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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?

#51

Post by tylerhall »

EvanMiller wrote: post #49
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?

http://clickontyler.com/

VirtualHostX was my first app, the one that grew slowly over a few years and then took off. Hostbuddy is a small, companion app that does moderately well. Hobo is my newest, still in beta, that I hope to kick off in February.

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

#52

Post by nasmorn »

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?

That is not a very big gorilla.

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

#54

Post by harisamin »

soylentcola wrote: post #45
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…

thanks for the note, just haven't gotten around to it yet, busy with mac app store stuff and updates, but will do. Do checkout the app on the app store though :)

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

#55

Post by Jeremy1026 »

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…

"Odesk and Elance. Only hire people who've worked on multiple projects and have high ratings. There are plenty of talented people out there."

I am on Elance, but can't get any work because I don't have any history. Can't get history without any work. The logic in this is flawed. Interview the people who submit bids, don't automatically rule out people without a history on the site, you might be surprised what they've worked on in the past.

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

#57

Post by Mnwhlp »

Why don't you pay me to update it and keep half of the profits. That way you get to keep control of the app and half of the profits while I do all of the work. I made this public because I think it's a good alternative for you even we don't end up working together. But hey PM me if you're interested.

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

#58

Post by yuhong »

EvanMiller wrote: post #43

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 in…

I wonder if the name will be released later, after it goes open source.

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

#59

Post by vgrichina »

EvanMiller wrote: post #15
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 ha…

Hi Evan,

I own small consultancy and am an iOS / OS X developer myself. We are in Ukraine, so 10k / year goes much further here.

We can help you with support, e.g. for percentage of sales. Or we can negotiate other deal. Drop me a line to vgrichina@gmail.com, let's discuss the details.

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

#60

Post by opless »

nasmorn wrote: post #52
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?

That is not a very big gorilla.

True. But it's the first that came to mind.
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