Pivotting from services to software products

[JohnTranter]

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Have any developers successfully changed from selling their time to selling software products? I’m getting a bit of sick of selling ‘time’.

I spent a few days developing some extensions and put them on Code Canyon; after a month I had one enquiry, I eventually put the code on Github and moved on. (ironically a client asked for the exact functionality about a week later)

Anyone have any success stories? I was looking at developing Shopify extensions but I’m loathe to spend the time again if I’m competing with companies pushing out extensions from code factories in cheap labour markets.

[adrian]

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There’s a heap of people who has done just that in the Micropreneur / bootstrapped space. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, maybe listen to a few podcasts to get an idea about the space, here’s a pretty decent list;

http://startupclarity.com/a/podcasts-for-bootstrappers-and-solopreneurs/

Most people have gone through a process of releasing bigger and bigger products over time, nicely explained here. Another approach that seems pretty successful is instead of doing products, do a productised service, explained here.

The problem for people like us is usually not in making the products (that’s the easy part). My issue is promotion and marketing, and getting people to notice the stuff that gets built…

Best of luck with it!

[JohnTranter]

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Thanks for that Adrian, have you had much success yourself or are you purely in the services space?

[adrian]

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Hey John, I’m the definition of ‘shiney object syndrome’. I keep switching my focus, which results in a heap of wasted effort. Recently, I wrote a fairly large app and have some senior guys doing enterprise sales stuff at the moment, but it’s slow going… So income is all from swapping time for cash.

Any minor product I’ve created has gone nowhere. I’ve done consumer FB apps (which generated bugger all ad revenue), mobile games (which generated bugger all ad revenue), WordPress plugins (which I stopped pushing as I really didn’t want to work in PHP), and B2C SAAS apps, which generated bugger all revenue.

That said, I’m always learning from building things, so trust it will all fall together after a few more knee scrapes!

Cheers

[Adam Stanecki]

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John, I remember the guys from 37Signals saying “scratch your own itch”. Do you have a specific itch that your products will remedy? Do other people have the same itch? Can you find out before you go down the path of building something no one wants?

Ask your audience what they want.

Good luck.

[bb1]

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John, How about picking up on some of the repeated requests on here, that you are one of the people who are constantly giving some great advise on. Maybe you can see some of the common theme’s and work on sellable solutions to them, or there is an endless audience on here who may give you some of the things that they want, but cant get without installing multiple components.
Not answering your question about if others have done it, but just an option for where to take it.

[John Romaine]

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Good move.

I’m making the shift away from selling “time” and moving to a 1:many business model.

Software would allow you to do that, too.

Invest your efforts towards a product or service offering that is recurring, and scalable and you should be well on your way.

I would consider reaching out to someone who has already run across the minefield and asking them where they stepped.

You’ll save yourself a lot of wasted time, money and effort.

[getcontented.com.au]

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adrian, post: 224707, member: 2781 wrote:

There’s a heap of people who has done just that in the Micropreneur / bootstrapped space. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, maybe listen to a few podcasts to get an idea about the space, here’s a pretty decent list;

http://startupclarity.com/a/podcasts-for-bootstrappers-and-solopreneurs/

Most people have gone through a process of releasing bigger and bigger products over time, nicely explained here. Another approach that seems pretty successful is instead of doing products, do a productised service, explained here.

The problem for people like us is usually not in making the products (that’s the easy part). My issue is promotion and marketing, and getting people to notice the stuff that gets built…

Best of luck with it!

This is great advice. It mirrors my own experience.
Work from the audience back to the product (or service). As developers, we tend to scratch and then work out if it’s an itch… this is a bit backwards.

Don’t use hunches, find out if there is an audience for what you’re thinking of making, find out how to connect with them, ensure there are actually people willing to spend money in the area you’re looking and that you *can* market to them before you write a line of code.

Even better if you can find an audience that is “champing at the bit” to get a product or service that no one has made yet, then do the iteration dance: release a minimum viable product as beta to get people involved after marketing, and build it by impressing the socks off your clients to get news ones.

If you haven’t read patrick mckenzie’s blog, that might be quite informative… http://www.kalzumeus.com

[JohnTranter]

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Cheers guys for the responses.
To be honest I’m more interested in the process than getting ideas. I’m up to my eyeballs in requests for additional features so that’s not really an issue.

I think I’ll go back to the ‘start small’ approach and try again.

[getcontented.com.au]

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JohnTranter, post: 224950, member: 20554 wrote:

Cheers guys for the responses.
To be honest I’m more interested in the process than getting ideas. I’m up to my eyeballs in requests for additional features so that’s not really an issue.

I think I’ll go back to the ‘start small’ approach and try again.

The process is fairly organic, but:
1. Make some regular time available, daily if possible
2. Use that time to find a market, brainstorm ideas, and market test them (this is important)
3. Create a very small product or service that fixes a problem or is something people want in this space. Begin the marketing for it well before the product is finished.
4. Launch and really market the product, listening very carefully to the feedback.
5. Iterate on the product features, and continue the marketing.
6. At this point you can do another product, or grow this one more. Continue this process until you find your income from your products is outstripping that of your work-for-time jobs.

Hope that helps

[cshiel]

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In my day to day job I find that I am creating software that is self serving. That is to say, my software creations are how I justify my employment – beyond that role it serves no useful purpose.

In fact, in over 10 years of professional development and contracting I have not worked on a single piece of software that has been useful (compared something real like a screwdriver or toilet paper).

In my experience developers make excuses for software because software rarely solves problems. Certainly, business development managers take our software (or goo) and plug it into some hole of the business and create some fiction of how it adds business value (it doesn’t).

The problem with all this nonsense is that developing similar style software in the real world won’t fly at all.

I believe sellable software has to at LEAST:
a) solve a very specific problem
b) zero effort to figure out how to use
c) work anywhere.

Software generally doesn’t play too well with these previous three attributes. Its more usually:
a) needs a BDM to identify a business need
b) needs a human to constantly explain it
c) needs a human to constantly support it

Back in the 90’s-00’s software was both viewed and observed as of profound value. Now its much harder for software to have such an impact.

To summarize I feel that software is most usually a solution without a problem. Tricky.

[Gizmo]

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Yeah, I got that too.
Felt the need about 15 years ago.
Then committed to it 11 years ago, with the birth of MondoTalk.
Now I have a team of developers that continually grow and expand the MondoTalk platform of services.

If you are looking to change I can strongly recommend you look at the SaaS (software as a service) model.

[karlisfoundhere]

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Adam Stanecki, post: 224814, member: 19067 wrote:

John, I remember the guys from 37Signals saying “scratch your own itch”. Do you have a specific itch that your products will remedy? Do other people have the same itch? Can you find out before you go down the path of building something no one wants?

Ask your audience what they want.

Good luck.
So right. Scratch your own itch indeed. I once had a simple linkedin bot built and sold off the business within months. They proceeded to run it into the ground and slander my name but still. lol. You live and you learn.

[karlisfoundhere]

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What I did in practical steps was this (twice actually over a few days).

1. Decided to work on something where the A, B, C was clear for me.
A – Where they are now (pain/lack/problem)
B – Where they want to be (magic solution, turn 10 steps into 2)
C – The benefit of the benefit (experience, branding, lifestyle changes). mcDonalds sells the experience for the kids, rogain sells confidence not growing your hair back. The benefit of the benefit is huge. People operate on emotion and justify with logic after the fact.

I also decided I wanted people to already be investing a lot of time, money and resources into the choice I make for the product/service. This means the juice is worth the squeeze and you’re not guessing.

2. Reviewed blog comments, forums and amazon reviews for 3-4 star ratings for realistic input

3. Found 1-2 hard to find competitors but they were profiting (which is good, you don’t want to invent your market, competition can be good to prove it’s making $)

4. I positioned the software to be very different from the competitor. Simpler and more helpful based on the reviews etc

5. Made a simple landing page (google “The Copywriting Checklist” by Dane Maxwell for sales copy tips). Get lots of social proof “as seen on”, images of the demo, anything you can. Mostly you’ll be selling with your words and scaling up with version releases. Testimonials are good. If you have personal cred use that until your business or product gets cred.

6. Promote this page to the exact same comments, forums and review sites you found the issue at, these are your beta testers. Tell them if they sign up you’re going to solve to problem in return for some feedback. win-win

7. Take the time to partner with a developer if you can’t do it yourself, if you can that’s killer! Take shortcuts at first where doable, api’s etc. I don’t know much about coding/developing and from a user side view, I couldn’t tell the difference and most others wont either. Just never sacrafice user experience though!

8. Build the bare minimum viable product and let them all know after you spend some time trying to find bugs

9. They’ll find bugs. Just use something like typeform.com and keep track. Send this to your developer. It’s all about customer service though at this point.

10. Revise and iterate and don’t add more until the last version feels solid. Then setup a warriorplus.com account and create sales banners, and emails, and support page using Instapage.com so that your affiliates can really sell it for you. The expense is variable so you could nearly make it whatever commision works best. I put 50% to give them incentive to sell, also added partnerships and JV’s to the backend with complimentary products of other peoples.

11. Add knowledge base, FAQs and contact to the landing page.

12. Provide discounts or free copies in exchange for testimonials, put them on the landing page.

13. Start showing more features and benefits. Hire a copywriter, split test constantly (A/B test) It’s easier to get 10% increase than it is to get 100 new people come to the website.

14. Focus on measuring learning and rebuilding 3 things. 1. where they come from and why? 2. Whats happening when they’re using your product and why? 3. What happens after and why? You want to add social sharing and limit negative public feedback. Let the users know about the affiliate program, in the software and in email updates and follow up with offers.

Wash and repeat.

Sorry about ranting there. I’m sure this is 99% useless for someone with your experience but I was just hoping something might be of use. Even 1% can change everything.

Much love all!

[cloud9business]

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JohnTranter, post: 224704, member: 20554 wrote:

I spent a few days developing some extensions and put them on Code Canyon; after a month I had one enquiry,
…
I was looking at developing Shopify extensions but I’m loathe to spend the time again if I’m competing with companies pushing out extensions from code factories in cheap labour markets.

Hey John,

I’ve been involved in developing software and bringing it to market since last century . If I had to boil it down to one thing it would be this. As software developers we like to design and create stuff. The problem is the marketplace doesn’t want our software creations. What they want is time saving, security, increased profit, etc… i.e. the outcome that our software allows them to achieve.

So, Karl (points 2 & 6) and Bert are spot on. Start with talking to the market and then getting those same people to test a minimal version of that product.

[Author]

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