getting paid

[Ivers, Doug E]

Thanks for the advice!  It has the ring of truth.  Actually, my plan is pretty close to what you're suggesting.

Nonetheless, I'd still like to have password protection of the whole stackfile which isn't onerous to the end user, yet prevents them from passing it along unlocked to someone else.  Is this possible?  How is Revolution itself password protected?  Can that same mechanism be incorporated into stackfiles?


-- D


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kee Nethery [mailto:kee at kagi.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 1:31 PM
> To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> Subject: Re: getting paid
> 
> 
> >>I'm still trying to figure out how to protect my time investment.
> 
> As someone who deals with thousands of people who sell shareware, 
> I'll toss in my opinion.
> 
> First rule: Software authors who focus on how to prevent people from 
> using their software are rarely as successful as authors who focus on 
> how to get more people using their software.
> 
> Some of the most successful software sold at Kagi has the lamest 
> protection mechanisms you have ever seen. Is the software used 
> without being paid for, yes. Do the majority of people using it pay, 
> yes. Does the author make a ton of bucks, yes.
> 
> If you can afford to do it, my recommendation is to give the software 
> away for free with an absolute kill date a year from now. The version 
> you give away today, stops working 12 months from now. Build up a 
> following. Communicate with your users. Develop a mailing list of 
> everyone who uses your software and communicate with them. For each 
> revision, extend the kill date. Eventually, when you have a large 
> following and the code base is creaky, plan on building rev 2.0 and 
> hire someone with talent to make the user interface as professional 
> as possible. Then charge for the upgrade. Via your mailing list let 
> people know that the existing rev 1.0 versions will expire on XYZ 
> date and that the upgrade price is ABC and for new users the purchase 
> price is WXY.
> 
> Focus on getting people to use your software, not on preventing 
> people from using your software.
> 
> Second rule: Find as big a potential market as possible.
> 
> (I'm making up these numbers) For example, 6 billion people in the 
> world, 0.1% are palm users, 1% are palm developers, 1% are palm 
> developers using Forth programming language, your entire market is 
> 600 palm developers who might consider an alternate palm Forth 
> development environment.
> 
> Compare that to:  6 billion people in the world, 0.1% are palm users, 
> 30% are concerned with losing their palm and having someone else read 
> their data, a screen lock/erase palm if stolen app has a potential 
> market of 1.8 million.
> 
> Even if the screen lock/erase if stolen product is horrible and has a 
> tiny fraction of the market, they will make a ton of bucks. The Forth 
> development environment will have to be perfect and even if, they 
> will make hardly anything.
> 
> Choose an application that has as wide a target market as possible.
> 
> Kee Nethery
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