Business Plan Software Product / Service
- posted by: Paparazzi on 2016-09-07
- tagged:
software, licensing, cloud
- score: 0
I am a developer with expertise in document management. I have written both document management and litigation review (lot of commonalities to document management). Azure has recently added Search and Machine Learning and is perfect platform for some stuff I want to do. I would write directly to specific Product (E.G. SQL Azure, Blob storage) not buy a virtual server. You get a lowest cost. Potential customer would have those Azure services in their name. They can backup using Azure products. I don’t touch the data - I don’t want to touch the data. A challenge is my target customer(s) would need to be huge. If you have a cost advantage of $1 / gb / month then it has to be TB of data to make a difference. I have some good demo data - easy to show the value of the software. Something like a hospital, health care provider, or data broker. Not targeted for a commercial store front. For something like data extortion hacks cloud is actually safer. The target is lots of data, they want a cloud model, and they want total control. Since I would need to release my software to the customer (with proper license) I do not want to test / build the market with smaller customers. Even with a proper license people will steal your IP.
I would rather control cost and minimize risk and making a living than swing for the fence for big payout. It would cost me very little more than my time. In a development and demo environment my Azure cost would be less than $50. It would take me about 6 months as I know the design and exactly how I want to do it. Not saying prior software is trashy just this is enough different that I want to start fresh and I need really clean code if it is going to be potentially be released to the customer.
Possible exit strategies
- Hope for a big boy to just buy me out. Ownership of the software. Swing for the fence.
- Try and license to some big provider(s). Biggest concern is
protecting my IP and liability. In a dispute on a license right
now. Would have high cost in attorney fees. Not just initial license but providers would want to review the license with my attorney.
- Sell direct to small companies is not an option. It has to be in the
TB range. The product is not the same as a GoogleDocs but you can get
10 gb on GoogleDocs for free.
- A model that looks attractive is Open Source via something like
GitHub
- It seems to limit my risk
- Low legal cost. Many tested licenses for free
- I get customers to test
- If customers hate it I will find out early
- Developers to test
- I am more a back end guy. In an ideal world would get font end guy (or girl) to join in.
- I will actually start with WPF client. It is about speed and features. So much more you can do with a full .NET behind you. For one recoverable data loader. With a WCF service could also do Explorer integration. It would be if an ASP.NET or ASP.NET MVC joined in.
- I see other companies do it. Alfresco one of the big players does it.
What they typically don’t include is options to scale and I can’t do
that. Azure provides the scale and I have no means of withholding
that. But I still like the model.
- I could sell related software services. I think I can even sell
warranties / support. Different business domains would have different
needs and likely want some tweaks to the UI. I think big cloud
customers will be more likely to go with Open Source as it is a data
security thing - total control. If I can get $10,000 in consulting or warranty from 10 accounts in a year that is $100,000. I am happy with that.
- I guess a startup that wants to manage the business side might offer to bring me on as the tech guy. I don’t really want to be the lead tech guy. I am a back end.
What path seems like the best? Am I missing something thinking Open Source is the best?
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