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How Would You Launch a Dual-Licensed Product? 57

Posted by Cliff from the free-software-plus-commercial-support dept.
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?"
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How Would You Launch a Dual-Licensed Product? More

How Would You Launch a Dual-Licensed Product?

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  • Crush your customers, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women.

    • You don't work for Attila by any chance?

    • From IMBD:

      Conan's response to the Mongol General is an abbreviation of a real quote attributed to Gengis Khan: "The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters."
  • Some perspectives here.

    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
  • Or, better yet, find an individual who wants to come in as a partner (that is, assuming that this small business is owned by its workers). Scott Mcnealy comes to mind, as an example... I think he has outlasted all the others who started Sun.
  • It's already too late. If you've already developed the product, then you've shot your wad. Why did you build it without a plan for how you were going to make money by bringing it to market? Might as well go find a real job while you have some money left.

    Most common startup business plan:

    • Phase 1: Collect Underpants
    • Phase 2: ???
    • Phase 3: Profit!

    I've always wanted to name a company "Phase 3 Software".

  • You've already missed a great promotional opportunity. You got posted to ask slashdot without a link to the product page. D'oh.
    • Based on the domain in his email, I'm guessing his company is called Koan Logic [koanlogic.com].
      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
      • That page needs some work.

        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 .com domain and having Italian on it's own .it domain with a link between the two domains visible from the initial page load.

        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'
        • Once you've fixed up the website, the next step is to go out where your target market hangs out (ie, Slashdot, other programming/development forums) and get involved with your target market. Make sure your .sig file points back to your website. At the very least, you'll improve your search engine results. Don't worry about trying to blatantly plug your product unless you see someone who's asking for a product that does what your product does.

          Next, ask yourself, what do people use my product with? If t
  • I have the business savvy of a turnip, but I don't see much wrong with dual-licensing per se...with anything BUT a compiler. I notice that programming/development tools are either free as air, or not loved very much. There's something about development tools, you need the code free, the libraries free, all derivative works to be free...

    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

    • 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

  • You need marketing hotties

    In addition, you could have posted your products web site with your story, but I guess hinesight is 20-20.
  • 1) Post story on slashdot.
    2) Post story on Digg
    3) Profit!
  • Does Slashdot not have ad space for sale?
  • You posted to slashdot but without your product. If you had just posted the URL in the post, your product would already have got thousands if not millions product and marketing reviews. Sometimes, getting slashdotted might help ;-)
  • I did something a little more drastic than you're talking about I ended up open sourcing 99% of (what was ) my primary company. However we leaned heavily in the same direction you are.

    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
  • at least tell us what the programs are FOR on your website! Your introduction states:

    "...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
  • My advice? Don't bother with dual-licencing. If the product is available under the GPL, then almost nobody is going to bother with paying for a commercial licence which will only restrict what they can do with it.
    • If your program does the same things as an existing commercial application, then the Open Source Tinkerers looking for an alternative to hat they are already using will download the GPL version and play with it; and then they'll decide either to ditch it altogether or stick with the GPL version.
  • I am doing the same with my company [codesynthesis.com] right now. We are developing and dual-licensing XML Schema to C++ compiler [codesynthesis.com]. Here are some things that I found effective:
    • SEO-optimize your product page.
    • Submit/list your product URL to/in all relevant places: DMOZ, Wikipedia, C++ Libraries List, etc.
    • Post to freshmeat. This helps in two respects: (1) potential users hear about your project and (2) a lot of editors for other places (like directory.fsf.org, softpedia.com, etc) monitor this place and will add your product
  • 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.

    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

    • 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

  • The market for development tools is not what it once was, but I think you've chosen a wise licensing strategy. I doubt I'd know about MySql and Qt if they weren't dual-licensed GPL products. Use the GPL side of things to build product awareness and get contributions, and use the proprietary licensing side to fund your company.

    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
  • "My startup company has just released its first product, but since it is made up of geeks without a clue about marketing strategies..."

    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

  • My startup company has just released its first product, but since it is made up of geeks...

    Your product is made of geeks? Is that legal? How are the geeks prepared? Fried, pureed?
  • Based on the OP's email address and a little digging through a buzzword-infested website with a beautifully retina-burning design, I'm guessing that KLone [koanlogic.com] is the product they're trying to sell.

    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
  • you could start by telling us what produce it is. Given you have jsut submitted content to slashdot, i think yoiu deserve at least that much promotion.
  • My startup company has just released its first product, but since it is made up of geeks without a clue about marketing strategies

    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

  • 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

  • I'd hire a couple of hot booth babes, preferably twins, print the text of each of the two licenses on a skimpy/flimsy outfit, and put the babes in them. One could be "open girl" and the other "support girl" or something like that. Make sure to use an 8pt font size so the outfits are a tiny as possible while still holding the full text.
  • For my hourly rate of $100/hr I'd be more than happy to share my marketing expertise with you.

    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.

  • here's the link to the product we mentioned: http://koanlogic.com/kl/cont/gb/html/klone.html [koanlogic.com]
  • TrollTech's Qt library had a rough start in the dual-licensing arena, but they got things ironed out, and now they have vibrant commercial and GPL software groups. Go browse www.trolltech.com for ideas on how to approach things. Look for other companies doing this as well. If possible, treat your GPL users as first-class-citizens; they may convert to commercial users at their daytime job.

    I have no idea what product you are selling, but the key to marketing is to figure out how your future customers get t
    • It works for Trolltech because their product is a library; same with MySQL. A GPL library is no use to most commercial developers. A GPL development tool, however, is probably almost as useful as a commercial one, and cheaper.

      I don't think it'll work.
  • If you're dealing with an IDE that's not too expensive, works, and you're willing to have customer support for, then I would say that any CS department that teaches C or C++ is a worthy attempt.
    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
  • Mentioned in the comments about Vista yesterday was this article on business models: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandR u bberDuckies.html [joelonsoftware.com]

    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.
  • Make sure that every one of your "community of developers" assigns copyright to you for every mod they make. Otherwise you can't sell their GPL code under another license.

    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.

  • My advice is - Don't release your product under a dual license. It leads to all kinds of problems and the chance of commercial success is somewhat limited. I suggest that you consider one of the following options:

    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
  • Unless you've got sales in the making allready (large custom projects, vendor bundling your stuff, etc.) don't release as OSS. OSS only makes sense if you've got a clear vision on how to capitalize of that in your business. OSS can be a good marketing tool - but you've got to know what you are doing. Curiously enough, OSS makes best sense when you've got a product on your hands that would go as closed source aswell.
    Get a handfull of clients that want your product + some customization and warm up to your tar

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