Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app?

#11

Post by EvanMiller » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 7:32 PM UTC

nthState wrote: post #8

Many of us would love an app that was making $10k a year. That's a lot of money, can you do without it? If it was me, my financial situation may be different, but, I'd drag myself up by the scruff of my neck and set aside some time to fix it......$10k a year!

You're right, it's a fair amount of money, and I'm lucky to have this problem. Right now I'm doing everything I can to focus on another app. I'm trying to give that app 100% of my time and attention, even if I could be making more money in the short term doing something else.

I personally find it difficult to work on multiple large software projects at the same time. There's just so much I can keep in my head at once. If it were a few thousand lines of code, maybe, but Magic Maps weighs in around 35 kLoC, and the other one is pushing 100 kLoC. It takes a fair amount of mental bandwidth to dig into deep bugs, and I'd like to save that bandwidth for my other app.

Re: Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app?

#12

Post by thelollies » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 7:33 PM UTC

Just saw this on the front page, seems like a good option (get others to work with you and share the profit): http://sideprojects.assembly.com/

Re: Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app?

#13

Post by harisamin » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 7:35 PM UTC

i just recently launched my first mac app http://mackernews.com $10K/year sounds great. Ideally I’d like to get to that stage. Are there a lot of crashes that you’d like to fix or mostly Yosemite style UI updates or both? I would be interested in collaborating/contracting

Re: Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app?

#14

Post by harisamin » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 7:37 PM UTC

I’d be interested in collboarating/contracting if I could help. I just launched my first mac app http://mackernews.com You should also checkout http://sideprojects.assembly.com/

Re: Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app?

#15

Post by EvanMiller » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 7:39 PM UTC

echoless wrote: post #10

I think there's another option. You could hire a freelancer and have him/her fix the bugs and get it working on Yosemite. Depending on the complexity of the code, this may or may not be feasible.

Thanks for the suggestion. The code is somewhat complex, though I've tried to isolate the really hairy parts in separate libraries (e.g. OpenCL code). I'm really not sure what the ramp-up time would be, and whether it'd be too much. Where would you look for a Mac freelancer?

For the record the Yosemite issues are the most glaring ones, but there are deeper crashes and bugs (think "mysterious Core Data error") that have eluded me.

Re: Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app?

#16

Post by EvanMiller » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 7:41 PM UTC

harisamin wrote: post #14

I’d be interested in collboarating/contracting if I could help. I just launched my first mac app http://mackernews.com You should also checkout http://sideprojects.assembly.com/

Very cool. Let's talk over email. Home page is in my HN profile, email is on my home page.

Re: Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app?

#17

Post by EvanMiller » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 7:42 PM UTC

thelollies wrote: post #12

Just saw this on the front page, seems like a good option (get others to work with you and share the profit): http://sideprojects.assembly.com/

Looks interesting, I will take a look. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app?

#18

Post by sbarker » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 7:42 PM UTC

Sell it. Get ahold of esri or partnersoft both have iOS apps yet lack Mac support unless you run a VM. It maybe a harder sell as most of the industries that use GIS data (power, telco, gov) use windows. Your are in a premo spot though because Partner and esri are both pushing iOS for outside guys/field workers quite a bit right now even if it's only a bullet point for them it could be a nice pay out for you.

Re: Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app?

#19

Post by EvanMiller » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 7:44 PM UTC

opless wrote: post #2

I'd consider selling it. I'm sure there's a 100lb GIS gorilla that would snap you up. Have you tried waving it at them. I'm afraid the only one I know is MapInfo who I'm sure got bought out by Pitney Bowes back around 2005?

Thanks. To sell to a larger company I think I'd need to build a small company first with at least a handful of employees. I'm trying to step away from this code if I can to focus on another app, and generally large companies only want to buy software that come with personnel.

Re: Ask HN: Sell, open-source, or abandon a $10k/year Mac app?

#20

Post by eric_bullington » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 7:46 PM UTC

EvanMiller wrote: post #9

eric_bullington wrote: post #6

It looks like a really cool project that you've already done a lot with, but also with a lot of potential. Are there many active competitors? Is it written in all Objective C?

Thanks. The only Mac-only competition I know of is Cartographica, which is $500 vs $40 for Magic Maps. It's mostly Objective-C. The core map-projection library is C and OpenCL, which I had a lot of fun with! I open-sourced that library (ProjCL) a while back: https://github.com/evanmiller/ProjCL

What are most customers revolting about? Problems with the Yosemite? They want it on another platform, like web or iOS?

It's a real elegant looking app, better visual design than your competitor in my opinion (although I'm sure lots of work has gone into that app, as well).