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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?

#41

Post by EvanMiller »

echoless wrote: post #22
EvanMiller wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

> Where would you look for a Mac freelancer? Odesk and Elance. Only hire people who've worked on multiple projects and have high ratings. There are plenty of talented people out there. > For the record the Yosemite issues are the most glaring ones. I commiserate. Apple's arbitrary decisions on what APIs are deprecated in newer versions must be really frustrating for developers. One of many reasons I shy away from cre…

Yeah, and it's not just APIs. Some of the changes are much more subtle, e.g. how often a particular event fires. If you're not careful these can destroy performance in baffling ways.

If you make an effort to stay on top of all the latest OS releases, life is great, but it's frustrating when you're trying to remain backwards compatible and figure out what the heck is going wrong on the new OS.

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

#43

Post by EvanMiller »

I received an interesting reply over email which I wanted to share here. With the author's permission I've reproduced it below but blanked out some details:

> I (or we as a company) faced pretty similar situation just a few weeks ago.

> The app is called ______, and it was our first app ever, our child - app that constituted our company brand and still is pretty useful for many small business owners (_______ is an invoicing app, making something like $20k/year on our domestic market).

> Unfortunately(?) business is business, so finally I decided to decline it. Now we’re making some final touches and will release it as open source project - again facing similar problems - the codebase is almost 6y old, app is not trivial, build procedure is not single click etc etc.

> Besides all those risks and problems, I still believe that opening the source code is worth doing. That way we can help other (less advanced) programmers to start their own mac products/businesses. I’m sure that you’ll agree that after a certain point you need to look inside something bigger than a trivial app from examples folder, something that is/was a real thing, something ‘alive'. That’s IMHO a single priceless source of practical knowledge.

> That’s my 10cents :)

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

#45

Post by soylentcola »

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/

On a somewhat unrelated side-note, you might want to look at how those images are scaling/displaying on your mackernews site depending on the scaling of the page (I noticed that if I zoomed the scaling in the browser it started to look better but at normal settings the images compressed vertically but not horizontally).

I'm not a software or web dev but things like that definitely influence my decision to try or buy software.

(ex: http://i.imgur.com/PgmrAm6.png)

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

#46

Post by samspenc »

Please don't wind down the project! I'm sure people are using it because they find it useful, and I think they would be disappointed if it stopped - I know I would if someone stopped working on an app I used heavily.

(1) I think its worth trying to sell the app - you did a good job, obviously it has a user base, and I think its fair you get paid for it and have someone continue to maintain it.

(2) If that's a hassle and you lose control of the project's trajectory - why not open-source? Your users would still use it, it would be free, and there might be some power user willing to take it on and improve the code base.

(3) As someone else mentioned in the comments below, maybe find a contractor to maintain it? This only makes sense if the cost of the contractor is less than what you're making off it, of course.

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

#47

Post by jdhawk »

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.

Not essentially true, the valuation would just be a lot lower if you sold it As-Is + some level of cross-over support/training (Consulting Dollars)

This assumes the purchaser isn't just shelving it and killing off a competitor.

It't not an awful idea, especially since you know your competitors in the space (who to target).

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

#48

Post by v_ignatyev »

Try to receive funds and make business from it: hire developers, create few updates, try to expand onto new markets etc. and then try to exit this business.

Or just throw off this project and focus on another one. It's old. It's kind of liability not a money generator.

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

#49

Post by EvanMiller »

tylerhall wrote: post #29

I was in the same situation as you a few years ago. My Mac app was making enough money to be helpful but not quite enough to be worth the trouble. I seriously considered open sourcing it. But I stuck with it and, four years later, it grew and began supporting my family full-time. If you truly believe there's no chance of it ever growing larger, than by all means, retire it. I've sunsetted many apps that never caught…

That's a great story! What's the app if I may ask?

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

#50

Post by revorad »

You could hire someone. I know you might find it hard to let go of your codebase and feel it's too complex, but there are plenty of good programmers out there.

You said you're concerned about how much it might cost. Surely you can afford to try someone out for a short amount of time, given the app makes $10K a year. If you shut it down or open source it, that income's gone anyway. So why not try to keep a good product alive?

One good place to look for a programmer might be the monthly HN threads by whoishiring - https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring

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