commercial app
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Over the last two years, I’ve been working on a freeware application which is currently being used by many users (>5000). Now I’m going to release a new version with a lot of new features. However, it turns out that the only way I can keep it alive is to turn it into a commercial (or shareware) app. As my superiors just ordered me to make a marketing plan to study the viability of this venture, I’d like to ask you is if it’s possible to estimate (roughly) the volume of business taking into account the original number of registered users to the freeware version and considering that the academic licenses must be significantly cheaper (let’s say 15% of a license for a company) and also that the ratio of users coming from industry/academia is e.g. 10%. Right, I know that there isn’t a magic formula, but it's more general advice from those who have done something similar. carlos
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How much did you spend on marketing the original, and how much do you intend to spend marketing the new one? I think this may, along with the size of the original user base, give some insight into how many units you might sell. Or maybe not. :)
LunaticFringe wrote: How much did you spend on marketing the original 0.00$ ;);) LunaticFringe wrote: how much do you intend to spend marketing the new one That's something I still have to figure out ... cheers, Carlos
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Over the last two years, I’ve been working on a freeware application which is currently being used by many users (>5000). Now I’m going to release a new version with a lot of new features. However, it turns out that the only way I can keep it alive is to turn it into a commercial (or shareware) app. As my superiors just ordered me to make a marketing plan to study the viability of this venture, I’d like to ask you is if it’s possible to estimate (roughly) the volume of business taking into account the original number of registered users to the freeware version and considering that the academic licenses must be significantly cheaper (let’s say 15% of a license for a company) and also that the ratio of users coming from industry/academia is e.g. 10%. Right, I know that there isn’t a magic formula, but it's more general advice from those who have done something similar. carlos
Juan Carlos Cobas wrote: As my superiors just ordered me to make a marketing plan to study the viability of this venture Talk about passing the buck. Why is it that someone who is a PROGRAMMER (I'm assuming here that is your primary skill) is all of a sudden asked to put together a MARKETING plan? Isn't the reason that we have a MARKETING department, and MANAGEMENT so that they do some of the work too and apply their expertise? Clearly, I am making several incorrect assumptions: 1. Marketing and Management people do work 2. Marketing and Management people have expertise 3. Your superiors are, well, superior. I realize this doesn't really help you directly, but does it occur to you that being asked to do this work is ridiculous? Unless, of course, your superior happens to be your wife. Never question the motives of your wife, her expertise, ability to do work, or superiority. Marc Latest AAL Article My blog Join my forum!
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Juan Carlos Cobas wrote: As my superiors just ordered me to make a marketing plan to study the viability of this venture Talk about passing the buck. Why is it that someone who is a PROGRAMMER (I'm assuming here that is your primary skill) is all of a sudden asked to put together a MARKETING plan? Isn't the reason that we have a MARKETING department, and MANAGEMENT so that they do some of the work too and apply their expertise? Clearly, I am making several incorrect assumptions: 1. Marketing and Management people do work 2. Marketing and Management people have expertise 3. Your superiors are, well, superior. I realize this doesn't really help you directly, but does it occur to you that being asked to do this work is ridiculous? Unless, of course, your superior happens to be your wife. Never question the motives of your wife, her expertise, ability to do work, or superiority. Marc Latest AAL Article My blog Join my forum!
Never question the motives of your wife, her expertise, ability to do work, or superiority. LOL truer words were never spoken! ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
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Juan Carlos Cobas wrote: As my superiors just ordered me to make a marketing plan to study the viability of this venture Talk about passing the buck. Why is it that someone who is a PROGRAMMER (I'm assuming here that is your primary skill) is all of a sudden asked to put together a MARKETING plan? Isn't the reason that we have a MARKETING department, and MANAGEMENT so that they do some of the work too and apply their expertise? Clearly, I am making several incorrect assumptions: 1. Marketing and Management people do work 2. Marketing and Management people have expertise 3. Your superiors are, well, superior. I realize this doesn't really help you directly, but does it occur to you that being asked to do this work is ridiculous? Unless, of course, your superior happens to be your wife. Never question the motives of your wife, her expertise, ability to do work, or superiority. Marc Latest AAL Article My blog Join my forum!
Marc Clifton wrote: Isn't the reason that we have a MARKETING department, and MANAGEMENT What are marketing and management departments? ;) Actually, all my work was done on the Universiy as part of my PhD. Strictly speaking, I'm not a real programmer, just a former organic chemist recycled into a pseudo-programmer/spectroscopist. Basically, I need to convince my boss (and myself) that the commercialization of my program can be productive. Carlos
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Over the last two years, I’ve been working on a freeware application which is currently being used by many users (>5000). Now I’m going to release a new version with a lot of new features. However, it turns out that the only way I can keep it alive is to turn it into a commercial (or shareware) app. As my superiors just ordered me to make a marketing plan to study the viability of this venture, I’d like to ask you is if it’s possible to estimate (roughly) the volume of business taking into account the original number of registered users to the freeware version and considering that the academic licenses must be significantly cheaper (let’s say 15% of a license for a company) and also that the ratio of users coming from industry/academia is e.g. 10%. Right, I know that there isn’t a magic formula, but it's more general advice from those who have done something similar. carlos
[IMHO] As you say, there is no generic rule for this. I've seen numbers like 25% conversion from freeware versions and numbers like 10. 10 percent? No, 10 users on a ~30,000 user base. Things that seem to help on making users pay: 1. Price: if it was a freeware, it must now be very cheap. 2. Support and forums, easy access to the developers to ask for new features, and so on... 3. A huge difference between the freeware and the commercial one. BTW, removing features from the freeware is a no-no. 4. How useful is your application? Is it something you use once in a while? Is it something you use on an emergency? Is it something you use daily? 5. What about competitors? Are there any open-source options? Are there better commercial options? Notice that all points are around on how users see your product. So, the question is "how my users see my product?" One way of answering this question is taking two or three user samples, each one with ~100 users and asking them their opinion: if they would buy a new comercial version with the features x,y,and z, for $M. $M would be different for each group, so you can assess your profit on each price range. Be careful with the numbers, though, as people say "Yeah, I would buy such a product" but often don't. Take special care to not seem to be spamming your user base. And BTW, Marc's advice is very good, indeed. He's right: you either work on a small shop or your marketing staff is better start learning C++ [/IMHO] Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. -- Bruce Schneier By the way, dog_spawn isn't a nickname - it is my name with an underscore instead of a space. -- dog_spawn
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Marc Clifton wrote: Isn't the reason that we have a MARKETING department, and MANAGEMENT What are marketing and management departments? ;) Actually, all my work was done on the Universiy as part of my PhD. Strictly speaking, I'm not a real programmer, just a former organic chemist recycled into a pseudo-programmer/spectroscopist. Basically, I need to convince my boss (and myself) that the commercialization of my program can be productive. Carlos
Juan Carlos Cobas wrote: Actually, all my work was done on the Universiy as part of my PhD. Strictly speaking, I'm not a real programmer, just a former organic chemist recycled into a pseudo-programmer/spectroscopist. Ah, my apologies! I think I remember reading your post about your career change a while back? Academia is quite different from business. I didn't realize I was making such a grossly incorrect assumption about your work! :-D Marc Latest AAL Article My blog Join my forum!
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Juan Carlos Cobas wrote: As my superiors just ordered me to make a marketing plan to study the viability of this venture Talk about passing the buck. Why is it that someone who is a PROGRAMMER (I'm assuming here that is your primary skill) is all of a sudden asked to put together a MARKETING plan? Isn't the reason that we have a MARKETING department, and MANAGEMENT so that they do some of the work too and apply their expertise? Clearly, I am making several incorrect assumptions: 1. Marketing and Management people do work 2. Marketing and Management people have expertise 3. Your superiors are, well, superior. I realize this doesn't really help you directly, but does it occur to you that being asked to do this work is ridiculous? Unless, of course, your superior happens to be your wife. Never question the motives of your wife, her expertise, ability to do work, or superiority. Marc Latest AAL Article My blog Join my forum!
Marc Clifton wrote: Talk about passing the buck. Why is it that someone who is a PROGRAMMER (I'm assuming here that is your primary skill) is all of a sudden asked to put together a MARKETING plan? Why it's obvious. Because no one in marketing actualy understands the product enough to do it :)
Paul Watson wrote: "At the end of the day it is what you produce that counts, not how many doctorates you have on the wall." George Carlin wrote: "Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things." Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote: If the physicists find a universal theory describing the laws of universe, I'm sure the asshole constant will be an integral part of that theory.
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Juan Carlos Cobas wrote: Actually, all my work was done on the Universiy as part of my PhD. Strictly speaking, I'm not a real programmer, just a former organic chemist recycled into a pseudo-programmer/spectroscopist. Ah, my apologies! I think I remember reading your post about your career change a while back? Academia is quite different from business. I didn't realize I was making such a grossly incorrect assumption about your work! :-D Marc Latest AAL Article My blog Join my forum!
Marc Clifton wrote: Marc Clifton wrote: Ah, my apologies! I think I remember reading your post about your career change a while back? No need for apologies Marc. Marc Clifton wrote: Academia is quite different from business. I didn't realize I was making such a grossly incorrect assumption about your work! Tha main problem arises when you try to mix academia with buseness. Theoretically, a University is an altruist institution, though everyday I'm seeing more spin-offs companies coming from University sources. Carlos
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[IMHO] As you say, there is no generic rule for this. I've seen numbers like 25% conversion from freeware versions and numbers like 10. 10 percent? No, 10 users on a ~30,000 user base. Things that seem to help on making users pay: 1. Price: if it was a freeware, it must now be very cheap. 2. Support and forums, easy access to the developers to ask for new features, and so on... 3. A huge difference between the freeware and the commercial one. BTW, removing features from the freeware is a no-no. 4. How useful is your application? Is it something you use once in a while? Is it something you use on an emergency? Is it something you use daily? 5. What about competitors? Are there any open-source options? Are there better commercial options? Notice that all points are around on how users see your product. So, the question is "how my users see my product?" One way of answering this question is taking two or three user samples, each one with ~100 users and asking them their opinion: if they would buy a new comercial version with the features x,y,and z, for $M. $M would be different for each group, so you can assess your profit on each price range. Be careful with the numbers, though, as people say "Yeah, I would buy such a product" but often don't. Take special care to not seem to be spamming your user base. And BTW, Marc's advice is very good, indeed. He's right: you either work on a small shop or your marketing staff is better start learning C++ [/IMHO] Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. -- Bruce Schneier By the way, dog_spawn isn't a nickname - it is my name with an underscore instead of a space. -- dog_spawn
Daniel Turini wrote: 10 users on a ~30,000 user base. I hope this won't be my case :) Daniel Turini wrote: 1. Price: if it was a freeware, it must now be very cheap. Definitely, though the price will be higher for companies than for academia users. Daniel Turini wrote: 2. Support and forums, easy access to the developers to ask for new features, and so on... Yep, I agree these are very important points to take into accout. Thanks :) Daniel Turini wrote: 3. A huge difference between the freeware and the commercial one Sure, the commercial one is much better. Daniel Turini wrote: 4. How useful is your application? Is it something you use once in a while? Is it something you use on an emergency? Is it something you use daily? They'll need my app to process their data on a daily basis. Daniel Turini wrote: 5. What about competitors? Are there any open-source options? Are there better commercial options? There are no open-source options so far, at least for windows. IMHO, I believe mine has many advantages over the other commercial applications. Thanks for your comments, muito obrigado ;) Carlos
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Over the last two years, I’ve been working on a freeware application which is currently being used by many users (>5000). Now I’m going to release a new version with a lot of new features. However, it turns out that the only way I can keep it alive is to turn it into a commercial (or shareware) app. As my superiors just ordered me to make a marketing plan to study the viability of this venture, I’d like to ask you is if it’s possible to estimate (roughly) the volume of business taking into account the original number of registered users to the freeware version and considering that the academic licenses must be significantly cheaper (let’s say 15% of a license for a company) and also that the ratio of users coming from industry/academia is e.g. 10%. Right, I know that there isn’t a magic formula, but it's more general advice from those who have done something similar. carlos
i've thought about this myself. i don't have any research to back this up. expect another 5000 users to want it in 2 years and expect 25% are willing to pay for it. Josef Wainz Software Developer
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Over the last two years, I’ve been working on a freeware application which is currently being used by many users (>5000). Now I’m going to release a new version with a lot of new features. However, it turns out that the only way I can keep it alive is to turn it into a commercial (or shareware) app. As my superiors just ordered me to make a marketing plan to study the viability of this venture, I’d like to ask you is if it’s possible to estimate (roughly) the volume of business taking into account the original number of registered users to the freeware version and considering that the academic licenses must be significantly cheaper (let’s say 15% of a license for a company) and also that the ratio of users coming from industry/academia is e.g. 10%. Right, I know that there isn’t a magic formula, but it's more general advice from those who have done something similar. carlos
There's a blog that I subscribe to called This Shareware Life or something like that (sorry, don't have time to look it up now) where the author says that he is happy if 1% of people trying out his software actually buy it. [edit]OK, so I was just lazy. It's here[^].[/edit] From what I can gather, this is not unreasonable :-)
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