tech-company, website, sales, web-development, securityI am building a program that you would install onto a computer. The target audience is people who have some concern regarding security, although the product is not security related. I am the only developer and I also have a full time job. I need a set of landing pages, a way to build up user interest (such as a blog), a way to track bugs/feature requests, a wiki for documentation, forums and a way to order the product. I do not expect to find a super large audience (maybe a few thousand users) nor am I selling it for a lot of money (10-20 dollars), so I can’t justify too much cost.
The methods I see are using something like Steam, which would require me to start greenlighting, but that also ties me to a platform. I could also use something like the Amazon software sales system, etc. I could start up a kickstarter campaign and use facebook/twitter to generate interest, but I still would lack a method of selling the product. There is the build it myself approach, but that takes a lot of my time away from my own software development. I could pay someone to build a website, but I imagine that is not cheap. Finally, there are vendors that offer ‘sales’ packages that might meet some of my needs, but not all of them. I could perhaps try to ‘bolt on’ some additional tools, but I have doubts that it would look professional.
With security being part of the theme, I also do want to be very careful that the sales part of my site be highly secure. While I’m not an expert in operations, I do know that getting SSL just right is not the simplest thing in the world, which also is a concern.
Are there other options? Am I missing choices? Has anyone else tried to do something like this?
You are right about websites being expensive, and your dilemma is pretty exactly what I went through last month. I used http://revamptheweb.com/ They have a promotion going on and built me a site without that huge upfront fee (it was $0). I’m sure they have an option for digital distribution as well (I didn’t need that for my site - although I do know they do traditional ecommerce and integrate with PayPal/Stripe/etc for credit card processing).
I personally think it would be a good idea to start generating interest and have a landing page to start collecting potential customers’ information (like email addresses) so that when your product is ready, you already have some customers.
As far as SSL it’s not too bad, and something you definitely want to have, but again that’s something that the website company could handle for you anyway. Just go on their live chat and talk to them. Don’t worry about the packages either, they made me a deal that wasn’t even listed.
Hope that helps
Look into Binpress. They offer:
Bonus points for taking care of the EU VAT for you.
I helped build buildicus.com. The goal was to get early-stage business online without a lot of cost. The deal is the same as what Bhavin talked about ($199 and 10/mo for hosting), but I think for your purposes, Binpress is a better fit. They take care of so much for you.
Since you are starting a new business and you are trying to have a website in order to promote your products, I would recommend using some of the online templates like word press. They are free and easy to learn. Have a look for tutorials on YouTube and you will be able to create a website. Consider using an e-commerce widget which is completely free and more secure.
Also try to look for some competitor websites or suppliers for promotional products to give you ideas on how to promote your product.
I used http://nuyka.com recently for my business. They built me a website for 199 and thereafter it’s 10/month for fully managed hosting. They take care of updates and all security with nothing extra.
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