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Selling Software - Shareware, Piracy, and Profit?
qjereq asks: "A few months after being laid off from a large corporation early last year, I decided to create some image browsing software to sell on the web and, perhaps later, in stores. Unfortunately, besides competing with hundreds of other similar shareware and freeware products, I have found that the bulk of my product's downloads come from pirate web sites. I have tried unsuccessfully to make my software hack-proof. I have also looked into selling the product in-stores, but I have only heard bad things about this including the possibility of having to eat the cost of returned merchandise. I am running low on cash and am on the brink of giving up, but I know that the product is good. Do any Slashdot readers have any success stories about how they were able to make money by selling software? My product is currently sold as Shareware. Should I consider a combination of Freeware and a Full Version? Is it worth the hassle of trying to get onto store shelves? Help."
There is no way to create a "hack-proof" piece of software. If you have an interesting program, people will figure out a way to unlock it. If you make two different versions available (lite and registered) then the warez sites will make the for-pay version available. *shrug* There's not a darn thing you can do. You can make it difficult, but in the end, the energy spent making the product hard to crack would be better spent on making the product better. Not until we have DRM integrated into the hardware of everone's PC will we be able to fix that particular problem.
James
There is another theory which says that one of the main reasons for hacking software is because of the challenge of beating the software's protection, and that posting it to the pirate sites is done more for the bragging rights than to let people have the software for nothing.
:-/
If this is true, putting in ever more complex protection schemes will have no effect, other than to make the software an even more interesting target for the hackers.
Hmm.... sorry to sound cynical.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
But is it too good of a price? Maybe you need to raise your prices. (Seriously) It would seem that your software would have a pretty small market, but is very good for that market. Maybe you need a price range of 25-30 so you can make a profit with the sales. Is piracy the problem? To be honest, I doubt it. I think those that are willing to support a program do it. Those that do not don't. Simple as that. Best thing you can do actually, is to create a community, if you do not already have one. Making it personal is the best way to get support on the Internet.
Basically, your problem has no solution. As has already been pointed out, there's no such thing as "hack-proof", the full version WILL end up on warez sites, and shareware rarely makes money. In the end you just have to trust in human nature. It's hard to believe, I know, but most people don't get their software from warez sites. In fact, most people prefer to do the "right thing" in most situations.
Don't waste time, effort, and resources trying to make your software "hack-proof", spend that time instead on making more reasons for someone in a store pick your box up off the shelf.
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besides competing with hundreds of other similar shareware and freeware products
Well, there you have it. Why should anyone buy your software? Is it unique in any way? Were you the first to get it to market? Does it satisfy a particular niche? Is your product of superior quality?
You're always going to have a certain level of piracy. You can see this as negative (lost sales) or positive (free marketing). Most people who pirate weren't going to pay for it in the first place. You have to hope they'll recommend it to someone who will. Software protection is an illusion that reduces sales.
I have a friend who wrote a fairly simple utility. He did it well and did it early. He sold it as shareware (no longer though) and was turing over $500K a year lat I heard. So it can be done.
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Very little can de done against it. So the real question is how do other companies like say supermarkets get us to pay for their products. Yesterday on my way to the dentist I walked past the back of a supermarket and totally unprotected where stending several loafs of bread. I could have saved myself A. some money B. the time standing in the que. I did not take the loaf. Why the risk was not worth it for me.
With software however we feel that "stealing" it is not so much a problem when we consider it stealing at all. You think differently? Cute from a guy who calls his image browser software "abc" I am sure acdsee has something to say about this. Software is easily "stolen" and the risks are non-existent.
So the answer? Well look to a different way of doing business. Opera, you got their icon on your page, seems to be surviving despite the fact that it gives its full browser away for free. Oh yeah they got add banners. Even if you are to lazy to find a serial for it you probably filter out the ads at the proxy.
I don't think it is really possible to escape pirates anymore. The cracking has become so fast that games are out cracked before they are in stores. How is a little shop like you possibly going to compete. So go the way of some game companies. Don't bother. Quake without any protection nonetheless was a huge seller. It can be done. But try to stay away from overzealous copyprotection.
Why? Cause the only ones you hurt with all the stuff like serials and calling home functionality are the legitemate users. Not a single company so far has succeeded in keeping popular software out of the warez scene. Not microsoft, not acdsee and neither will you.
Concentrate instead on making the program superior to anyone elses. Then hope that enough people will simply buy it because they find "stealing" wrong to support you. Plenty of free software projects get funding without any obligation to contribute anything.
Remember there is no law wich says you got to be able to make a living. If this doesn't pay your bills then though. Get a J.O.B.
But the real question to you is. Did you pay for opera? Did you make a donation to Apache and all the other OSS software you are using? In short did you fully pay for all software you ever used? No then shut the fuck up. You steal we steal. If you did, then give yourselve a pat on the back, there will no doubt be a place for you in heaven, with just a little bit of hell for infringing on acdsee's trademark. :P
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Much like stores have to plan for losing 2 - 5 % of their inventory to theft ("shrinkage"), so too must software companies accept that someone, somewhere is going to hack your software if anyone likes it. If they have all of the bits and bytes of your system sitting in front of them, and they have no need to communicate with your server, they can always strip it out. Your purpose should be to encourage the maximum number of users to pay for the full version, not to have the minimum amount of piracy.
A freeware version is a good idea, as it will raise your visibility... If someone is so cheap that they would use a pirated version, you might convince them to become a customer by offering freeware, then enticing them with the full thing. Most of the copies of WinZip out there are the freeware version, but there are a heck of a lot more paid copies than if they didn't offer the free one.
A 15 day trial is too short. You are not just trying to show users the full value of your software, you are also trying to get them so used to using it that they are willing to shell out the cash to keep doing what they are doing. Most people have settled on 30 days, but 60 days wouldn't be out of the question.
I'd also charge more for the software, as price creates a perception of value: 25 - 35 dollars should be sufficient. At 15 dollars you are putting yourself in the realm of cheaply made, junky Visual Basic apps.
You've probably heard the following, but as an avid digital photographer I would find your software difficult to use. For one, you don't have an intuitive, on-screen way to navigate through folders. There is a reason every other piece of image software out there has this... it's much easier to manually search your image collection, which is why you have a browser in the first place. No real image collection is a flat folder.
The single-level Thumbnail filmstrip is also a cute analogy, but it makes it difficult to, once again, search your pictures. There should be some way to have multiple filmstrips to facilitate easier searching.
On one hand, whatever algorithms you are using to handle large file databases is solid... ABC took a 10,000 image file folder with only a 5 second pause on this P3 800. And now that you have a solid program, the last bit of polish required is what brings in most of the money.
On the other hand, as you mentioned you are competing with literally thousands of other products, such as ThumbsPlus, SuperJPG, ACDsee, and many others which are all highly professional, tremendously polished, and mature products. Spidering websites is a good first step, but you need to differentiate yourself if you are going to see real success. Are you going to be the online viewer of choice, with auto-import from camera / auto-export to HTML via FTP features? Are you going to push yourself onto OEM machines as a simple, easy-to-use viewer for regular people?
And if you haven't read Steve Pavlina's excellent article on selling shareware, I strongly recommend you do so now.
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If I had to put up with all that shit for some image viewer, I'm sure I'd find a different image viewer. As he said, there are already hundreds of perfectly good ones, and dozens in open source.
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While I applaud your attempt to do something like this, why on earth would you develop a product for a field that by your admission is flooded with competitive (and free at that!) products? How did you intend to differentiate yours from all the rest? I can understand if this was just something you were doing for your own use and later decided to sell it, but you said you developed this with the intention of marketing it.
I'm a bit puzzled by how you expected to make money doing this.
If you had checked the market before starting, you would have saved yourself a lot of time ... a latecomer to a crowded market can't be "good", it has to be superb. The pirated copies aren't losing you any sales ... if you had made it absolutely hack-proof, the pirates would be distributing someone else's hacked software.
Cut your losses, consider it programming experience and start hunting up a job.