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Just curious, who among us gone down this track.
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I sold a software package I wrote for quite a few years. It's still for sale on the interwbs, but I haven't really marketed it recently. One of these days I'll probably update it and actively try selling it again. Or maybe not.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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"Comfort Computing" - I like it, the original intention of computing power/automation is to relieve human from doing the grunge work. Today's interpretation is exactly the opposite - "Always connected" (so cliche...)
Anyway, as a developer, what is the "minimum expected return" for you to embark on such adventure? The experience aside, would you say, the business should at least generate enough cash (*profit*, after tax and all other cost) to buy a decent house? If not in prime location but at least USD 300k? For small packages USD 1k per license, you need 300 subscribers for that - which should already generated enough work load that you'd probably need at least 3-5 developers on your payroll, depending on how "hand free" your app is.
Sorry personally I think if money is sh*t there's no point, you might as well go Open Source
dev
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Actually it's Comport, with a p, not an f.
The way I got into software sales was indirect. I wrote some software to do some engineering evaluations and when I started using it in my consulting people wanted to know where I got it and if it was for sale. So I sold a few copies and decided I didn't want to be in the software sales and support business, so I found an organization that sold it for me. After a nice run, they decided not to sell software, so I put it up on the internet and sell a few copies here and there.
I would never have written the software solely for sales - I don't have the stomach for sales, marketing and dealing with inconveniences like lusers. I now write software primarily for my own use. I sell it in support of courses I teach and to people who may want to buy. If I never sell another copy, that's OK, since my income generation is from engineering consulting. By using my own software, I save myself (and my clients) time and software license fees - somewhere around $100,000 per year for licenses alone.
I have software that can pretty much replace all of the major petroleum engineering integrated systems. Once I finish my PhD and get back to consulting full time again, I'll likely find a partner or employee and put some effort back into marketing it again. Note that marketing may be more in support of clients, rather than sales on the open market. Sort of like: "Use this software to save us both time and money when I do your evaluations for you. The software is free. The evaluations you pay for."
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Walt Fair, Jr. wrote: Actually it's Comport, with a p, not an f.
Apoligies
Walt Fair, Jr. wrote: I wrote some software to do some engineering evaluations ...By using my own software, I save myself (and my clients) time and software license fees - somewhere around $100,000 per year for licenses alone.
Reminds me recent gold rush everybody writing *social* or *mobile* apps which has no *staying* power in comparison to real software which actually does things for you.
Good stuff and all the best!
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I started with my current company 14 years ago when I was still a junior in college and was the first developer hired. Now we are down to two, with an even $plit, and work from home mostly. I handle all the development and most of the support. It's been a decent living, and getting better every year. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Congrats to that my Lord.
I think the world has a very distorted view for what "Professional" means. Software developers are not professionals if we look at money they make and how much they need to know (well, at least for most outside investment sector or Silicon Valley, which requires very special skill or connection) - do your own gig is pretty much how you can get even.
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(Raises hand.)
Started it in 1997 but now it's strictly a side business on which I don't rely on for income (although it still generates it).
/ravi
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Weeellllll
Back in about 1984 I wrote PooperPig for the BBC Micro - and sold it via CEEFAX in the UK...
I am now writing PooperPig [^]for the iPhone...
30 years!!
(I've done other sh*t in between, obviously, even the tremendous sales of the original didn't generate income enough to buy a case of beer. Though it was in the Ceefax charts!)
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I did - and such was the epic nature of the fail, was lucky not to loose my actual house. That was over 10 years ago, and one day I'll try again.
Ger
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One question Ger - any chance you can start writing on the weekend's, take it slow, say 5 years. At the end of that sell it without having to quit your day job and sell your house (worst in a down market)
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That's what I did, but with my consultancy I was able to earn enough to hire someone. I took on a partner etc and more hiring got done, but the misunderstandings were never addressed, what I was producing, what the partner thought I was producing and what the customers thought they werebuying simply didn't match up. Seems silly now but it was all happening much too quickly and I didn't have the management instinct to recognise what should have been obvious.
This time around lessons have been learned, this time there's no partner, the only investment is time (all praise the MS Express products) and the time frame has been seven years to date - the original plan was 5 years, but I took time out to do other things, and this time its being got right before it sees the light of day. I am also targeting the product on a business I know from a practical perspective.
Ger
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Ger Hayden wrote: ...the misunderstandings were never addressed, what I was producing, what the partner thought I was producing and what the customers thought they werebuying simply didn't match up...;
That's nightmare Ger.
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I'm not there yet but that's the road I'm on. I'm contracting and working like a crazy hamster in between on my own stuff. Eventually I will enough of a code base to support saleable product and can give up even the contracting. That's if I don't get elected first. It's almost like having a plan A and a backup which would be far to organised for me.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage."
Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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how many years you been doing this? Doing it on the weekends is very draining and takes much longer but unless you're willing to actually quit your day job which is much more risky...
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I've been at it for 10 years give or take a few weeks. I take the view that it's all learning and it makes me better at my paid job. I've given up several paid jobs although never intentionally to write code I've sometimes ended up doing that anyway. Usually I take a 'career break' to stand for election but there's always a gap afterwards before I get back into paid work when a lot of code gets written. It is surely a slooow process but I guess that partly depends on what you want to do. If you want to write iPhone apps using all the latest off the shelf tooling then that's going to be a relatively short cycle. If on the other hand you want to rewrite the foundations of open source software, bridge the gap between Linux and Windows, make Aspect Oriented design part of the main stream and save the world from neofuedalist tyrany on the weekend then it takes a little longer
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage."
Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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