Make money with your PHP software!!!!!!!

Anon

What do you think is the best way to make money with your PHP software. I don't mean some small script but something like a very large and complete Content Managament System.
I'm very interested in your opinions.

greetings,

Christiaan

Anon

lease it or sell it

[deleted]

Build it, slap a license on it, and try to sell it. If you're lucky you can sell one or two copies.

A much better way to make money is to do contract work.

Anon

But I'm almost finished building an Content Management System that is going to be in the top 3 of best CMS'.
So what do I do now to distribute and sell it.

Christiaan

[deleted]

How modest.

Any chance of a demo of your CMS?

dannys

My advice is just to make it free - unless you have a very good system and have paying clients queueing up.

Think about it, that sort of thing looks soo good on a CV (resume) especially if it's good and you can say '15000 people use my scripts' - kinda puts you in front of the next guy :-)

At the very least, you should make a demo available - noone's going to shell out for something they can't even test 🙂

Another idea could be to keep it 'in house'. Do contract work building intranets etc but use your CMS for each project - should cut the development time right down and give you a chance to perfect the system as time goes on.

Just a few thoughts 🙂

Anon

First I need to finish the documentation. When that's ready, I'll post a message here to let you know.

Anon

Thanks for your advice. The things you mentioned are more or less the options I am considering
I very much like the idea to make it free for non-commercial use (so I'll be able to say that many people are using my scripts.) That's also a good way to advertise my product.
Then I'd sell the product to users with commercial intentions.

dannys

You could have a 'corporate' version with some extra features that clients will want to pay for as well as the 'free' version which you can use for publicity and generally getting people to like you :-)

dannys

You can also use the freeware version to collect comments/bug reports and feature requests which you can then use on the corporate version.

Freeware versions are also useful for testing things without the risk of upsetting paying clients 🙂

dannys

Any chance of a feature list?

[deleted]

Let's start with a demo, because I tend to be a little sceptical when someone says his product will be in the top-3 of products without ever having even mentioned the features.

dannys

Yeah, just giving encouragment ;-)

So, what are the other two products, and why isn't yours better than them, Christiaan?

Anon

Danny wrote:

You can also use the freeware version to collect comments/bug reports and feature requests which you can then use on the corporate version.

Freeware versions are also useful for testing things without the risk of upsetting paying clients 🙂

Heh heh - that reminds me of a certain megalomoniacal monopolistic corporation I heard of once... Micro-something.. I can't think of the name... 😉 Course you have to PAY for their software.

"Ship it! We'll remove the bugs that the customers complain about - we'll save time that way." - anonymous MS employee.

Anon

Good question.

Because you guys have given my so much good info, I'm gonna give you the domain from which I'm going to advertise for my CMS. It's www.abctemplates.com
This site is not ready. You also can't download anything from it.
So, for info only.

Anon

But I'm affraid when a distribute a free full version, that people are going to alter my CMS and sell it themselves.

Christiaan

dannys

Well make sure that the freeware version lacks the killer features that would make anyone pay out good money 🙂

Anon

Hi, i'm also making a content management system, which will be good - I hope. It's not 'demo' ready yet but should blow PHPNuke right outta the water, which is my main reason for making my work free!

I don't worry about anyone stealing my work and selling it as I plan to make my free version good enough and well known so that anyone buying a CMS will surely have heard of mine and would spot any similarities straight away.

My advice is that if you are real serious about selling your work, sell it lock stock to a PHP development company. Find one that'll give you a good price and you can work on something else while they worry about marketing and piracy!

Matt...