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Why is selling software so weird?

zeptonaut.com

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Re: Why is selling software so weird?

#101

Post by zeptonaut22 »

lr4444lr wrote: post #91

The main problem here is that houses and software have wildly different marginal costs It is "a" problem, I'll even admit a major one, but it's not the main problem. The main problem is the expectation of continual customization and improvement at the input of the customer. Imagine if houses were built by you contracting with the developer, and after the initial blueprint and plans were agreed to, every two or 4 week…

Our lenses are probably influenced heavily by what kind of software we work on (which I admittedly didn't dive into at all on the article).

I work primarily on B2C software, whereas it sounds like you probably work on the B2B software. It seems like consumers tend to mostly accept the platforms as they are whereas businesses feel (perhaps rightfully) entitled to ask for changes in the software they use.

Each have pros and cons, but the marginal cost of B2C software does seem a lot lower than B2B due to the expectations in service.

Re: Why is selling software so weird?

#102

Post by zeptonaut22 »

alexellisuk wrote: post #84

Identifying an unmet need, getting a market fit for a solution, understanding what people are willing to pay are all counter-intuitive for engineers, but essential to make money. These are my recommendations to anyone who's here and not getting the traction they want, or are considering starting a business. The 1-Page Marketing Plan - Alan Dibb. The Right It - Alberto Savoia. Monetizing Innovation - Georg Tacke & Mad…

Thanks for the suggested reading! I'll definitely check these out.

Re: Why is selling software so weird?

#103

Post by heurisko »

bob1029 wrote: post #49

> Low volume software is not a good business to be in. I disagree very strongly with this based on my experience so far. Being in the business of low volume software is fantastic if your customers are other businesses . The advantages of low-volume/complex B2B software biz are incredible to me. Contract terms are measured in half-decades. Your users can actually be trained and held accountable in many cases. You don'…

> SQLite vs nightmare distributed abominations

Don't see the benefit of using SQLite over a RDMS like MySQL or Postgres, especially if users are still in the tens of thousands.

Re: Why is selling software so weird?

#104

Post by depaya »

zeptonaut22 wrote: post #100
ZetaZero wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Footnotes(1) not supported? (1) This is a footnote. You don't need any fancy software to write a footnote.

The best footnotes I've found provide nice bidirectional linking for easily jumping to / back from the footnote so that it disrupts the reading as little as possible. The beautiful / fun part about having a blog is that it's your own little garden: you can adjust things just like how you see fit, and footnotes were just a case where I figured I'd do without until I could implement it in a way I was happy with.

Have you considered the very low-tech solution of simple HTML anchors to link back and forth?

Re: Why is selling software so weird?

#105

Post by shuntress »

lr4444lr wrote: post #91

The main problem here is that houses and software have wildly different marginal costs It is "a" problem, I'll even admit a major one, but it's not the main problem. The main problem is the expectation of continual customization and improvement at the input of the customer. Imagine if houses were built by you contracting with the developer, and after the initial blueprint and plans were agreed to, every two or 4 week…

Homes & buildings tend to be built in a way that allows any reasonably skilled professional to quickly determine a reasonable way to handle new work without any input from the original builder.

Re: Why is selling software so weird?

#106

Post by bob1029 »

heurisko wrote: post #103
bob1029 wrote: post #49

> Low volume software is not a good business to be in. I disagree very strongly with this based on my experience so far. Being in the business of low volume software is fantastic if your customers are other businesses . The advantages of low-volume/complex B2B software biz are incredible to me. Contract terms are measured in half-decades. Your users can actually be trained and held accountable in many cases. You don'…

> SQLite vs nightmare distributed abominations Don't see the benefit of using SQLite over a RDMS like MySQL or Postgres, especially if users are still in the tens of thousands.

> especially if users are still in the tens of thousands

I've got unit tests over business methods backed by SQLite that say otherwise.

The biggest benefit with SQLite is being able to ship your customers 1 self-contained binary distribution that "just works". Anything beyond this and we are talking about nasty customer-owned database instances or us shipping docker containers and hoping the gigantic abstraction bubble doesnt pop on us.

Re: Why is selling software so weird?

#107

Post by javajosh »

zeptonaut22 wrote: post #100
ZetaZero wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Footnotes(1) not supported? (1) This is a footnote. You don't need any fancy software to write a footnote.

The best footnotes I've found provide nice bidirectional linking for easily jumping to / back from the footnote so that it disrupts the reading as little as possible. The beautiful / fun part about having a blog is that it's your own little garden: you can adjust things just like how you see fit, and footnotes were just a case where I figured I'd do without until I could implement it in a way I was happy with.

May I suggest you add "footnotes on hover"? I feel like this is the ultimate expression of the idea, and books would do it that way if they could.

Re: Why is selling software so weird?

#108

Post by blenderdt »

bob1029 wrote: post #49

> Low volume software is not a good business to be in. I disagree very strongly with this based on my experience so far. Being in the business of low volume software is fantastic if your customers are other businesses . The advantages of low-volume/complex B2B software biz are incredible to me. Contract terms are measured in half-decades. Your users can actually be trained and held accountable in many cases. You don'…

How to sell software and earn a million:

  1 x $1,000,000
  10 x $100,000
  100 x $10,000
  And so on
I agree with you, low volume doesn't mean anything.

Re: Why is selling software so weird?

#109

Post by zeptonaut22 »

depaya wrote: post #104
zeptonaut22 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best footnotes I've found provide nice bidirectional linking for easily jumping to / back from the footnote so that it disrupts the reading as little as possible. The beautiful / fun part about having a blog is that it's your own little garden: you can adjust things just like how you see fit, and footnotes were just a case where I figured I'd do without until I could implement it in a way I was happy with.

Have you considered the very low-tech solution of simple HTML anchors to link back and forth?

Definitely! That's what my goal implementation will be compiled to, anyway. I use Hugo, a Go static site generator, to build the markdown posts into the site. Adding footnotes is just a matter of figuring out how to use the right syntax in the markdown, output the right anchors in the HTML, then sprinkling a little CSS on top.

I'm 99% sure Hugo can do this, I've just learned to be wary of putting things in between myself and actually hitting the damn publish button.

Re: Why is selling software so weird?

#110

Post by ozim »

chrisseaton wrote: post #64
bob1029 wrote: post #49

> Low volume software is not a good business to be in. I disagree very strongly with this based on my experience so far. Being in the business of low volume software is fantastic if your customers are other businesses . The advantages of low-volume/complex B2B software biz are incredible to me. Contract terms are measured in half-decades. Your users can actually be trained and held accountable in many cases. You don'…

> Your users can actually be trained and held accountable What does it mean to hold a user accountable?

Mostly for support. Companies give trainings on using B2B software so if users are coming with basic questions you can push back to company contact/manager/buyer with: "wtf" your people are trained on using application. Rise the support fee or sell additional training.

For B2C you cannot have any expectations, even if user knows how to use computer or understands basic English or has good enough eyesight to read any text on your site.

Well what we see for B2C companies is usually that they just don't care and you don't get any real support but that is a different discussion :)

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