How Would You Launch a Dual-Licensed Product? 57
tdbp asks: "My startup company has just released its first product, but since it is made up of geeks without a clue about marketing strategies, and we are looking for suggestions on how to launch a product with spam-free methods of searching for possible customers. The product is a dual-licensed development tool, so the main targets are C/C++programmers and system integrators. Our plan is to build a community of developers around the GPL version of our product, and to use this base of users to promote the product to people of higher rank with more decisional power, who could eventually buy a commercial license or support service. Do you think this is a reasonable business model? Do you have any suggestions on how to promote the tool or find companies interested in it?"
You're doing it wrong (Score:2)
Re:You're doing it wrong (Score:2)
You don't work for Attila by any chance?
Re:You're doing it wrong (Score:2)
From IMBD:
Details! (Score:2)
My main advise would be, if you're thinking about starting a business either find a market and go for that, create a market (identify a (potential) need) or make something that could become hugely popular (sort of creating a market) like much Web 2.0 stuff. Have a lot of planning but don't let something hairbrained be eliminated if it makes a little sense, risk vs. reward, etc.
My my main advise is moot since you already have a product. I'm curious, did you do this for the pass
Hire someone (Score:1)
A little late now (Score:1)
Most common startup business plan:
I've always wanted to name a company "Phase 3 Software".
You've already missed it... (Score:2)
Re:You've already missed it... (Score:2)
But good luck finding anything concrete there. For example, from the introduction:
KoanLogic was formed aiming to create products of tangible quality for its Clients and together with them. The company makes use of its diverse yet highly qualified technical personnel and a well-structured development method, which can be adapted contextually. KL is enveloped within the ICT industry providing consulting and development servic
Re:You've already missed it... (Score:1)
Consider opening with a product page instead of a mission statement when the user clicks their language icon. Also consider jumping straight to English from the
On the product page, try to think of a way to describe each product with just a simple 2.5 in squared picture. You could use the work of a photographer or graphic artist to produce the image, but you'
Re:You've already missed it... (Score:1)
Next, ask yourself, what do people use my product with? If t
I'll bite (Score:2)
But dual licensing...I always wanted to see an amended GPL, with the added restriction that you MAY NOT port this code to Windows...because the company that gave you this f
Drivers (Score:2)
I always wanted to see an amended GPL, with the added restriction that you MAY NOT port this code to Windows
Find me a Linux driver for my paid-for Microtek 4850 flatbed scanner, which has for years been listed as unsupported in SANE, and I might agree. Until then, Cygwin still has its uses.
Give away the free version for the free systems; charge the pay-ware users for your software, too!
All operating systems are pay-ware because either you pay for the majority operating system or you pay to replace
Re:Drivers (Score:1)
marketing (Score:1)
In addition, you could have posted your products web site with your story, but I guess hinesight is 20-20.
Marketing 101 (Score:1)
2) Post story on Digg
3) Profit!
More like... (Score:2)
2) Post story on Digg
3) Make sure your website is linked in the article
4) Profit!
Slashdot to the rescue (Score:1)
Re:get a grip - you need a leader (Score:2)
We're missing a lot of crucial information here. What is marketable about the product? What sets it apart from the thousand other products produced by startup companies? Does it fill a particular niche that makes it unique, or does it do a better job overall than the competition?
There are two addages that I find particularly relevant here: "Necessity is the mother of invention." and "See a need, fill a need." What need are you filling? From a generic marketing standpoint, w
Your missed chance (Score:1)
What we did. (Score:1)
I opened everything for a few reasons
1 - There is too much commercial competition and the market for (everything) IT is saturated to the point where significant capital is required to enter it. You must be prepared to spend a million bucks on a sustained marketing blitz in order to gain any significant market share.
2 - The
Well, for Pasta's sake... (Score:2)
"...was formed aiming to create products of tangible quality for its Clients and together with them. The company makes use of its diverse yet highly qualified technical personnel and a well-structured development method, which can be adapted contextually."
It says NOTHING of this product you speak of! I noticed some of the names in your News page, but I still couldn't figure out what the programs themselves did!
It was easier
Dual Licencing (Score:2)
Re:Dual Licencing (Score:1)
That is, of course, a double standard.
Doing the same right now (Score:1)
like MySQL? (Score:1)
So I went with PostgreSQL.
I'll do the same thing if I run across something similar to what you're doing that has a less expensive license on it. I suggest some competitive analysis before you try the dual-license thing, and also figure out how easy it would be for someone else to do replicate what you're doing, unless perhaps you patent
Re:like MySQL? (Score:2)
I never have figured out how MySQL could open up its source and put some sort of Open Source license on it, then get commercial customers to pony up non-trivial buckage.
First of all, nothing is stopping anyone from using the GPL version commercially. The only limitation is if you link against any MySQL GPL code your app must also be under a GPL compatible license.
The reason people pay for a license is either a) To have someone to shout at/demand a hotfix from or b) to redistribute an app that embeds or
Re:like MySQL? (Score:1)
That's what I'm talking about.
Plus, the next Big Company that makes an offer that MySQL AB can't refuse will effectively can it (yeah, yeah, you can fork off the last "free" release, but who's going to work on it?).
Market it as open source and commercially (Score:1)
I think you should take a dual approach to marketing, too. Market it as a GPLed open source project: use the internet as a medium to to convice people that your tool is worth their tim
Don't quit your day job...yet. (Score:2)
It's not a company - it's a Dungeons and Dragons session without the game.
"How Would You Launch a Dual-Licensed Product?"
Don't. I buy software components from a company that dual-licenses their software. I simply love negotiating price with them: we are currently getting something like 80% off of list price because we have threatened to go the free route so many tim
Hmmm (Score:1)
Your product is made of geeks? Is that legal? How are the geeks prepared? Fried, pureed?
My guess is (Score:1)
My first bit of advice would be to re-work your website. It sounds like a big part of your target audience will be developers. Consider: Programmer Jon has been hacking away for hours. Finally, he throws up his arms in despair. All the Red Bull in the world can't seem to solve his problem, so he starts searching
Hint: Avoid conflicting messages... (Score:2)
"Intellectual Property Protection - KLone's mechanism of compiling both static and dynamic web content into an executable object provides a means of distributing web applications without the corresponding source code." (http://koanlogic.com/kl/cont/gb/html/klone-featu r es.html [koanlogic.com])
VS.
" Great victory against software patents in the European Parliament (648 votes against the reform, 14 in favour and 18 abstentions). Much of the m
Second Hint: Real companies aren't afraid of email (Score:2)
you know (Score:2)
Time to hire some non-geeks. (Score:2)
Well, that's your problem right there: at this point, you need to add some non-geeks to your company. (In fact, it sounds like you're well past that point.)
Look, you don't expect the marketroids to be able to do a decent job of C++ coding... so why would you expect geeks to do a decent job of formulating marketing strategies?
Sure, there are folks who have skill in both areas, but
Re:Time to hire some non-geeks. (Score:2)
Marketing not so hard (Score:1)
Marketing is not as hard as one might think. Of course marketing should be started from day one... marketing is not merely advertising, it's goal is to understand your customer and ensure that you are providing what the market needs to solve their problems. Here are some suggestions to get you started:
Read some good books on the subject (Innovators Dilemma, Crossing the Chasm, Tales from the Tornado, ...)
Answer these questions on your website and in your literature:
What is you typical customer profi
twins! (Score:2)
Services (Score:2)
No offense, but you're basically asking the Slashdot community to fill in the other half of your business plan...you know, the actual money making part. Getting expertise on how to do that costs money.
URL of the mentioned product (Score:1)
Case Study: TrollTech (Score:2)
I have no idea what product you are selling, but the key to marketing is to figure out how your future customers get t
Re:Case Study: TrollTech (Score:2)
I don't think it'll work.
Education market (Score:2)
Try casually mailing CS professors and ask them if they're happy with what they have.
I know for sure that if we were to use an IDE for C instead of emacs, it would make my life a hell of a lot easier instead of using Java and eclipse... Eclipse is nice, but Java drives me insane.
And when people who know your IDE come
No experience, but.. (Score:2)
The author implies that multiple licenses can insense your customers, provide discounts to the people who can afford pay you the most (corporations), and may ultimately fail because large corporations have purchasing divisions whose sole purpose is to get you to charge less. Worth a read, at least.
assignment of copyright (Score:2)
Of course, if you make them do that, they'll be less likely to contribute at all.
And make sure they didn't borrow their mods from somewhere inappropriate. It'll be your product and company that is in trouble if they do.
Don't. Instead release a low priced product (Score:2)
Option 1: Basic version under GPL with commercial extensions / plugins
- You release the basic framework and the base set of functionality under GPL.
- You release a set of closed-source extensions / plugins under a commercial license. Ofcourse, your existing system must have support for loading plug
Don't release as OSS unless you sell anyway. (Score:2)
Get a handfull of clients that want your product + some customization and warm up to your tar