Talk to ten potential customers who you know would like to use the product. Ask them about various ways of paying for it, how much they'd be wiling to pay, and then turn them into your first customers.
Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?
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Re: Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?
#12You need to clearly understand the difference between making money from selling software licenses to your customers vs. having the investors as your primary customers.
In the current market you will hardly find a private player looking for a return on their investment through profits/dividends; they will be more likely trying to cash out when you create enough buzz to get acquired or IPOed. That's a completely different game from the naive "sell licenses - make profit" option, but that's the game private equity plays in 2018. And no, desktop applications are not buzzwordy enough for that game, sorry.
That said, there's plenty of money to be made selling desktop products to businesses. You just need to approach it differently, get the actual product/market fit, grow your presence organically, listen to your customers, learn from your mistakes and so on. Don't get discouraged by bootstrapping - you don't need a fully functional product to see if there is a market for the problem you are solving. Create a minimal prototype, write a few articles showing it off and tune in on the feedback. Once you start hearing from real people trying to solve real problems with your prototype, it will be very easy to find which next features will make your product more usable and will inevitably bring more revenue.
Re: Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?
#13Honestly- just use UWP and sell on windows store. Hacker news is believe it or not, a very niche space with very few employees of big enterprises except the popular ones. You wont get to hear from the regular it worker here
Nobody in a big enterprise can buy from the Windows Store. Better sell license keys from a website.
Re: Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?
#14“Still work”? Was there a time that shareware worked? Serious question.. citations appreciated.
Also it sounds like you are doing enterprise software. Shareware was more of a consumer pricing model. With enterprise you want to make it totally free for small scale grassroots adoption by champions and then monetize large scale adoption.
Re: Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?
#15Honestly- just use UWP and sell on windows store. Hacker news is believe it or not, a very niche space with very few employees of big enterprises except the popular ones. You wont get to hear from the regular it worker here
Why UWP? Who buys from Windows Store? Not my parents. They started computers with buying software in boxes, but in the modern age almost all of their digital purchases are done on smartphones. Neither of them have any idea what Windows Store is. One of them uses Steam for games. Not most power users I know, most of which bawk at UWP apps and the concept of a walled garden store on their desktop computer. Many power u…
Windows Store apps are (relatively) sandboxed, and go through an approval process. For the average user, it is generally safe to let them know they can install anything they want off of it. This isn't true of most other places on the Internet, including some more poorly managed walled gardens. I've done a lot of support for senior citizens, and when they're looking for say, a card game, the Windows Store is fantastic.
I use probably about a dozen Windows Store apps with some regularity, though being in IT and dev, I obviously use a lot of apps outside of it as well. But while I rarely will install a traditional app from a no-name developer for fear it might do bad things to my system, I am pretty willing to try new UWP apps.
That's the key perk for someone just starting out/trying to make a living off small software offerings. The sandboxing offers a stand-in for trustworthiness. And of course, you don't have to stand up your own licensing servers, pay for bandwidth from downloads, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?
#16“Still work”? Was there a time that shareware worked? Serious question.. citations appreciated. Also it sounds like you are doing enterprise software. Shareware was more of a consumer pricing model. With enterprise you want to make it totally free for small scale grassroots adoption by champions and then monetize large scale adoption.
Doom and Quake where sold as Shareware. Also, Ambrosia Software was flush with cash for a while there in the late 90s and early 00s.
Re: Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?
#17Define work
Re: Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?
#18I've built a small tool that I distributed as "free for personal use, contact me for a commercial license", without technical enforcement, not even a nag screen.
I made one (1) sale, despite receiving e-mails from several people thanking me that they're happily using it at work, and that sale was to a company who wanted customization, and only ended up actually paying the invoice when they asked for another round of customization and I pointed out that they haven't paid their last invoice.
Donationware does not work for companies, I think - the bureaucracy required to make money move from the company to you will keep people from doing it even if they think you deserve it. If it is labelled as voluntary instead of a legally required license fee, it will also be hard to make it happen.
If you're targeting companies, and want to do a shareware model, you should:
* Make it easy to buy (with credit card etc.), but also provide a contact for volume licensing. If you're lucky, this allows employees to pay you for your software without having to go through approvals.
* Make it hard to use permanently without buying (beyond just a nag screen, e.g. blocking the save feature once an expiration time is reached)
Your goal isn't to convince someone to pay for the software. Your goal is to convince the person sitting in front of the computer that dealing with the bureaucracy to pay you is easier than not dealing with it, and if given the choice between a nag screen and the bureaucracy, the nag screen is easier to deal with.
Re: Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?
#19“Still work”? Was there a time that shareware worked? Serious question.. citations appreciated. Also it sounds like you are doing enterprise software. Shareware was more of a consumer pricing model. With enterprise you want to make it totally free for small scale grassroots adoption by champions and then monetize large scale adoption.
Both Carmacks had themselves each a Ferrari before they put out Doom. “Commander Keen” bought those Ferraris.
Though I'm sure it was always a game of chance like everywhere in business.
Re: Ask HN: Does Shareware still work in 2018?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why UWP? Who buys from Windows Store? Not my parents. They started computers with buying software in boxes, but in the modern age almost all of their digital purchases are done on smartphones. Neither of them have any idea what Windows Store is. One of them uses Steam for games. Not most power users I know, most of which bawk at UWP apps and the concept of a walled garden store on their desktop computer. Many power u…
Windows Store apps are (relatively) sandboxed, and go through an approval process. For the average user, it is generally safe to let them know they can install anything they want off of it. This isn't true of most other places on the Internet, including some more poorly managed walled gardens. I've done a lot of support for senior citizens, and when they're looking for say, a card game, the Windows Store is fantastic…
Sandboxing is a useful property, but do Desktop Bridge apps even get sandboxing? If not it calls the whole thing into question. Android has an app store with mandatory sandboxing and you can't always trust it, even Apple with probably the most strict rules and review process have had some incidents.
I would like sandboxing in general, but as a feature of Windows Store it's definitely not enough to win me personally over.
I still remain unconvinced of the prominence of Windows Store and if I were to sell an app today I would guess mobile is the way to go followed by probably Steam or Mac App Store.
Sidenote: it feels like you're more likely to get annoying ad supported software from app stores too. Even the built-in solitaire is ad-ridden!