advice needed

[Whatsit]

Hi

I have spent most of my career self employed in a niche business and wrote a solution to cover my needs...........I now find my associates (running identical niche businesses) are interested in my solution ?!*

Like myself, most of my associates do not have a large budget

So.....what is the best way to deal with this potential new career.

Should I purchase developer and create runtime solutions ?

What is the best way to sell this solution ?

eg one off fee

licenced with expiry dates :??

all comments bad or good will be welcome

thanks

marcia

[kenneth2k1]

Hi:

I think that would depend. Runtimes are a good way to go if your solution does not have to be networked (in other words, it's single-user). This way, they don't have to go out and buy FileMaker along with your solution.

Your fee structure is also dependent on other factors. How customized is this solution? How much development time have you put into it? Will the solution need to be updated? Either way, I would suggest selling on a license basis.

[Whatsit]

Hi

Thanks for prompt response. Development took a long while as I am a newbie, it was tenacity and support from forums that got me there.

Originally I did my solution because I could not find an existing low cost solution, could not afford the existing big boys solution and so purchased filemaker (i'm a mac user) and set about trying to write my own solution.

My Unique selling point appears to be my experience in my day job - now transferred into my solution - rather than my database skills (lol - or lack of them)

[Vaughan]

Some of the challenges with taking the step from a "personal solution" to a "commercial product" are:

Support -- helping people install, learn and use the system: do you offer 9-5 week day service?

Customisation -- it perfectly suits your needs, but will it need work suit the range of needs of others? Can they change it themselves or will you offer the service?

Updates -- tax laws, operating systems, personal taste and user expectations all change over time. Who will update the system? How easy will it be to update each user's installation? (BTW This is not a trivial matter in terms of importance to the customer, or the amount of effort required by the developer.)

I'd personally start by getting some beta test sites up and running (tell them that can have it for free) and see what you've got to do to make them happy.

[Whatsit]

beta tests ? is that just a case of getting people to test it or is there an official testing body ?

[Vaughan]

Getting people to test it in real-life situations. Ideally real customers, not just family and friends.

[stanley]

Whatsit:

Testing is a must. When I'm nearly finished with a solution, I put it on a network here, order some pizzas and get a bunch of guys together to play networked Myth, then tell them that first they've got to spend an hour playing at being whatever factory/office the solution is designed for. They push every button, do every stupid thing they can think of, write it all down, and I end up with another week's worth of work, making the whole thing more idiot-proof and more flexible.

-Stanley

[Whatsit]

Thanks for all that ......... How do you deal with charging for tech support once you have installed a working solution ?

[BrentHedden]

What Stanley has mentioned is right on! I was once told that to have the solution as idiot proofed as possible is to have a drunk person give it a test run at 3 in the morning. Usually, if anything was to go wrong, it will. Of course, trying to get that person to remember everything afterwords might be another problem.

Another thing that I've found - have the most computer-idiotic person you can find give it a go with minimal instructions. This will find out how easy/hard the software is to run.

[eve]

Sorry to just jump in like this but I saw this msg and just had to add something...documentation...even the most self explanatory app seems to need documentation for sone potential customers.

I say this because I have one customer who refuses to use an app we wrote (web not Filemaker) because we had not written a handbook on how and when to click one of the three buttons that make the whole thing work (3 buttons is the total there is: 1=editthispage, 1=add a pdf, 1=send changes).

cheers

eve

[transpower]

Tech Support:

1. For commercial software: should be free (at least for some period of time)

2. For custom software, should be free by phone, regular programming charge if on-site or modeming in

[Ocean West]

I recommend this resource "To Market" by Brian Dunning...

http://www.briandunning.com/tomarket/

[CSD2005]

What is it

[Howard LeCanard]

Another important thing to look into is who owns the software. If this is something you developed on your employer's time, it's not yours to sell. It belongs to your employer.

Even if you developed it at home in the evenings, but your employer has been using it for a while, I can guarantee you that the employer considers it to be his/hers. You could potentially get yourself in a lot of trouble trying to sell this.

Even if you rebuild it from scratch on your own time, and give it an entirely different look and feel, and partially different functionality, your employer will probably consider it to be his/hers.

Employers get very testy about custom software. They consider it to be a huge asset to the company, with a large part of their proprietary business logic built in.

As much of a frustration (and most likely an injustice) as it may be. You need to go talk to your employer first. Explain your situation, and ask permission to do this. Maybe even offer a piece of the action.

All your instincts will tell you that this shouldn't be necessary. But even if you are legally in the right, there are a lot of people in the right who have applied for bankruptcy due to legal fees.

[JamesL]

Thanks to Howard for his interesting and important advice.

In my job over the last 15 years, combining my knowledge and experience in my profession with learning and practicing Filemaker, I conceived, developed and adapted the solutions needed in the company I work for. Almost all of the reflection and setup was done by me at home, and in my own time (FM2 to FM Pro 5.5).

Now I have deceided to leave that company, and I'm looking for another company in the same branch. As soon as my contract with the old company is finished, I will rebuild my solutions from scratch in FMP 7, giving it an entirely different look and feel, as well as partially different functionality, and adding many useful fields, layouts, etc.

All this I will be doing because I love to work with Filemaker, I love my profession, and of course I would like to seduce a future company in the same old branch with my solutions, and, if necessary, advise and incite that company to have their database-system converted to Filemaker Pro 7.

Now my question is: After having left the old company, can I freely dispose of my rebuilt and newly adapted and extended Filemaker 7 solutions ?

[stanley]

Sandor:

That's a tough one. I think the key word in there is "almost", when you say that almost all the work was done in your own time. The problem is that (I assume) some of the time was company time, and there is no way to differentiate between the two. If you rewrote the whole thing in 7 on your own time, then you've got what amounts to a different product altogether - in a sense, you've taken the lessons learned at your old job, adapted them for a new marketplace, and can then profit from your actions without legal or moral worry.

Having said that, your best bet is to check with a lawyer.

-Stanley

[Howard LeCanard]

Sandor,

Common sense says that this is your solution to sell as you please. But once your old boss hears about you trying to sell a similar system around town, he will assume that you have "stolen his software". I speak from experience.

I wouldn't want to tell you what to do at this point, but here's what I did. After I left that employer, I developed a brand new and improved system for them, as a consultant; I told them I was doing it because the system they had was outdated, and not locked down as much as it should be for users who are not developers (and this was the truth). I also told them how I appreciated the knowledge I had acquired, while working for them, and would as a result, bill them at a discounted rate from my usual fees (but if I'd had to, I would have done it for free).

I specified in the terms and conditions that all they owned was a license to use the files, but the files were mine (standard software license agreement). Then I was free to distribute the files that they had agreed were mine.

Another advantage of this approach is that I got a free beta-tester. They started using the solution, they let me know what the problems were, and I fixed them. A couple months down the road, I had a pretty tight solution to market, and a piece of paper that said it belonged to me.

This may sound like I "conned" them. But I really was giving them a much better system at a very good price. They got that in return for my retaining ownership, and a few bucks. I made absolutely sure that they understood all the terms and conditions of my proposal. To this day, this company is one of my biggest clients. Whenever they have anything data-related, they automatically call me.

Warning: Maintaining "ownership of the code" can change the way you charge sales tax, as opposed to building a custom system. Do your homework!

[Lee Smith]

Hi Sandor,

I started to respond to this earlier, and got interrupted. By the time I got back to it, you had a received a couple of good responses saying about the same things that I was about to say.

IMHO, the old solution belongs to your former employer, and the new one belongs to you. Proving that you own the new solution will probably come down to the GUI, but it sounds like you have it covered.

An employee seldom has any rights to things they produce on the job. The burden of proof is on the employee in these cases. 20/20 hindsight here, but it is best to cover these things in a contact, either before starting the development, or early on. In any case, before there is any solution to use. Without a contract, you would need to be able to prove that their was some kind of agreement as to the ownership of the files. Not easy to do without a paper trail. BTW, this would be as good as time as any to document the proccess you went thought in developing at least the newest solutions.

Bottom line Sandor, you might have a claim for working overtime for this "Home Work", however the company didn't forfeit their ownership rights because choose to do it there. Besides, I'm betting you volunteered to develop the old solution as a means of making "your old" job easier, faster, more accurate, or in some way better. In addition, they did provide time for you to work on the files on the job.

I like Howard's approach of marking to the former employer the first customer.

BTW, if you have any doubts about your legal rights, you should be consulting a good Copyright Attorney.

HTH

Lee

[JamesL]

Stanley, Howard, and Lee, thank you so much.

I will surely make good use and take advantage of your wise advice and constructive ideas.

I fully agree with Lee: I also like very much Howard's approach of making the former employer the first customer.