Looking For Expertise In Selling Software

[Displaycentreuk]

We have developed a software package for our own use. Its development has been led by users and I believe that this package would appeal to many other small businesses. All the coding has been done by someone in the UK with whom we have developed a long-term relationship. Together, I believe we are well placed to provide through life support as well as hands-on user guidance.

Research and personal experience have given me an understanding of the basics of selling software (eg licensing). But I am wondering whether I need to buy-in some specific expertise to cover the packaging of the software as a product that a customer can easily deploy.

 

[columbo]

But I am wondering whether I need to buy-in some specific expertise to cover the packaging of the software as a product that a customer can easily deploy.

Is ease of deployment not a given?

Is it a SaaS product?

 

[Deleted member 325090]

It's really difficult to give specific advice since you don't provide any details of the product or the deployment process which needs to be automated.

If it's some sort of stand-alone desktop software you can easily generate installers which the end user can run directly.

If your product relies on some sort of cloud based components which need to be deployed for each instance, these will likely need to be configured partially by hand and perhaps you can smooth the process with scripts which can create /configure the various artifacts.

It's likely that your developers will be in the best position to advise you on deployment. Is there a reason they're unable to tell you what you need to know?

 

[Displaycentreuk]

Thank you for the comments,

It is not SaaS product - it is desktop/server, works with Sage Line50 and sits on a SQL database.

My developer and I (as the user) work hand-in-hand. I decide what my users need, talk to the developer about the best way to achieve and then he develops the code. When we come across a bug, I will diagnose exactly what is going-on and he will dive-in and find the solution. I handle the management of the SQL database, Crystal Reports keeping track of the elements being in synchronisation.

My plan is to set-up a Wordpress website from which to sell the software and find a software licensing plug-in - neither I nor my developer has any experience of selling software.

Maybe I am overthinking this, but aware of the risk that someone who buys a licence for this software is going to expect it to be easier to install and more intuitive to use than I might assume. This, really, is my question and I am wondering whether anyone can give me some tips?

 

[Alan]

My plan is to set-up a Wordpress website from which to sell the software and find a software licensing plug-in - neither I nor my developer has any experience of selling software.

Easy Digital Downloads

 

[Deleted member 325090]

At the very least you're going to need an installer for your own desktop application and you should clearly document and advertise which other 3rd party components need to be installed. After that, whats 'reasonable' all depends on the skills and size of your user base.

You might be selling to people who are quite techy, or dealing with a small number of installations which you can provide active tech support on, in which case you can live with some complication. Or, you might be selling to a bunch of people who wouldn't have the first clue if you asked them to install and configure SQL Server.

If you're dealing with a large number of users who perhaps are not techy, then you might need to look at something that is more automated, or at least some very good documentation with screenshots or a video or something.

As well as installing these 3rd party components, they'll also presumably need to enter some sort of connection credentials into your application for the SQL Server and SAGE? This will need documenting too.

If you're worried about the complications of getting your user to run the SQL Server installation, Microsoft offer SQLite which I've never personally used, but I believe it's embedded into your application as a dll to prevent the need for a separate installed and configured database server. Obviously it's not as fully featured as SQL Server, but it might be sufficient for your needs. Hopefully your developer has written the code so that it's agnostic about the underlying database, so it should just need minor tweaks.

In terms of whether your software is 'intuitive' enough to use, obviously that's impossible for us to gauge.

The best advice I can give you is to find someone who is representative of your user base. Let them install and try to use your software without any help from you and get some feedback so you can make improvements to your installation process and instructions before you start advertising it online.

 

[Displaycentreuk]

Thanks again for the really helpful responses.

 

[fisicx]

Do you have a marketing budget?

setting up the website so people can install the software is relatively simple. But making people aware of the product and getting them to signnup for the free trial is a lot more difficult and could cost you a large wodge.

 

[John Hemming]

You also need to think how you are going to handle the support process.

Support is a lot easier with SaaS than downloaded software although remoting is easy.

 

[garyk]

If its windows software as others have said you should be able to package it up as an installable executable. I used to write software in Delphi and used a free tool called inno setup which would create wizard based installers.

Now you mention a SQL database and yes when you add dependancies it can get tricky. You didn't mention what flavour though. Is it SQL server? If so there is a deployable version called MSDE. Of course your other option is to partition the end user data and just have one SQL Server sitting on a VPS that everyone connects to remotely. As someone mentioned there is a SQLite which is very capable for local installs but is quite different from MSSQL and MySQL.

When I used to create installers I would have a VM with just a vanilla OS that I would snapshot, run the installer and see if it worked. Then I could always go back to the snapshot and re-test.

Ahh takes me back doing Line 50 add-ons that's what I used to from around 2003-2010.

 

[gpietersz]

Microsoft offer SQLite which I've never personally used, but I believe it's embedded into your application as a dll to prevent the need for a separate installed and configured database server.

SQLite is not an MS product, although its probably included in Windows these days - its included in a lot of things because its open source, easy to modify, easy to bundle with your software, cross platform, and, most of all, it does not require configuration. Its also included with a number of programming languages and many desktop applications.

I have used it its very easy to use. Its typing is a bit quirky (it does not require everything in a column to be the same type) and its lacking a few features compared to something heavyweight., but will do for most things. The database is stored in a single file, although another transient file appears while the main file is being written to that allows transaction rollback.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

What are you offering that is better than other companies software

Will you have the ability to keep security up to date

What happens if your friend die's or decides they no longer want to work with you

Security and support are essential items for any business software and both are hard to sell if you have no track record

 

[BlackCatComputersLtd]

WiX Setup is a good program for creating Windows installers. I have created a few before for desktop software.

Can search for WiX toolset.

 

[IanSuth]

As an ex IT recruitment consultant i can tell you one of the most looked for and hardest to find categories of people was Product support IT people with 2 years experience of supporting a package , experience of SQL Server and ideally knowledge of the functional area the software supports
If you sell it as a product customers will expect support - if it ties into accounts software then there will be bits of the year when there is increased support need (year end, tax year end or quarter days depending on what exactly it does) make sure you have enough staffing cover to cover those times or you will lose customers quickly, I used to find staff for several accounts software houses (including Intuit and Iris) so I know how non trivial "I believe we are well placed to provide through life support" actually turns out to be