A bit of background on me; permie-tractor on and off between 2000-2012, after which I left a finance contract position to try and strike out on my own, selling consumer targeted PC software online. I had no desire to become the next Bill Gates, instead following the ethos of "start small and stay small" - really, I just wanted to generate a location independent source of income without the unpleasantness of having to work for someone else, especially in any sort of corporate environment.
Cut to today, and after launching my product in 2013 I have been living off it (and supporting my family) ever since. Not big bucks by any means, but in a good year a comparable income to contracting, and of course entirely outside of the remit of IR35, work my own hours as required etc - so not bad, overall.
Without going into too much detail on what I sell (and I have a few different offerings now), the guts of it are that all my applications allow users to view, edit and manage data from a certain class of consumer electronic devices. Most of the manufacturers of these devices use proprietary file formats for their data and often guard it quite closely despite, in most cases, not offering a product with capabilities like mine, that would let the consumers actually use this data. I managed to reverse engineer the required file formats for a couple of the bigger players in this space (indeed, I wouldn't have a product if I hadn't), and over time these manufacturers have come to know about (and tolerate) me, without ever going so far as any formal cooperation.
Now to my current situation:
In March I was contacted, out of the blue, by another big player in this industry, whose file formats I have never tried to reverse engineer. They were apparently getting requests from customers that their products be compatible with my software. This led to a Teams meeting with a business manager and a couple of tech leads, where we talked about whether I thought it would be possible (yes). After that, they drafted an NDA, which I signed and returned, as a preface to them sending the file format documentation.
At this point, I am not sure what the terms of reference are for this engagement. At its simplest (and probably my original assumption), is that they would just give me their file formats, ask me to include support for their products in my applications, and let me get on with it. Not a big deal, I would certainly do it as it would open up a new potential customer base of people who use this brand of product, and the effort to me would not be that great (once data is imported into my applications, it all gets treated in the same way, so we are talking about adding a fairly thin IO layer to support a new product, and that’s pretty much it).
Three months later, I finally get another meeting invite which they want to have before sending the documents over. This meeting includes a slide show outlining what they want from the (my) product, and it becomes clear that they have spent some time studying my website and software – which might go some way to explaining the long delay between meetings. Needless to say, this feels a little different to my initial understanding (which wasn’t really based on anything), and almost felt like the beginning of a commissioning process – but still we have no terms of reference; the meeting ended fairly swiftly, and files were sent to me so that I could make a more informed decision on whether or not the project is feasible (it is).
Disclaimer: I am not a business person, I am a programmer, and I have somehow managed to muddle through nearly 10 years of running my own business without that ever changing.
So, given that they now seem to want some control over what I produce, my guess (hope?) is that they are either thinking along the lines of commissioning me to produce something directly for them, or that they sell it/we revenue share, or whatever – essentially, some kind of monetary arrangement.
Is it normal in these sorts of situations for the terms of reference to be so vague/undefined/unmentioned in the early stages? A friend of mine who works on the commercial side thinks it isn’t uncommon – project feasibility etc comes first.
If they do want to commission me, how would I price this? The changes I need to make for them might not be that great (perhaps a month’s work), but of course the core product itself is years in the making (this also depends on how many changes they want to the core product, in addition to the IO changes needed to support their products). My initial thoughts are to charge a fixed price, based on estimated hours, for the changes that are required, and then propose a revenue share for sales of the product. This presupposes that they intend to sell the product, and not give it to their customers for free, of course.
It is worth noting that the company in question did have an application of its own that did much of what mine does, albeit not that well. It is old, though, and was not kept updated as Windows versions changed, and as their own products also changed. It was discontinued by them last year. I think they see my product as a way of replacing this.
I’ve probably come across as pretty clueless on the business side of things here, and that is indeed the case. I think what I’m really looking for is a bit of guidance on how to approach this whole situation.
Cut to today, and after launching my product in 2013 I have been living off it (and supporting my family) ever since. Not big bucks by any means, but in a good year a comparable income to contracting, and of course entirely outside of the remit of IR35, work my own hours as required etc - so not bad, overall.
Without going into too much detail on what I sell (and I have a few different offerings now), the guts of it are that all my applications allow users to view, edit and manage data from a certain class of consumer electronic devices. Most of the manufacturers of these devices use proprietary file formats for their data and often guard it quite closely despite, in most cases, not offering a product with capabilities like mine, that would let the consumers actually use this data. I managed to reverse engineer the required file formats for a couple of the bigger players in this space (indeed, I wouldn't have a product if I hadn't), and over time these manufacturers have come to know about (and tolerate) me, without ever going so far as any formal cooperation.
Now to my current situation:
In March I was contacted, out of the blue, by another big player in this industry, whose file formats I have never tried to reverse engineer. They were apparently getting requests from customers that their products be compatible with my software. This led to a Teams meeting with a business manager and a couple of tech leads, where we talked about whether I thought it would be possible (yes). After that, they drafted an NDA, which I signed and returned, as a preface to them sending the file format documentation.
At this point, I am not sure what the terms of reference are for this engagement. At its simplest (and probably my original assumption), is that they would just give me their file formats, ask me to include support for their products in my applications, and let me get on with it. Not a big deal, I would certainly do it as it would open up a new potential customer base of people who use this brand of product, and the effort to me would not be that great (once data is imported into my applications, it all gets treated in the same way, so we are talking about adding a fairly thin IO layer to support a new product, and that’s pretty much it).
Three months later, I finally get another meeting invite which they want to have before sending the documents over. This meeting includes a slide show outlining what they want from the (my) product, and it becomes clear that they have spent some time studying my website and software – which might go some way to explaining the long delay between meetings. Needless to say, this feels a little different to my initial understanding (which wasn’t really based on anything), and almost felt like the beginning of a commissioning process – but still we have no terms of reference; the meeting ended fairly swiftly, and files were sent to me so that I could make a more informed decision on whether or not the project is feasible (it is).
Disclaimer: I am not a business person, I am a programmer, and I have somehow managed to muddle through nearly 10 years of running my own business without that ever changing.
So, given that they now seem to want some control over what I produce, my guess (hope?) is that they are either thinking along the lines of commissioning me to produce something directly for them, or that they sell it/we revenue share, or whatever – essentially, some kind of monetary arrangement.
Is it normal in these sorts of situations for the terms of reference to be so vague/undefined/unmentioned in the early stages? A friend of mine who works on the commercial side thinks it isn’t uncommon – project feasibility etc comes first.
If they do want to commission me, how would I price this? The changes I need to make for them might not be that great (perhaps a month’s work), but of course the core product itself is years in the making (this also depends on how many changes they want to the core product, in addition to the IO changes needed to support their products). My initial thoughts are to charge a fixed price, based on estimated hours, for the changes that are required, and then propose a revenue share for sales of the product. This presupposes that they intend to sell the product, and not give it to their customers for free, of course.
It is worth noting that the company in question did have an application of its own that did much of what mine does, albeit not that well. It is old, though, and was not kept updated as Windows versions changed, and as their own products also changed. It was discontinued by them last year. I think they see my product as a way of replacing this.
I’ve probably come across as pretty clueless on the business side of things here, and that is indeed the case. I think what I’m really looking for is a bit of guidance on how to approach this whole situation.
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