Software as a business sounds clean on a slide. In practice it is coffee stains, pager buzz, and the chat ping from a paying user who just hit a wall. That ping showed up for us at two fifty nine in the morning. A checkout event with no payment captured….
Category: Business of Software
The business side of software. Pricing, monetization, SaaS models, and building sustainable software businesses.
The business of software: Revenue Is the Only Signal That Never Lies
Writing software is the easy part; turning it into a business that pays the bills is where the bruises come from. After some scars and some small wins, here are the lessons from the trenches of software as a business, shared while the iPad craze is fresh, Google Instant just…
The business of software: Trial Length Balancing Urgency and Value
We build software because we love it, but rent and payroll do not accept passion as a payment method. These are the scars and small wins from selling code in the wild, not theories from a whiteboard. If you want to treat software as a business, start with the only…
The business of software: Pick Problems That Command a Budget
Software is a business before it is art. If you forget that part, the market will remind you at billing time. Ship something that earns, or you are just funding a hobby with nicer tools. People keep asking what the real lessons are when you try to turn software into…
The business of software: Writing Software vs Running a Business
Software as a business is not the same sport as writing software. I say this after a long night of shipping a tiny feature, answering support at odd hours, and staring at a graph that refuses to climb. If you are coding your heart out and still feeling stuck, this…
The business of software: Pick One Job and Charge For It
Software as a Business is not a theory. It is a daily grind of choices that look small in the morning and decide your month by night. I have been shipping and selling software long enough to know the difference between a cool demo and something a customer will pay…
The business of software: Solve Problems People Will Pay For
Software as a business is not a theory class. It is a kitchen with hot pans, late invoices and release builds that go out five minutes before dinner. This is part five of the series, written after another day of bug reports, support emails and a small win that keeps…
The business of software: Distribution and Dollars Move Together
Software is a business first. Code is the easy part. The rest is rent, support, taxes, chargebacks, copy, and deal terms. If you are reading this in your text editor after midnight, coffee in hand, this is for you. Today Google said it will buy DoubleClick. That is a reminder…
The business of software: Ship First, Polish Later
Software as a Business Part 4. Lessons from the trenches. A practitioner’s take that you can reuse tomorrow morning. A quick talk before coffee Founder: I have a small app that solves a real itch. Two people use it. One is my mom. Friend: You shipping or still polishing the…
The business of software: Turn Launch Buzz Into Receipts
Software as a Business Part 4: Lessons from the Trenches Dialogue Founder: I shipped the beta. People like it. My downloads look decent. How do I turn this into a real business without burning the cash and my sanity. Mentor: Good. Now forget the launch buzz. Treat this like a…