Working in 'partnership' with a client

[tv_kid]

Hi all

I have been approached by a client to develop something else for them (albeit more complicated than the first project). They have suggested that the solution has the potential to be sold to others in their industry (although it is a fairly small niche market I would imagine, with a potential customer base in the hundreds rather than thousands). I was happy to take the discussions further, but recently they've said that my ball park estimate is fine, particularly as we'll be going into this as a partnership, and sharing the costs.

Now I'm all for earning some extra cash out of a soution with minimal extra work, but am unsure how to approach the negotiations. How much of a discount should I give them off the finished price of the solution, and will they expect me to contribute to other costs involved with marketing it etc?

I doubt anyone can give me a specific answers to these questions without more info, but I thought I would pick your collective brains to see what collective experience of this situation is available.

I've already taken a look at this topic: Link

Thanks in advance

[mav]

Partnerships of this type are about risk management . . .

You need to find the right balance for YOU between hours you put in, and how many copies THEY will sell.

It's one thing to develop great software, it an other thing entirely to sell a vertical market solution.

Have a look at 'To Market' by Brian Dunning.

You mentioned this would be 'minimal extra work' - I was once quoted by my FileMaker rep to expect to do 5x the work, to take an in-house solution to market, which he now quotes 10x . . .

Mav.

PS: My FileMaker rep is now right on what he quotes !

[tv_kid]

Thanks Mav

I'll take a look at Brian Dunning's book.

I hadn't really given a lot of thought to the 'extra work' that will be needed to turn the solution into something that can be readily distributed, guess I need to look into that some more.

Cheers