Reply to: Pricing up a Piece of Software

[tomtomagain]

Some great links there TomTom, much obliged.

No problem. My last piece of advice is that, if you are a coder, absolutely the worst thing you can do is just start programming the app/web site without talking to potential customers.

That's a bit you can do! The bit you don't know you can do is market, sell and support it!

[Malcolm Buggeridge]

Welcome to the world of the MicroISV

Marketing for Geeks

Starting a microISV | Successful Software

If you are serious then I would recommend creating a one-page mock up, printing it out and going and talking to half a dozen hotel managers ( or whomever holds the budget of your target market )

Most people will give you 10 minutes of their time ... if you ask politely enough.

Some great links there TomTom, much obliged.

[tomtomagain]

Welcome to the world of the MicroISV

Marketing for Geeks

Starting a microISV | Successful Software

If you are serious then I would recommend creating a one-page mock up, printing it out and going and talking to half a dozen hotel managers ( or whomever holds the budget of your target market )

Most people will give you 10 minutes of their time ... if you ask politely enough.

[Malcolm Buggeridge]

Is it something to do with chocolate, also involving 3D printers maybe?

Hi Malc, this sounds intriguing!

Is it anything to do with railways? I once found a publicly available app that displayed a map and purported to show the position of every moving train on the GB network in real time. Except that it only seemed to cover London Midland and the West Coast lines, and the lines were poorly overlaid onto the map.

If you have come up with a new improved version of that, I'd buy it. It would be like a massive train set.

No, it's a piece of software for hotels, B&Bs etc.

That's my target market - the problem is how to punt the product to that market.

Some thoughts:

Get the interest of a big chain (which would potentially mean big bucks) - that would mean getting my foot in the door somewhere and somehow.

Email campaign - there's probably a list of businesses in the sector that can be obtained at a price

Trade publications, fairs etc

Website - with good SEO, who knows?

[vetran]

I recommend : http://downloads.businessofsoftware....ollthedice.pdf

which I used when I created my "Plan B"

BTW Development of an idea is only about 5% of the required effort to launch a successful software product.

If you want to create a viable product that is more than just a hobby then you need to learn to market and sell.

Excellent thanks, have shared as well. Some heroes comments in that mix Neil Davidson - Redgate & Joel Sparsky - Fogbugz.

[tomtomagain]

I recommend : http://downloads.businessofsoftware....ollthedice.pdf

which I used when I created my "Plan B"

BTW Development of an idea is only about 5% of the required effort to launch a successful software product.

If you want to create a viable product that is more than just a hobby then you need to learn to market and sell.

[Doggy Styles]

From Googling, it doesn't look like it is.

I saw something similar in Belgium once which gave me the idea

Hi Malc, this sounds intriguing!

Is it anything to do with railways? I once found a publicly available app that displayed a map and purported to show the position of every moving train on the GB network in real time. Except that it only seemed to cover London Midland and the West Coast lines, and the lines were poorly overlaid onto the map.

If you have come up with a new improved version of that, I'd buy it. It would be like a massive train set.

[doodab]

I saw something similar in Belgium once which gave me the idea

There is enough waffle in the IT industry already

[OwlHoot]

From Googling, it doesn't look like it is.

I saw something similar in Belgium once which gave me the idea

Is it something to do with chocolate, also involving 3D printers maybe?

[oracleslave]

From Googling, it doesn't look like it is.

Have you tried searching using SKA just to be sure?

[Malcolm Buggeridge]

First thing to do is to check whether it already exists.

From Googling, it doesn't look like it is.

I saw something similar in Belgium once which gave me the idea

[Sysman]

It can be better if it already exists as then the use case is already proven. Lots of software is crap, so coming up with a better version of an existing product isn't necessarily bad.

The good thing about software is you can pretty much create it with zero cost - i.e. you bashing away in your bedroom. Which makes anything you make profit, but obviously you need to factor in your time and lost earnings. I would say if it's something for business, you're probably better off with the high price / low volume approach as then you can go out and sell it, and you perhaps only need one client on the hook and you're started. If you want to reach a mass market, you're going to have to think about marketing.

It depends on the target market. When I looked at releasing something back in the nineties I came up with a price of 5-10 quid, that being the level at which I would buy useful little utilities myself without blinking. This stuff was developed during boring evenings away on contract and at weekends, so the costs were minimal.

[NotAllThere]

If you bash away in your bedroom too much, surely that's going to distract your from doing any actual work on your wonderful idea.

[VectraMan]

First thing to do is to check whether it already exists.

It can be better if it already exists as then the use case is already proven. Lots of software is crap, so coming up with a better version of an existing product isn't necessarily bad.

The good thing about software is you can pretty much create it with zero cost - i.e. you bashing away in your bedroom. Which makes anything you make profit, but obviously you need to factor in your time and lost earnings. I would say if it's something for business, you're probably better off with the high price / low volume approach as then you can go out and sell it, and you perhaps only need one client on the hook and you're started. If you want to reach a mass market, you're going to have to think about marketing.

[NotAllThere]

I develop niche products. The list price is my usual daily rate x how long it took me to develop for smaller companies, 2.5x that for larger companies with more than a certain number of employees. The actual price varies considerably. I also sell yearly support licences which allow the customers to keep using the products and entitle them to updates. That's at a percentage of the price the product was sold for.