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

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

#32

Post by bcRIPster »

EvanMiller wrote: post #19
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.

I think you're presuming too much. As long as your code is documented and you're willing to release all potential IP claims as part of the sale I can imagine there would be someone interested in buying this straight out. You might even be able to sell them some kind of limited support/consultation agreement where you don't do code but can answer questions for a fixed period of time. It's not like you're doing some kind of business exit strategy. You're just selling off an asset from your portfolio.

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

#33

Post by gsands »

I would fix it up.

You get 3 benefits:

1. Continued income from it (people aren't going to continue to buy it if the bad reviews keep coming in).

2. You keep/improve your reputation. If your software isn't working well for any reason at all, it can give a bad reputation to the person/company attached.

3. You increase the chances of a good buy-out in the future, over what it would currently bring now.

We all know it can be difficult to get traction on a project, not to mention paying users. You already have proved this one can get both.

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

#34

Post by tacostakohashi »

EvanMiller wrote: post #27
glasses wrote: post #21

What about letting someone take over the project but you get to keep a share of the profits for guidance and advice (30% or so). It benefits both parties, you know what features the project needs to implement and what direction it needs to take to make more money, while the new owner/developer gets ramped up. You guys can even agree to a one year period of help and then separate, but at least the project keeps runnin…

I like the idea, but it seems a bit risky and would require a lot of trust. I'd be open to this with someone I trusted, but I don't want someone to take the software as passive income and ride it down without fixing bugs etc.

Also, no sane person is going to sign up for doing 100% of the future work for less than 100% of future revenues.

I also have a very marginal side business I want to dispose of (about the same revenue). The best model I could come up with was that I would be willing to sell it for, say, 100% of the next years revenue, 50% of the next two years revenue, etc. That way, the buyer doesn't risk paying too much (since the price is tied to revenue), and the seller is incentivized to do a reasonable handover, take care of teething issues, etc, but the buyer will also try hard to take things over completely for when the seller is no longer around.

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

#35

Post by EvanMiller »

eric_bullington wrote: post #20
EvanMiller wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Bugs (including, but not limited to Yosemite) and some significant UX issues. One marketing problem I have is that although it's better designed than the competition, in practice it's not quite as intuitive as it looks. I characterized a "revolt", but in reality there are two camps of users:

* People who come from traditional GIS, who love it (except for the bugs). These are the revolters.

* People who come from MapPoint, who think they're going to love it but find some things confusing and give up. These people were always discontented with the software at some level.

The frustration from the latter group stems a few unintuitive workflows in the software (e.g. how data gets imported and linked), some of which are due to design flaws in the data model IMHO. So although the software looks good in screenshots, and many people get a lot of value out of it, Magic Maps needs some work beyond basic bug-fixing to be a "5-star app" that pleases everyone.

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

#38

Post by keville »

ErikRogneby wrote: post #36

This just showed up on HN: http://sideprojects.assembly.com/ Crowd source further development and continue to participate in revenue and product direction.

This project does sound like it would be a good match for Assembly's platform. Good eye!

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

#39

Post by EvanMiller »

gsands wrote: post #33

I would fix it up. You get 3 benefits: 1. Continued income from it (people aren't going to continue to buy it if the bad reviews keep coming in). 2. You keep/improve your reputation. If your software isn't working well for any reason at all, it can give a bad reputation to the person/company attached. 3. You increase the chances of a good buy-out in the future, over what it would currently bring now. We all know it c…

Thanks for advice. The main issue is that I have better traction/reviews/revenue on another app, and the work required to get #2 and #3 on your list would seriously detract from the attention I could give to that other app.

There have been a few times where I've followed that exact logic to fix it up, spent a weekend or two on it, and gotten pulled away again. The software has reached a size where it's hard (mentally) to switch back and forth between it and my other app.

The other issue is that now that I have more experience doing Mac development, I'm starting to see that it's not a simple matter of bug-fixing. Some significant development would be needed to bring it up to the same level of polish as my other app, and in the meantime I'm concerned it's detracting from my App Store reputation.

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