Saleable Software

How saturated is the market? Do a search for the type of product you want to offer - are there five or five hundred competitors?
What is special about your offerings?
Where is the market going? Your product must meet the market demands of today and those of years to come.
What resources are available to you? Do you have the money to invest in marketing a new product? Do you have investors willing to back your product? How much time can you devote to this new venture?

Professional Open Source Model (ex http://www.jboss.com/ and article on open source market http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2005/tc2005078_5465_tc121.htm ). Since you are the creator of the products, users will turn to you for training and support. Increased user investment and reduced development costs.

Traditional Model. Compile source code into binary format to keep it hidden. Proprietary software sold as-is. Takes more time and resources to get started - have to aggressively market the product to make sales. Have to convince skittish customers that you will be around to provide support and upgrades in years to come.

Free Express Versioning Model. Create two versions of software - full version for purchase and an express version with limited features for free distribution.

Hosted Model. Host your own software and lease access rights to outside users. Retain control over source code and updates or improvements. Charge monthly leasing fee means a more consistent income than a traditional lump-sum-at-point-of-sale model. But you now have the responsibility of keeping server up twenty-four hours a day and you will have to work harder to convince clients that your business is stable.

Know your Customers - know the specific vocabulary of your industry.
Document It - have a product fact sheet and a functionality checklist. Differentiate between features and benefits. Explain what the product does, how it works, and why it's important. Make it relevant to your target market.
Find the Hook - What does your software do that no other software does?
Put a Name on it - Branding helps customers understand, describe, and remember what it is they want.
Hire it Done - get salespeople.
Release your Product (http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/The_Software_Cycle)
Plan for the Future - build a roadmap for your software to establish where you would like to see the product go
Plan for your Product - plan for long-term development, it will influence how you code your software.
Plan for your Company - where would you like to see your company in five years? What steps need to be made to get there?
Automated Testing - Emulated User Testing and Unit Testing. Nightly versus Continuous Testing
Managing the Product Release Cycle - it is perfectly standard to go through a few versions of a product to get the one you want to release to the general user base.

Direct Approach to Sales (ex. Apple)
The company assumes responsibility for the sale of your software. You are completely in charge of the customer relationship, you can easily gather valuable feedback and foster better interaction between your company and your users. You can keep 100% of the sales revenue. But this is a costly venture and sales are difficult at first with an unproven product.
Chanel Sales (ex. Microsoft)
Enlist the help of another company to sell your product. Need less upfront capital. You lose control over customer relationships and you do not get direct feedback as easily.
Hybrid Approach
Many businesses start out selling strictly through indirect channels and once the company matures it will make the majority of the sales directly but also have a number of vendor partners.
Partnerships
Vendors/Resellers
Integrated Service Vendors - offers products to their clients in conjunction with various goods and services (ex. Microsoft Windows).
Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) - most secure form of partnership. You make a product and another company sells it under their brand name.

Reference Accounts - happy customers who give referrals. To get one you need really good software, really good customer support, and a really happy client.
Lighthouse Accounts - leaders in the field that everyone looks up to. Getting them to invest in your untested software is tricky.
Generating Feedback - customer feedback is important for growth.
Establishing a Product Community - is it appropriate for the kind of product you sell?

These are notes I made after reading this book. See more book notes

Just to let you know, this page was last updated Saturday, Dec 21 24