I've been working on this product in various forms for 20 years. It's never been a commercial product. It's effectively site building (e.g. Wix or Squarespace) plus e-commerce (e.g. Shopify or BigCommerce) plus accounting (e.g. Xero or Quickbooks) in the one app. Whenever I've run a business that required e-commerce and accounting I've been frustrated by having to use 2 different platforms and subscriptions, so I intended to write my own. Unfortunately I have lost interest in coding (20 years as a working software engineer) and I'd like to either sell the code or give it to someone that has the means and motivation to take it to market. I have no interest in any ongoing royalty or ownership. If anyone has thoughts on this, people that may be interested, advice... I'm all ears. Thanks :)
Thoughts on selling source code (Shopify and Quickbooks style web app)
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Re: Thoughts on selling source code (Shopify and Quickbooks style web app)
#2Unfortunately, selling source code is very hard. And the market for site builders is very saturated. But it’s hard to say in your case without having seen your product.
Re: Thoughts on selling source code (Shopify and Quickbooks style web app)
#3Why not open source it?
Re: Thoughts on selling source code (Shopify and Quickbooks style web app)
#4Hello Brendan. I've been working full time on an e-commerce site building monolith for the past year and I now have gray hair, not from age. I think I would benefit greatly from meeting you, for advice if anything.
Re: Thoughts on selling source code (Shopify and Quickbooks style web app)
#5open source it and document it well. itll prove whether your library is valuable enough to others to leverage. You can put up a donation button for a buck. Selling the source of a tool to someone whos never used it is basically impossible. You need to garner interest first.
alternatively come up with a payment model that allows users to get familiarized for free and then commit to pay when they want some niceties, although you said youre done coding so i doubt youll want to put in that work.
Re: Thoughts on selling source code (Shopify and Quickbooks style web app)
#6Why not open source it?
That is definitely an option, and I am completely happy to do that.
Re: Thoughts on selling source code (Shopify and Quickbooks style web app)
#7open source it and document it well. itll prove whether your library is valuable enough to others to leverage. You can put up a donation button for a buck. Selling the source of a tool to someone whos never used it is basically impossible. You need to garner interest first. alternatively come up with a payment model that allows users to get familiarized for free and then commit to pay when they want some niceties, al…
Good advice, thanks :)
Re: Thoughts on selling source code (Shopify and Quickbooks style web app)
#8Unfortunately, selling source code is very hard. And the market for site builders is very saturated. But it’s hard to say in your case without having seen your product.
I agree. I'm happy to open source it, and will likely end up doing so.
Re: Thoughts on selling source code (Shopify and Quickbooks style web app)
#9Hello Brendan. I've been working full time on an e-commerce site building monolith for the past year and I now have gray hair, not from age. I think I would benefit greatly from meeting you, for advice if anything.
Sure thing. Feel free to get in touch and we can chat :)
Re: Thoughts on selling source code (Shopify and Quickbooks style web app)
#10Very cool! What stack did you use?