industry, but would like to know is it dead? I know with the proliferation of sites like download.com, tucows, etc... it might not seem so, but are the days of a 1 man development team actually making a living or subsidizing one's income, coming to an end? Every time I think of writing something it has already been done, and with the increasing growth of people releasing software for free (and some are really damn good. i.e. powerarchiver, irview, etc...) and the greatest distribution method devised (world wide web), how can one make a sale? Is it still possible? Yet alone feasible? Also, ideas, how do you shareware authors come up with ideas for programs, is your program based on a specific aspect you enjoy? Or, is it based on market conditions, knowing what the consumers want? If so, how do you get to know what consumers are looking for? Or, is developing an application and selling it as shareware a Field Of Dreams motif "If you build it they will come(buy)..."? If anyone can post their comments, suggestions, links, or even anecdotes on their expierence please do, not asking for sensitive company data. I would like to know if the idea of shareware is still alive, and if 1 (or 2) man can make a difference in the application market, or are we all forever confined to endlessly looking for jobs on monster.com? Thanks for any posts!! Sam C ---- Systems Manager Hospitality Marketing Associates
The number of cracks and serial gens out for shareware programs is making it a lot less attractive (at least in my case). I've had to end up changing my validation checking, and lately the complete unlock codes in order to get round this, and this is taking up more and more of my time. This means I also have to send out new serials to people who have registered my software (>5000). Cheers, Peter
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The number of cracks and serial gens out for shareware programs is making it a lot less attractive (at least in my case). I've had to end up changing my validation checking, and lately the complete unlock codes in order to get round this, and this is taking up more and more of my time. This means I also have to send out new serials to people who have registered my software (>5000). Cheers, Peter
Peter, Are you using a commercial license key product in your program or a home grown one? If the former which one? I ask because I'm about to use license keys for the first time in a product. I've done a lot of research into licensing, anti-piracy etc. and firmly believe that the only approach is a rigourous home grown one. Most if not all commercial licensing/copy protection systems have been cracked it would seem. Neville Franks, Author of ED for Windows www.getsoft.com
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That sounds good, however, with the complexity of applications increasing, can one person develop something to make it in time to market? One developer working on idea can easily be beaten by a team of developers (i.e. Microsoft). Shawn Fanning is an excellent example and from what I hear the first version of Napster was overly simplistic to develop as well as implement, the $10k cash infusion from his family and friends helped a lot though :-) But can "garage devlopers" really succeed today with a commercial application, can it be that the proliferation that Napster endured be due to the fact that it was *free*? Because of an idea that sounded good he had an influx of money, but what if he charged from the beginning would it still have succeeded? Are there examples of successful "garage developers" making it? I'd like to think WinZip is one of them, however, I don't know how many people helped develop that application. For me it is hard to start coding just because you come up with an idea do market research and there is already thousands of applications that do the same thing? And, some great ones marketed as freeware. Don't get me wrong I'm an avid proponent for freeware, however, my days in college and being supported by my parents are long gone... And I have a son to feed, I would love to develop apps fulltime, but need to make money, and hence the job :-) But has anyone or does anyone know of people starting small within the last couple of years that blossomed into a thriving business? This could just be shareware that subsidizes one income, or help them get a better job. I would take Napster as an example but the money in that one came from an influx of investors. From my recollection, I believe ICQ started as a small company in some third world country and they where bought out by AOL. That is a success story I know of! Sam C ---- Systems Manager Hospitality Marketing Associates
Yes, it still happens. <-- living proof For every big name multimillionaire example, there are thousands of people making a living working for themselves selling software they have written. Magazines just don't write big stories about us. It all boils down to having the right idea... and marketing... and luck... proper wind direction... Tim Smith Descartes Systems Sciences, Inc.
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The number of cracks and serial gens out for shareware programs is making it a lot less attractive (at least in my case). I've had to end up changing my validation checking, and lately the complete unlock codes in order to get round this, and this is taking up more and more of my time. This means I also have to send out new serials to people who have registered my software (>5000). Cheers, Peter
I've had to end up changing my validation checking [...] and this is taking up more and more of my time.
My opinion on this issue is that if a person is going to look for and use a crack or key generator, then they're extremely unlikely ever to consider paying for the product anyway. It's a 'Red Queen's Race' to try and follow the crackers. ("It takes all the running you can do, to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.") If it's possible to run the software, it's possible to crack it, and the more time you spend on the protection, the harder the crackers will work on it. And they will break it; it's just a matter of time. IMHO, the time is better spent on improving the product. It's only the honest people who will pay for your shareware anyway, and they'll only do it if your software impresses them enough.
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That sounds good, however, with the complexity of applications increasing, can one person develop something to make it in time to market? One developer working on idea can easily be beaten by a team of developers (i.e. Microsoft). Shawn Fanning is an excellent example and from what I hear the first version of Napster was overly simplistic to develop as well as implement, the $10k cash infusion from his family and friends helped a lot though :-) But can "garage devlopers" really succeed today with a commercial application, can it be that the proliferation that Napster endured be due to the fact that it was *free*? Because of an idea that sounded good he had an influx of money, but what if he charged from the beginning would it still have succeeded? Are there examples of successful "garage developers" making it? I'd like to think WinZip is one of them, however, I don't know how many people helped develop that application. For me it is hard to start coding just because you come up with an idea do market research and there is already thousands of applications that do the same thing? And, some great ones marketed as freeware. Don't get me wrong I'm an avid proponent for freeware, however, my days in college and being supported by my parents are long gone... And I have a son to feed, I would love to develop apps fulltime, but need to make money, and hence the job :-) But has anyone or does anyone know of people starting small within the last couple of years that blossomed into a thriving business? This could just be shareware that subsidizes one income, or help them get a better job. I would take Napster as an example but the money in that one came from an influx of investors. From my recollection, I believe ICQ started as a small company in some third world country and they where bought out by AOL. That is a success story I know of! Sam C ---- Systems Manager Hospitality Marketing Associates
"From my recollection, I believe ICQ started as a small company in some third world country and they where bought out by AOL" I think the israelians would be a bit hurt by that comment ;-) Christian Skovdal Andersen
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Peter, Are you using a commercial license key product in your program or a home grown one? If the former which one? I ask because I'm about to use license keys for the first time in a product. I've done a lot of research into licensing, anti-piracy etc. and firmly believe that the only approach is a rigourous home grown one. Most if not all commercial licensing/copy protection systems have been cracked it would seem. Neville Franks, Author of ED for Windows www.getsoft.com
Neville, I'm using a home made one. I got a lot of tips from Fravia's old site about cracking www.fravia.org There's also quite a bit of information out on the web (can't remember addresses). Cheers, Peter
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That sounds good, however, with the complexity of applications increasing, can one person develop something to make it in time to market? One developer working on idea can easily be beaten by a team of developers (i.e. Microsoft). Shawn Fanning is an excellent example and from what I hear the first version of Napster was overly simplistic to develop as well as implement, the $10k cash infusion from his family and friends helped a lot though :-) But can "garage devlopers" really succeed today with a commercial application, can it be that the proliferation that Napster endured be due to the fact that it was *free*? Because of an idea that sounded good he had an influx of money, but what if he charged from the beginning would it still have succeeded? Are there examples of successful "garage developers" making it? I'd like to think WinZip is one of them, however, I don't know how many people helped develop that application. For me it is hard to start coding just because you come up with an idea do market research and there is already thousands of applications that do the same thing? And, some great ones marketed as freeware. Don't get me wrong I'm an avid proponent for freeware, however, my days in college and being supported by my parents are long gone... And I have a son to feed, I would love to develop apps fulltime, but need to make money, and hence the job :-) But has anyone or does anyone know of people starting small within the last couple of years that blossomed into a thriving business? This could just be shareware that subsidizes one income, or help them get a better job. I would take Napster as an example but the money in that one came from an influx of investors. From my recollection, I believe ICQ started as a small company in some third world country and they where bought out by AOL. That is a success story I know of! Sam C ---- Systems Manager Hospitality Marketing Associates
> That sounds good, however, with the complexity of applications increasing, can one person develop something to make it in time to market? One developer working on idea can easily be beaten by a team of developers (i.e. Microsoft). If you don't spill your guts to the press and the whole world about your ideas before it's finished then Microsoft et al. won't know to even try to compete with you to get into the market first. And once you get your product into the market first, you'll be the only one getting the undivided attention of press coverage for the first couple of months. Meanwhile competitors with freshly minted MBAs from Harvard, MIT, and Yale are going to be lining up to try to capitialize on your success, and try to get a product turned out in a quarter with a small spin on your idea. (Look at how many copycat ideas are based on utilizing P2P technology to search Intranets, data within application servers (InfraSearch), etc.) So you'll have to be ready to release version 2.0 soon and stay on top of everyone else. Hopefully, after all of the press coverage, venture capitalists and angel investors are going to be knocking down your door hoping to get a piece of the action and finance your company. Then you'll be ready to put together a large staff and compete with the likes of Microsoft and others. Focus on your core competencies and you're likely to come out as the winner. Other success examples started by garage developers are plentiful in business news: - WinAmp was started by some teenagers at NullSoft which were bought by AOL. - PinPoint.com was started by two high school seniors (Jud Bowman and Taylor Brockman) that developed a search engine for wireless devices. - Michael Dell sold computers from the trunk of his car when he was still in college and dropped out to created DELL. (Not really software development, but you get the idea.) - And the list goes on and on. At my college entreprenuer incubator program there's many CS and EE students who came up with great ideas and are launching their own companies while still in undergraduate school.
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I've had to end up changing my validation checking [...] and this is taking up more and more of my time.
My opinion on this issue is that if a person is going to look for and use a crack or key generator, then they're extremely unlikely ever to consider paying for the product anyway. It's a 'Red Queen's Race' to try and follow the crackers. ("It takes all the running you can do, to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.") If it's possible to run the software, it's possible to crack it, and the more time you spend on the protection, the harder the crackers will work on it. And they will break it; it's just a matter of time. IMHO, the time is better spent on improving the product. It's only the honest people who will pay for your shareware anyway, and they'll only do it if your software impresses them enough.
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I've had to end up changing my validation checking [...] and this is taking up more and more of my time.
My opinion on this issue is that if a person is going to look for and use a crack or key generator, then they're extremely unlikely ever to consider paying for the product anyway. It's a 'Red Queen's Race' to try and follow the crackers. ("It takes all the running you can do, to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.") If it's possible to run the software, it's possible to crack it, and the more time you spend on the protection, the harder the crackers will work on it. And they will break it; it's just a matter of time. IMHO, the time is better spent on improving the product. It's only the honest people who will pay for your shareware anyway, and they'll only do it if your software impresses them enough.
I agree with you about the time spent on protections - I still spend most of my time improving features and adding features. But the ratio is changing. I'm a fairly capable cracker myself (although I've only used it in games - to change the res a game runs at) and in my own software, or to perhaps change some minor problem in some software (a freeware hex editor opened files in non-shared mode - I hex edited it to make it FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE, rather than 0, so that I could modify the file open in another program at the same time), but I've yet to use cracking to get free software myself - so I understand how easy it is to get round protections. But there are different levels of protection, and crackers IMO can be quite lazy - they check it works once, and don't bother checking again - the check may be a random one, so that crack only fixes one of the 5 checks done. As to your point about only the honest people paying for shareware - I agree to a certain extent, but there have been quite a few examples in my case where someone has emailed me claiming their key didn't work and that they purchased my software when they obviously hadn't. I then asked them for their registration ID - no reply. In a couple of cases, within the next few days they had purchased the software legally. I think it's all to do with how easy it is. Serials2000 is pathetically easy to update recent serials for, and it's becoming more and more well known. 2 years ago, cracking and serial gens were relatively unknown - changes are taking place, as can be seen by Windows XP's checking system. Cheers, Peter
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"Red Queen's Race" -- interesting phrase. I've never heard of that one before. Care to enlighten me on where that originated? Thanks!
It's from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.
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"From my recollection, I believe ICQ started as a small company in some third world country and they where bought out by AOL" I think the israelians would be a bit hurt by that comment ;-) Christian Skovdal Andersen
ICQ was originally written by two Indians up until 99a. Cheers, Peter
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ICQ was originally written by two Indians up until 99a. Cheers, Peter
But Mirabellis is an israeli company, right? Christian Skovdal Andersen
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But Mirabellis is an israeli company, right? Christian Skovdal Andersen
Ermmm... lol - probably me getting confused - I know it started with an I, that's it - sorry. Cheers, Peter Pearson
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It's from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.
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Neville, I'm using a home made one. I got a lot of tips from Fravia's old site about cracking www.fravia.org There's also quite a bit of information out on the web (can't remember addresses). Cheers, Peter
Peter, then how come people are able to generate license keys for your product, or are they posting known good keys on the web for others to use? Fravia is indeed an excellent resource. Fortunately I stumbled across this as well. There are few others as well. If you want URLs lemme know. Neville Franks, Author of ED for Windows www.getsoft.com
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I agree with you about the time spent on protections - I still spend most of my time improving features and adding features. But the ratio is changing. I'm a fairly capable cracker myself (although I've only used it in games - to change the res a game runs at) and in my own software, or to perhaps change some minor problem in some software (a freeware hex editor opened files in non-shared mode - I hex edited it to make it FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE, rather than 0, so that I could modify the file open in another program at the same time), but I've yet to use cracking to get free software myself - so I understand how easy it is to get round protections. But there are different levels of protection, and crackers IMO can be quite lazy - they check it works once, and don't bother checking again - the check may be a random one, so that crack only fixes one of the 5 checks done. As to your point about only the honest people paying for shareware - I agree to a certain extent, but there have been quite a few examples in my case where someone has emailed me claiming their key didn't work and that they purchased my software when they obviously hadn't. I then asked them for their registration ID - no reply. In a couple of cases, within the next few days they had purchased the software legally. I think it's all to do with how easy it is. Serials2000 is pathetically easy to update recent serials for, and it's becoming more and more well known. 2 years ago, cracking and serial gens were relatively unknown - changes are taking place, as can be seen by Windows XP's checking system. Cheers, Peter
Wow goto bed and miss all the great post people start to leave. First off, Neville, thanks for the story on how ED started it's nice to know that hard work and a little perseverence pays off in today's day and age. And software protection does play a role in today's shareware market. I (ahem) used cracks back in my college days (circa 94-96), and they where easily found, better than downloading warez version of the program. I mean can anyone blame MS for trying to bring down anti-piracy of their software? I mean they did develop it and they are totally entiled to the correct amount of licensing fees. For people who have developed applications in which there is only a small market segment, every dollars count. But is there truly an infalliable type of software protection? I mean I have seen some determined crackers, stub out DLL protection functions, go through pages of hex files, disassembly in assembly code... When they want something they go for it. I don't know maybe copy protection is the holy grail of shareware development, a quest which will never be completed. Sam C ---- Systems Manager Hospitality Marketing Associates
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> That sounds good, however, with the complexity of applications increasing, can one person develop something to make it in time to market? One developer working on idea can easily be beaten by a team of developers (i.e. Microsoft). If you don't spill your guts to the press and the whole world about your ideas before it's finished then Microsoft et al. won't know to even try to compete with you to get into the market first. And once you get your product into the market first, you'll be the only one getting the undivided attention of press coverage for the first couple of months. Meanwhile competitors with freshly minted MBAs from Harvard, MIT, and Yale are going to be lining up to try to capitialize on your success, and try to get a product turned out in a quarter with a small spin on your idea. (Look at how many copycat ideas are based on utilizing P2P technology to search Intranets, data within application servers (InfraSearch), etc.) So you'll have to be ready to release version 2.0 soon and stay on top of everyone else. Hopefully, after all of the press coverage, venture capitalists and angel investors are going to be knocking down your door hoping to get a piece of the action and finance your company. Then you'll be ready to put together a large staff and compete with the likes of Microsoft and others. Focus on your core competencies and you're likely to come out as the winner. Other success examples started by garage developers are plentiful in business news: - WinAmp was started by some teenagers at NullSoft which were bought by AOL. - PinPoint.com was started by two high school seniors (Jud Bowman and Taylor Brockman) that developed a search engine for wireless devices. - Michael Dell sold computers from the trunk of his car when he was still in college and dropped out to created DELL. (Not really software development, but you get the idea.) - And the list goes on and on. At my college entreprenuer incubator program there's many CS and EE students who came up with great ideas and are launching their own companies while still in undergraduate school.