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cranioscopical: "Markham what we could do to further the project."

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sgtevmckay:
Just a comment,

I'm sure that it's unintended but, to me, the direction of this topic is starting to look a bit like ingratitude.

Perhaps we should ask Markham what we could do to further the project.

In fact:

@Markham & Sarge: In your opinion, what could we do to further the project?
We did raise some donations for you recently, which you then generously assigned to the NANY prize.

-cranioscopical (August 04, 2010, 04:43 PM)
--- End quote ---

I have reconsidered this question after much thought and lack of sleep last night.

Maybe there is something.
Help us with the business model concept.

Essentially:
What can we do to make this pliable enough to to remain appealing to Current End Users, while building/Maintaining a forward movement towards business licensing.

I would appreciate any thoughts. From Pricing Scheme (outside of the box included) to the effects in consideration of a non-business end user, to considerations of a fair price..
Any and all thoughts and considerations, regardless of how improvisational or unwieldy.

Probably not what cranioscopical actually meant, but this is an opportunity for All of us to ring in and make a difference in the direction that CD may go.
An opportunity for all DC members to be part of a solution  :Thmbsup:

cranioscopical:
What can we do to make this pliable enough to to remain appealing to Current End Users, while building/Maintaining a forward movement towards business licensing.-sgtevmckay
--- End quote ---

I'm not a marketer and can't help you construct a working a business model.

I don't know the software market but I find it difficult to believe that there are enough business users (or even potential business users) of CD to carry the freight of your overheads. Presumably, the two of you think there are or you wouldn't raise the issue. I honestly believe that the best thing you can do is to calculate a price and charge it, and charge everybody. Unfortunately that won't stop the copies now in circulation from being passed around.

Your motives for working on CD certainly do not appear to be profit-based. If true (as I believe) the asking price could be quite modest — that, in itself, might help sales.

You cite download figures that are high, and mention the monetary need to support that traffic. I wonder how that traffic will be affected by charging for CD. I assume you have sources at least to estimate what happens when free software becomes paid software.

Others here are far better equipped to comment than I (in the mental arena I fight unarmed) and I suspect you will get some thought-provoking responses to your message.

As a gesture of goodwill, I'd be more than happy to buy a copy and I wager that others here will feel the same — it's a great community. From what you say, however, I doubt that would begin to get you where you need to be, in order to break even financially.

tomos:
Well cause of all the fuss I've actually downloaded a copy :-[ (as I said elsewhere I've always really liked the look of it) but if I actually used it I'd buy a license if it's kept going.

I cant help you much except with uneducated suggestions:
As Chris points out the download traffic will be affected by the change to commercial - well, as long as you charge for personal licenses. That will make it much easier to cope.

I would suggest for non-business use, a reasonable to a low price - sorry I've no idea what the competition costs, but make it cheaper ;)
And a more expensive but not outrageous price for business (just cause we're in business doesnt mean we're making lots of dosh!)

How about this basic license model:
Personal: for one person only - but on a reasonable number of machines (I know there was someone talking on the other thread about having multiple copies on one machine...)
Business: for one machine only (or a limited number) for any number of users

I came across that model lately with roughly the same price for both - seemed fair to me.

I find one machine only for a personal license just, eh, not really nice ;) :)

Dormouse:
The first point I would make is that developing a successful business strategy requires vision, and a lot of time and consideration (often, but not always accompanied by market research) or a great deal of luck. It's not something to be rushed at.

Secondly, AFAICS, most small software vendors have nothing that remotely resembles a strategy that will  even break even on costs (if their own time is given a reasonable value) and nor do they have strategies that are likely to maximise their income. So I wouldn't just jump to a sale and pricing scheme you see used elsewhere.

The next point is that open source or free can be a route to making more money than selling software. Look carefully at the business models of RedHat and Canonical. In some ways Evernote is even more interesting - but I may come on to that another time. Genuinely working with OpenSource gives them the support of the OS community and software and being OS and free gives their products a lot of publicity, buzz and users (with associated bug finding - and bugs are an important issue for business sales). They then leverage that into addons/products that they sell. The first proposal seems to come closest to this, but with the addition of a few artificial limitations typical of many small software vendors. But to make this work you actually need to have a clearly defined addon/product that you will sell to a carefully defined market. I can see the possibility of a CD for businesses, but it would need careful consideration, individual tweaking and high quality sales/marketing/manuals and support to work. [I don't mind discussing details off forum; I'd suggest not discussing anything in public that might help competitors]

The open/closed source issue is an interesting one that I'm not going to address. But I would suggest that you look at how many downloads you have against how many sales or downloads the copycats/pinchers are making. And then, if you have even more publicity & buzz and are free, what scope is there really for them?

Selling CD to all users, however low the price, is fraught with difficulty. Your user base is used to free. And from what I've seen of the posts/questions likely only to use free in the vast majority of cases. The competition is mostly free. My guess would be that your first year would be your biggest as you convert some users into customers; declining after that because your free publicity and mouth-to-mouth recommendations would be gone.

One problem you have is time. Current situation is unsustainable. Changing it will require some initial funding at least. With that number of users, torrents are feasible, and all the solutions mentioned above and elsewhere are worth looking that. Distributing downloads would reduce costs, but long-term you want people visiting your site, so I'd personally only go for solutions that required that. I would strongly suggest having advertising on the site (and managing it carefully as a source of income and also making sure that your image is protected - not something that many sites do well); not something you are able to do whilst on the DC server, I assume. Looking at the numbers, this might be more than sufficient on its own to pay your costs; but you would want to maximise the number of pageclicks agains the MBs of downloads. Your server usage is your big variable cost atm (the other being time spent on support); your fixed costs are the coding time. Ideally you want your variable income to vary in line with (but be higher than) your variable costs; advertising can be a very good way of achieving this. Ideally, you would also have your fixed costs at the lowest possible proportion of total costs (assuming variable income to exceed variable costs) as that gives you personally the biggest return on your efforts. If you get seriously into sales/marketing etc, then you should be able to make these variable too.

Archon of Fate:
Though I'd never suggest anyone use object dock... but maybe follow their idea... and what you were going to do...
offer a free version and a paid for version (premium)

offer as many docks as you wish in free, dock folders in premium...
kiosk mode sounds more like a free thing to me....

I may have been against this idea at first but I have no other ideas on how to market it... offering a free version gives people a "preview" of the program before you buy rather than just say fork over $20 or you can just look at screenshots  ::)

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