Need a software solution?
Discussion
In an effort to get out of the day-to-day drudgery of coding for our employer, me and Wimdows are attempting to go-it alone. Generally we feel that just advertising ourselves as a software house is unlikely to wield the results we require, and feel it would be better to offer a product that could be “off the shelf” albeit with enough options to customise it for particular clients, or in modular form so that a base solution could be purchased together with the required modules.
This way we can concentrate on producing a product, and over time become more and more expert in the field the software would be produced, unfortunately in our industry (corporate domain name services) we do not see the market we want so writing a solution about what we do day-to-day is out, so what product should we produce?
We are looking for an industry that generally has a “type” of software product it would use, examples could be an Estate Agent who would need a way of storing information about a property for sale or rent, advertising that property, keeping track of seller and potential buyers details etc. Another may be a solution for second hand cars, again very similar to the estate agent – just storing different details.
Now we think we know in the above two examples what is required, but unless you have experience in the industry you may miss something essential and basic which renders the product useless at worst and inadequate at best, so then to the crux of this post.
Do you have a need for a software solution in your industry, would you like to have a full hand in how that software is designed so it fits your requirements? It could be that there is software being used but is not ideal or software exists but is too expensive whatever the reason do you think you could gain some benefit from a solution designed around your requirements but at an off-the-shelf price?
The idea basically is to get our feet in the door of an industry, and when the product goes live we already have a customer and some experience in the sector, the benefit to anyone who wants to take this up is that they get a custom built solution at a very reasonable price and are using it before anyone else.
The product could be a desktop application, web based, web service, server based service, or a combination, and we have experience with all of these. We have a combined experience of some 12 years in commercial software development, including corporate systems ranging from intranet applications, knowledge management and document management systems to domain name registration systems.
A few points:-
1. The software should have wide appeal.
2. The requirements should be very similar across the industry.
3. It will be windows based (until mono is completed).
4. It will take longer to produce than if you went to a software house
If this could be of use to you then mail either oth of us through the profiles, we can chat about your requirements off line and then once we have a good idea of what’s required we can give a free, no obligation quote.
Has anyone else tried this method of product creationmarket entry? Any pitfalls? Anything we should be wary of? All thoughts considered.
Cheers
Paul
This way we can concentrate on producing a product, and over time become more and more expert in the field the software would be produced, unfortunately in our industry (corporate domain name services) we do not see the market we want so writing a solution about what we do day-to-day is out, so what product should we produce?
We are looking for an industry that generally has a “type” of software product it would use, examples could be an Estate Agent who would need a way of storing information about a property for sale or rent, advertising that property, keeping track of seller and potential buyers details etc. Another may be a solution for second hand cars, again very similar to the estate agent – just storing different details.
Now we think we know in the above two examples what is required, but unless you have experience in the industry you may miss something essential and basic which renders the product useless at worst and inadequate at best, so then to the crux of this post.
Do you have a need for a software solution in your industry, would you like to have a full hand in how that software is designed so it fits your requirements? It could be that there is software being used but is not ideal or software exists but is too expensive whatever the reason do you think you could gain some benefit from a solution designed around your requirements but at an off-the-shelf price?
The idea basically is to get our feet in the door of an industry, and when the product goes live we already have a customer and some experience in the sector, the benefit to anyone who wants to take this up is that they get a custom built solution at a very reasonable price and are using it before anyone else.
The product could be a desktop application, web based, web service, server based service, or a combination, and we have experience with all of these. We have a combined experience of some 12 years in commercial software development, including corporate systems ranging from intranet applications, knowledge management and document management systems to domain name registration systems.
A few points:-
1. The software should have wide appeal.
2. The requirements should be very similar across the industry.
3. It will be windows based (until mono is completed).
4. It will take longer to produce than if you went to a software house
If this could be of use to you then mail either oth of us through the profiles, we can chat about your requirements off line and then once we have a good idea of what’s required we can give a free, no obligation quote.
Has anyone else tried this method of product creationmarket entry? Any pitfalls? Anything we should be wary of? All thoughts considered.
Cheers
Paul
I'm working in the CAD/CAE/CAM department of a company that does a lot of R&D as well as developing and producing consumer goods.
There are three types of software-development:
- employed programmers (webbased scripting)
- contractors that adapt existing open source software to the company's requirements (printservers, product data management, ...)
- contractors that develop auxiliary applications from scratch for our CAD packages.
The amount of OSS to be adapted becomes bigger with growing choice and performance of available projects.
I've followed the usual IT-news services, and had the impression that many governments/authorities/public services either evaluate or implement open source software.
The requirement for consulting and eventually adapting existing code might become a bigger business for smaller enterprises in future IMHO.
Specialising in ie. solutions for administration in councils appears to be very interesting, because probably every single council has an individual order to place? Might be worth doing some research in that direction.
Just a thought
There are three types of software-development:
- employed programmers (webbased scripting)
- contractors that adapt existing open source software to the company's requirements (printservers, product data management, ...)
- contractors that develop auxiliary applications from scratch for our CAD packages.
The amount of OSS to be adapted becomes bigger with growing choice and performance of available projects.
I've followed the usual IT-news services, and had the impression that many governments/authorities/public services either evaluate or implement open source software.
The requirement for consulting and eventually adapting existing code might become a bigger business for smaller enterprises in future IMHO.
Specialising in ie. solutions for administration in councils appears to be very interesting, because probably every single council has an individual order to place? Might be worth doing some research in that direction.
Just a thought
I'd suggest you start with a CRM package for the small business. Something which will capture personal details easily. Try to incorporate Postcode lookup if you can.
Next add a module for recording sales. This should produce invoices, and prepare accounts and Vat preparation.
The next step is stock control which allows you to enter the products you are selling.
After you have these basics you can the customise it to a particular industry. You need to know about an industry to build the app for that use. For example in your car sales product, how much do you know about margin VAT?
Tie in a web presence using a basic content management interface to give a one stop shop solution.
Try and get the core package up and running then go and sell it and sell it hard. Once you start to sell, then give up the day job. Try to get multiple clients to avoid becoming too dependant on a single customer.
As a developer my self I don't need your services (at the moment) but always happy to give advice, especially in the automotive industry.
Next add a module for recording sales. This should produce invoices, and prepare accounts and Vat preparation.
The next step is stock control which allows you to enter the products you are selling.
After you have these basics you can the customise it to a particular industry. You need to know about an industry to build the app for that use. For example in your car sales product, how much do you know about margin VAT?
Tie in a web presence using a basic content management interface to give a one stop shop solution.
Try and get the core package up and running then go and sell it and sell it hard. Once you start to sell, then give up the day job. Try to get multiple clients to avoid becoming too dependant on a single customer.
As a developer my self I don't need your services (at the moment) but always happy to give advice, especially in the automotive industry.
Hi liszt,
Thanks for the reply.
Yup - this was basically what we were thinking, we are pretty much in tune with whats required CRM wise, and it is the tuning we are after and need the expert advice (funny you mention the VAT Question - Mrs Gopher is a VAT Consultant with some experience (which is handy) and could answer most general VAT questions without issue, but I get your point) - we did not think to try and sell at the general CRM stage, and may pursue this.
Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.
Paul
Thanks for the reply.
Yup - this was basically what we were thinking, we are pretty much in tune with whats required CRM wise, and it is the tuning we are after and need the expert advice (funny you mention the VAT Question - Mrs Gopher is a VAT Consultant with some experience (which is handy) and could answer most general VAT questions without issue, but I get your point) - we did not think to try and sell at the general CRM stage, and may pursue this.
Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.
Paul
liszt said:
I'd suggest you start with a CRM package for the small business. Something which will capture personal details easily. Try to incorporate Postcode lookup if you can.
Next add a module for recording sales. This should produce invoices, and prepare accounts and Vat preparation.
The next step is stock control which allows you to enter the products you are selling.
After you have these basics you can the customise it to a particular industry. You need to know about an industry to build the app for that use. For example in your car sales product, how much do you know about margin VAT?
Tie in a web presence using a basic content management interface to give a one stop shop solution.
Try and get the core package up and running then go and sell it and sell it hard. Once you start to sell, then give up the day job. Try to get multiple clients to avoid becoming too dependant on a single customer.
As a developer my self I don't need your services (at the moment) but always happy to give advice, especially in the automotive industry.
www.orbis-software.com can do some of this automatically and will conect to any database and can send e-mails fax's sms, print to printer, upload to web sites and write back to other databases automatically.
mattl said:
I'd suggest you start with a CRM package for the small business. Something which will capture personal details easily. Try to incorporate Postcode lookup if you can.
Next add a module for recording sales. This should produce invoices, and prepare accounts and Vat preparation.
The next step is stock control which allows you to enter the products you are selling.
After you have these basics you can the customise it to a particular industry. You need to know about an industry to build the app for that use. For example in your car sales product, how much do you know about margin VAT?
Tie in a web presence using a basic content management interface to give a one stop shop solution.
Try and get the core package up and running then go and sell it and sell it hard. Once you start to sell, then give up the day job. Try to get multiple clients to avoid becoming too dependant on a single customer.
As a developer my self I don't need your services (at the moment) but always happy to give advice, especially in the automotive industry.
www.orbis-software.com can do some of this automatically and will conect to any database and can send e-mails fax's sms, print to printer, upload to web sites and write back to other databases automatically.
Yeah but that doesn't help gopher sell his services really.
liszt said:
liszt said:
I'd suggest you start with a CRM package for the small business. Something which will capture personal details easily. Try to incorporate Postcode lookup if you can.
Next add a module for recording sales. This should produce invoices, and prepare accounts and Vat preparation.
The next step is stock control which allows you to enter the products you are selling.
After you have these basics you can the customise it to a particular industry. You need to know about an industry to build the app for that use. For example in your car sales product, how much do you know about margin VAT?
Tie in a web presence using a basic content management interface to give a one stop shop solution.
Try and get the core package up and running then go and sell it and sell it hard. Once you start to sell, then give up the day job. Try to get multiple clients to avoid becoming too dependant on a single customer.
As a developer my self I don't need your services (at the moment) but always happy to give advice, especially in the automotive industry.
<a href="http://www.orbis-software.com">www.orbis-software.com</a> can do some of this automatically and will conect to any database and can send e-mails fax's sms, print to printer, upload to web sites and write back to other databases automatically.
Yeah but that doesn't help gopher sell his services really.
Sorry Liszt it was only a suggestion as to something that may give him some ideas or even work with.
What I meant to say was this area of Knowledge Management or BAM seems to be an upwardly moving market.
But your right without an explanation it was as much use as a chocolate fireguard!!
if you're looking for some 'interesting' software to play with then check www.altio.com for a trial version. Looks interesting and you'll have nothing to pay whilst demonstrating. Not that I am a programmer meself like....
The type of business you are considering starting up is not unlike mine.
We have an "off-the-shelf" product "ProjXNET" which does corporate timesheets. We call it "Time Accounting" as its much sophisticated than just Timesheets. We also offer module development and bespoke solutions (based on the product line) as you describe in your first post.
www.aballantine.com
Take a look, if you like, and if our business model is like the one you'd be interested in.
We too went and found some partners to develop software with (finding them is a long slog with a great deal of luck involved) who were our early clients.
We have now been at it ten years and are on our fourth generation of products.
What I can tell you is that you must plan on the early years of the business earning you almost no money and, in fact, costing rather a lot. You develop the next product on the proceeds of the first one...
Best of luck with your new venture - you'll need it - but I can heartily recommend the business life. No security at all but loads of satisfaction.
Oh....(shameless plug) if anyone needs Timesheets - I'll do a PHer a deal...
We have an "off-the-shelf" product "ProjXNET" which does corporate timesheets. We call it "Time Accounting" as its much sophisticated than just Timesheets. We also offer module development and bespoke solutions (based on the product line) as you describe in your first post.
www.aballantine.com
Take a look, if you like, and if our business model is like the one you'd be interested in.
We too went and found some partners to develop software with (finding them is a long slog with a great deal of luck involved) who were our early clients.
We have now been at it ten years and are on our fourth generation of products.
What I can tell you is that you must plan on the early years of the business earning you almost no money and, in fact, costing rather a lot. You develop the next product on the proceeds of the first one...
Best of luck with your new venture - you'll need it - but I can heartily recommend the business life. No security at all but loads of satisfaction.
Oh....(shameless plug) if anyone needs Timesheets - I'll do a PHer a deal...
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