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Ask HN: Making a living selling software components, not SaaS?

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Re: Ask HN: Making a living selling software components, not SaaS?

#41

Post by taphangum »

pytrin wrote: post #7

I'm one of the co-founders at Binpress ( http://www.binpress.com ), which is marketplace for commercial open-source projects. Unlike Codecanyon, which someone else mentioned in this thread, our focus is on professional development and components that are more than simple scripts. Cocoacontrols ( https://www.cocoacontrols.com/ ) is another good example, with some of their commercial components doing very well. We have…

Logged in to say this.

As someone who has sold components on Binpress for the past year, and built a successful business (that i have recently sold) with the help of sales generated through their platform. I can vouch for these guys 100%. They are the best in the market for selling code/components. They have the best UI and by FAR the best support. Eran especially who really tries hard to make sure your components are presented well. This is great, especially for developers who do not necessarily know how best to present their work.

I've used a bunch of their competitors and i recommend them too, but if i was told to choose just one place to sell your code. Binpress would be it.

Re: Ask HN: Making a living selling software components, not SaaS?

#42

Post by edragoev »

We made some decent money with our library however since we live in very expensive area I do some consulting as well.

If you are single and live in not so expensive place making software components could be a viable business. Just chose something that will not become obsolete in 2 or 3 years.

We are in the PDF space that is quite crowded but still much better than Flash (for example) that is becoming less and less relevant.

If I had to start today I would probably look for some security related stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Making a living selling software components, not SaaS?

#44

Post by 23andwalnut »

rachelandrew wrote: post #19
23andwalnut wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also sell a downloadable self hosted app that targets developers (www.duetapp.com). I would love to hear about how you market Perch. My app has been growing pretty well since it was launched 5 months ago, but it's not yet profitable enough to replace my client work. I'm in the 50/50 place you described and it's....challenging...

5 months isn't a long time after launch for this sort of thing, it really took us most of 4 years to replace our consultancy (there are two of us, a husband and wife team). The thing that works well for us is what people call "content marketing" these days. If you can write interesting articles and blog posts for your own blog and also for other sites, that appeal to your audience then it is likely that people will c…

I've just started content marketing, so hopefully that will start to have an effect soon. Bootstrapped.fm looks awesome. Thanks for the suggestion :)

Re: Ask HN: Making a living selling software components, not SaaS?

#45

Post by 23andwalnut »

noir_lord wrote: post #24
23andwalnut wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also sell a downloadable self hosted app that targets developers (www.duetapp.com). I would love to hear about how you market Perch. My app has been growing pretty well since it was launched 5 months ago, but it's not yet profitable enough to replace my client work. I'm in the 50/50 place you described and it's....challenging...

Slightly off-topic but kudos on that landing page. Very cleanly done.

Thanks! It only took me a day so it still has some rough edges, but I hope to iron them out soon.

Re: Ask HN: Making a living selling software components, not SaaS?

#46

Post by cpeterso »

mjn wrote: post #8

One angle is selling plugins to popular creative software. Not quite "the old way", since they are standardized components and sold somewhat more like apps are, but it's a way of selling software components. Photoshop plugins, VST plugins for audio applications, and plugins for the Unity game engine are three fairly active markets I know of. Another strategy, though from what I can tell with declining popularity, is…

MAD, the Mars Audio Decoder, is an MP3 decoder library that is available as GPL or commercial license. Macromedia licensed MAD for the Flash Player (where it's still used today).

http://www.underbit.com/products/mad/

Re: Ask HN: Making a living selling software components, not SaaS?

#47

Post by SyneRyder »

mjn wrote: post #8

One angle is selling plugins to popular creative software. Not quite "the old way", since they are standardized components and sold somewhat more like apps are, but it's a way of selling software components. Photoshop plugins, VST plugins for audio applications, and plugins for the Unity game engine are three fairly active markets I know of. Another strategy, though from what I can tell with declining popularity, is…

I wouldn't recommend making Photoshop Plugins to anyone now, unless you have some absolutely killer must-have algorithm (in which case, you'd probably still make more money by licensing it to Adobe / Google etc). That ship has largely sailed, its heyday was around 2007 or so. But if you executed well, there was definitely money to be made at the peak. (Literally, the peak of the Crossing The Chasm bell-curve.)

(Disclosure, I've been writing/selling Photoshop plugins for over a decade - but I'm mostly working on other projects nowadays.)

Re: Ask HN: Making a living selling software components, not SaaS?

#48

Post by pknerd »

quaffapint wrote: post #30

I've been selling a php self-hosted ad server, mySimpleAds, at http://wwww.clippersoft.net for years, which makes some side money. I recently launched a SaaS version at http://mysimpleads.com . For the little bit the SaaS has been up, people still seem to like the self-hosted version. So, I guess it really depends upon the product and your target customer. There's some things that some people just prefer to host on t…

How does it compete with OpenX? Why did you chose this product?

Re: Ask HN: Making a living selling software components, not SaaS?

#49

Post by quaffapint »

pknerd wrote: post #48
quaffapint wrote: post #30

I've been selling a php self-hosted ad server, mySimpleAds, at http://wwww.clippersoft.net for years, which makes some side money. I recently launched a SaaS version at http://mysimpleads.com . For the little bit the SaaS has been up, people still seem to like the self-hosted version. So, I guess it really depends upon the product and your target customer. There's some things that some people just prefer to host on t…

How does it compete with OpenX? Why did you chose this product?

I've had many people coming from OpenX that found OpenX too cumbersome, slow, and/or confusing. So, it's a different customer base - they don't need the millions of bells and whistles, just want some quick and simple to use.

I chose it because people in a forum I was a member of were asking for such a thing and thus I was presented an opportunity.

Re: Ask HN: Making a living selling software components, not SaaS?

#50

Post by vldx »

23andwalnut wrote: post #45
noir_lord wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly off-topic but kudos on that landing page. Very cleanly done.

Thanks! It only took me a day so it still has some rough edges, but I hope to iron them out soon.

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