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View Full Version : Developing for Profit vs. Open Source



jamestl2
04-08-2010, 07:07 PM
How does everyone feel about selling various Wordpress creations and products? Not about services per se, because those are very specific, I mean products more along the lines of various Themes and Plugins.

I'm torn between the two. On the one hand, it's nice to earn income off our hard-work and it can give an idea as to how much some are willing to pay for it. And having very low income, it's seems like it could eventually be a nice form of living.

On the other end however, making themes and plugins available through purchase goes against the open-source nature of WP. (After all, Wordpress itself is open source, and Matt and the others are allowing people to use it for free.) Plus if you specifically decide to "sell" the scripts, you won't get as much feedback on how well thought-out they are, turn people away who could use it, etc.

I'm sure there are other reasons too, those just come immediately to mind for me. I recently decided to make my first plugin freely available, mostly because it's very simple and it's a good way to get feedback if something doesn't work right or if they have suggestions.

However, I've been considering developing more complex plugins and advanced themes. They wouldn't meet the needs of one company's development issue specifically, I'd develop them based on what I think would be useful to people. And I haven't decided on whether I want to charge people for these themes and plugins I have in mind once I actually develop them.

Thoughts?

Spider
04-08-2010, 08:02 PM
Here's my input - not focussing on Wordpress because I don't know Wordpress, but looking at the whole open source concept. This can apply to many things beyond software.

I think we have reached a point in human development that "trade secrets" are a thing of the past. Even Coca Cola's and KFC's "secret formulas" can easily be reverse-engineered and there are always many ways to achieve a certain objective.

The problem with charging for everything one does, is this leaves the potantial customer with little knowledge of what you can do and whether the product you offer is any good. By making the product "open source" and giving it away, the potential customer becomes a potential client to hire your services.

This has been going on for many years in services that require skill and talent. By being open and honest about how to do what you do, you effectively tell the client how to do it themselves. But most clients don't have the time or inclination to do it themselves, but now that they know how to do it, they have a better appreciation of what you do and are more inclined to hire you to do it for them.

You know exactly what an accountant does, how he does it and you could learn how to do it free by reading books from your public library. But if yours is a vibrant, successful business, you are likely to hire an accountant instead. And the accountant that gives free lectures and brief seminars on specific subjects in your locality demonstrates his skill and expertise to potential clients that then hire his firm rather than the firm that hides behind a veil of professional secrecy.

I wonder where Microsoft would be today if they didn't give their Internet Explorer away for the asking. Adobe gives their Adobe reader away to demonstrate how good it is so people who create the stuff the reader reads will buy the Adobe writer (or whatever its called!)

One needs to know what part of one's services one can give away and what part they will sell. The big part of that decision is what will one's competitors give away? It will be difficult to sell what one's competitors are giving away free.

vangogh
04-09-2010, 10:44 AM
James selling themes and plugins doesn't go against the idea of open source software. The freedom in open source is free to take the code and modify it any way you see fit. It has nothing to do with the product not being allowed to charge money.

WordPress has no problem with your charging money for a theme or plugin. The even list commercial themes at WordPress.org. They insist though that the theme or plugin come with a GPL license meaning anyone can modify your theme and plugin and otherwise do whatever they want with it. That does include redistributing your theme or plugin.

That last part is why some will be hesitant to offer GPL licenses or why others will change the business model to sell services or make you join a membership site in order to gain access to themes and plugins.

Don't confuse the freedom of open source for meaning that you can't charge for open source products. The freedom is about what those who use your software can do with the software.

Harold Mansfield
04-09-2010, 09:05 PM
Personally as one who purchases themes and an occasional plug in. I don't mind paying for something that does what I need it to do. Sometimes I am actually happy that what I need exists and I can buy it, rather than having rig and hack someting together.

I'm actually amazed that as many things as there are, are free.

But I have had some bad experiences with purchasing plug ins and then receiving no support, like now...I am awaiting a refund (via 2CO and Pay Pal) for a plug in that I purchased last week...the company is apparently in the wind. IT sucks because I didn't want my money back, I wanted it to work.

I don't mind paying for plug ins, but I do expect them to work flawlessly right out of the box or expect support quickly if it doesn't.
It also has to be something that is not available elsewhere.

But the reality is that there are more struggling webmasters than anything and they are a cheap, resource draining, "want everything for free or on warez networks" bunch.
They would rather steal your plug in than pay for it, so you will not make any money form them.
You have to target pros and service providers.

jamestl2
04-10-2010, 12:36 AM
The problem with charging for everything one does, is this leaves the potantial customer with little knowledge of what you can do and whether the product you offer is any good.


I'm thinking customer feedback is probably my most important concern at this stage in my business, since it's still relatively small and new.

I figure if going the free route, my business expands faster and the products become easier to market (since resources are easier and quicker to obtain for people, and more people can use them and give the potential feedback I'll need to grow).

There's people on both sides, plenty develop themes for free, plenty more sell premium themes, and even more provide custom theme development.

One of the reasons I decided to start my business is because I know that there are many people out there hate trying to read and understand code, and I still know that there's a market for it (via all the freelance projects and people asking for help that I see). And when I complete the products I intend to freely release or sell, I will do my best to make sure the stuff I develop is as unique and useful as it can be.



I wonder where Microsoft would be today if they didn't give their Internet Explorer away for the asking.


I don't know about Microsoft, but I know the web development community would be much better off :D.



Don't confuse the freedom of open source for meaning that you can't charge for open source products.


OK, let me clear up my main distinguishment. I was referring to Open Source as in both instances of freedom, as it doesn't cost anything, and people can modify the source code. I know it can mean "free" as in "anyone can edit" as well as "it doesn't cost anything".

Basically my conundrum in this instance is "Developing and selling for profit" vs. "Developing and releasing the products for everyone to use". And that many people in the WP community are already part of the Open Source camp. Sorry if I didn't make it clearer.

BTW, Happy Birthday Steve!



I don't mind paying for plug ins, but I do expect them to work flawlessly right out of the box or expect support quickly if it doesn't.


That was another concern of mine too (thanks for pointing it out). Since I don't have as much experience working directly with PHP, I'd probably consider releasing beta versions, just to iron out any potential major bugs across different versions of WP. And of course there would always be support for the projects on my forums, if anyone ever encountered a problem.

The amount of free stuff out there amazes me too. So many people put in countless hours of work and just give it away, not that I'm complaining :). I suppose the market for freely available software is really that powerful.


Although right now, I feel at the moment that I'm leaning towards choosing to sell the products for profit, mostly for the immediate benefits I could really use (and due to the lack of finding employment that was discussed in the job thread).

Harold Mansfield
04-10-2010, 01:17 AM
Microsoft didn't give Internet Explorer away to build their reputation or gain customer loyalty. Internet Explorer sucks and is at the bottom of available free browsers in my opinion.
Website developers hate Internet Explorer. The average Joe doesn't know the difference because it came with their computer.

IE is not some "extra" benefit from Microsoft. Just like we were talking about on another thread, IE is an advertising medium. MS goal was to lock up as many users as possible on the free browser and email so that they could charge top dollar for advertising on them.
There was a methodology in place and it wasn't philanthropy.

If I had an advertising platform that was beneficial to people and they wanted to install in on their computers, I'd give it away too. The browser isn't the goal, selling ads are.

Spider
04-10-2010, 09:29 AM
I have never seen an advertisement on MSIE - where are they? Contrary to your first sentence - "Microsoft didn't give Internet Explorer away to build their reputation or gain customer loyalty" - I think that is exactly why Microsoft gave IE away. They wanted people to use a Microsoft product, become familair with Microsoft, and become loyal Microsoft fans. And they succeeded mightily. Microsoft made their money with subsequent software offerings - in large part, Office and Office offshoots - and I suspect that would not have happened so successfully if they had not captured a large user-base with Internet Explorer.

And that is the point of my post, regardless of how well some people think it works. It is a marvelous business lesson for anyone to learn. By developing a large user-base with a useful freebie, Microsoft cleaned up on larger, more valuable products.

Harold Mansfield
04-10-2010, 10:01 AM
I have never seen an advertisement on MSIE - where are they? Contrary to your first sentence - "Microsoft didn't give Internet Explorer away to build their reputation or gain customer loyalty" - I think that is exactly why Microsoft gave IE away. They wanted people to use a Microsoft product, become familair with Microsoft, and become loyal Microsoft fans. And they succeeded mightily. Microsoft made their money with subsequent software offerings - in large part, Office and Office offshoots - and I suspect that would not have happened so successfully if they had not captured a large user-base with Internet Explorer.

And that is the point of my post, regardless of how well some people think it works. It is a marvelous business lesson for anyone to learn. By developing a large user-base with a useful freebie, Microsoft cleaned up on larger, more valuable products.
MS didn't exactly give IE away, it was part of the package that goes along with Windows, which is the operating system that 90% of computers ship with. Windows is not free.

IE is merely the browser, the Search Engine is loaded with sponsored listings and Hotmail is loaded with advertisements...just like all of them

Of course you are going to give something way that gives you direct access to throw ads at people.
I wouldn't be surprised if TV networks started giving away TV's one day that only picked up their networks.

I have a lot of respect for MS, and have nothing against the company at all, but they didn't exactly capture the market, they stole it, but that subject has waayy too many twists and turns to get into.

Spider
04-10-2010, 12:43 PM
Actually, MS did give IE away and it did not include any advertising. MSIE 1.0 was first released in 1995, (the year I first connected to the WWW) as a stand alone application available free to anyone who wanted to download it from the Microsoft website. Of course, it worked with Window's graphical operating system - introduced in the mid-80s, if I remember correctly. (I was still using MS-DOS and BASIC until well into the 90s.)

When I bought my first internet-capable computer in 1995, the Netscape Navigator was the only browser commonly available. I downloaded MSIE 2.0, for free, some time early 1996, because I was disgruntled with how NN operated. MSIE 3.0 came out late '96, I believe.

MSIE was subsequently bundled with the Windows operating system when MS introduced Windows 98, but later unbundled after some acrimonious law suits by Netscape and others. IE has always been available by free download from Microsoft's website even to this day. The Netscape Navigator had been introduced in 1994, was not free until made so due to loss of marketshare in 1998. Firebird is all that seems to be left of the original Mozilla project that first produced Netscape Navigator.

Here endeth the history lesson! :D

Patrysha
04-10-2010, 02:31 PM
I think free can lead to dollars down the road. I don't consider the time and effort and $$ I put into creating free products to be wasted. It's part of the marketing funnel...the effort to be known, liked and trusted that leads to sales.

As for IE...it's not a matter of whether it's crappy or not...it was free...and it was available and it was an easy option. People like easy and aren't apt to change without a really compelling reason. It works well enough that the average person doesn't think to switch unless it causes problems...and for the average person it doesn't.

I was one who paid for Navigator. That was the first time we got internet access in 1996. It was $30 IIRC and included a month of dial up service.

We later switched to our local phone company...

In any case...

I really should get off the forums and back to work!

Harold Mansfield
04-10-2010, 10:12 PM
The only thing about free is, you have to answer support questions, and not just for the first few weeks...people are always looking for plug ins.
I see some support threads that are 2-3 years old and the plug in author still answers questions.
That can be a pain in the butt if you aren't making any money and I can see how you would loose interest in answering questions for a bunch of demanding , cheap webmasters.
But if you drop the support then you destroy any potential future business from that community.

Spider
04-10-2010, 11:39 PM
The only thing about free is, you have to answer support questions, and not just for the first few weeks...people are always looking for plug ins. I see some support threads that are 2-3 years old and the plug in author still answers questions.
That can be a pain in the butt ....Well, if you consider talking one-on-one with prospects who contact you to be "a pain in the butt," then I guess you won't offer anything free and will go the "charge for everything" route. Just be prepared for your prospects to talk to your competition, that's all!

The whole point of giving stuff away is to get people to contact you.

Harold Mansfield
04-11-2010, 12:07 AM
Well, if you consider talking one-on-one with prospects who contact you to be "a pain in the butt," then I guess you won't offer anything free and will go the "charge for everything" route. Just be prepared for your prospects to talk to your competition, that's all!

The whole point of giving stuff away is to get people to contact you.

C'mon, me of all people? I'm building 3 free community sites right now for no other reason than to publicize my services to people and show diversity in my portfolio with working examples.

They are an expensive, time consuming, resource draining, energy suck. I have spent more money in the past month...on Developers and Support services Memberships, upgrading hosting, upgrading my high speed access, buying plug ins, images, graphics and designs....than I do on a paying clients site. I've spent at least $200 on stuff that I can't even use.

All so that I can pull this off for my future users, and ensure that they have a great user experience, for free. Not just one. THREE! All at once..or at least by the end of May.

I've been sleeping 4-5 hours a night for the past month, just to learn this and be able to apply it to any situation.

Not to mention, they will all have support...email and or text . All 3 ! Do you know how much time it will require to be on constant spam patrol alone for 3 sites where anyone can join ?

And I'm going to have to spend money to advertise them to get them started.
I'm pretty sure of all people I know the concept of spending money and offering things to people for free to get yourself noticed.

I just don't agree with that line of thinking all of the time,. Answering support questions for a free plug in for months, is very time consuming, especially for a one man show, and webmasters ( especially ones that only use free stuff) are the worst clientele on the whole WWW.

The plug in and scripts world doesn't work like that. You have 2 kinds of customers...ones that know what they want and need and will pay to have it done. No questions asked. And then you have the ones that will never spend a dime and want to beg borrow and steal every script that they can get their hands on. With that crowd, it doesn't matter how much you give away, they will never pay you a dime for anything.

And in between there's the 3rd world and former 3rd world new webmasters and developers that are going to undercut every price you have..drastically. The only thing that saves you is they aren't reputable or accountable.

I'm just saying you need to be prepared to stick it out for the long haul if that's what you are going to do. You make your name by sticking with the product, supplying updates when necessary and continuing support for the life of however long it is available for people to download.

There are a lot of good plug ins that haven't been updated since WP 2.3, sitting on abandoned websites these days.
IF you start something and abandon your users, you may do yourself more harm than good.

Spider
04-11-2010, 01:40 AM
My point was, Harold, that if providing the support you deem essential is such a pain, then don't go that route. Your post seems to suggest you are taking your business on a path that leads to some nightmarish destination. And where's the sense in that? If you aren't going to enjoy what you are creating, I would stop and do something that I will enjoy.

You CAN be happy and successful. I do not subscribe to the notion that one must sacrifice happiness in order to be successful.

Either find some way to enjoy the calls you are anticipating or find some way to eliminate the calls you are anticipating.

"Hey, Harold! That free gizmo app doesn't work!"
"Yeah, several people have told me that. I'm working on a fix. I expect to have it available for immediate download in a couple of days. .. for $15.00!"

That should weed out the folks you no longer want to talk to!

However you handle it, by talking to the people who downloaded your stuff for free, that's when you have the chance to sell them something. You can't sell 'em if they don't call you.

Harold Mansfield
04-11-2010, 02:06 AM
My point was, Harold, that if providing the support you deem essential is such a pain, then don't go that route. Your post seems to suggest you are taking your business on a path that leads to some nightmarish destination. And where's the sense in that? If you aren't going to enjoy what you are creating, I would stop and do something that I will enjoy.
Oh, I'm pretty happy about where I think I'm going with it.




Either find some way to enjoy the calls you are anticipating or find some way to eliminate the calls you are anticipating.

"Hey, Harold! That free gizmo app doesn't work!"
"Yeah, several people have told me that. I'm working on a fix. I expect to have it available for immediate download in a couple of days. .. for $15.00!"

That should weed out the folks you no longer want to talk to!

However you handle it, by talking to the people who downloaded your stuff for free, that's when you have the chance to sell them something. You can't sell 'em if they don't call you.
Well, there is an overall plan, I'm not just going in all "happy go lucky" and hope that something pans out.

There is a definite method to my madness.
I've actually never been so clear about what I need to do and how to do it.

But you are talking to an old Bartender here that doesn't believe in giving things away unless there is going to be a definite benefit. Not a perceived one, or a possibility of one.

When you give stuff away, you attract people that are looking for free stuff.
A free newsletter or an informative blog is one thing, but when you start talking about giving stuff away that people will use to make money for themselves...it's attracting too much of the wrong crowd.

I see guys on other forums doing cheap work and I think to myself that they will always have to work cheap. You can't advertise an install and set up service for $10 and then up it to $200. No on will pay it...at least not to you. You have already cheapened how much respect you will get from people. If they know you as the $10 guy, those people will always expect that from you...they will never spend more...at least not with you...but they will give it to someone else whom they perceive as worth it.

What do you think the difference is between the guy who built the company blog for Caesars Palace (which is really very plain...anyone could have done it), and another guy?
The guy who did Caesars Palace, won't work for cheap, and doesn't give away stuff...and no one expects him to...and they don't ask him to.

There's a time and place, but, giving stuff away just for the sake of giving it away doesn't work. There has to be plan and a reason and you have to get it in the hands of the right people.

Spider
04-11-2010, 09:26 AM
Okay - I go with what you are saying there, by and large, but take issue with...
...You can't advertise an install and set up service for $10 and then up it to $200...Why not, if that serves a purpose? Besides, that doesn't mean you have to choose between starting at $200 or starting at $10 and bumping it to $200 a short while later. You can--

a) start at $10 and increase the price in small increments over a period until you reach $200, or beyond,
b) provide it free without support and for $200 with support,
c) provide it free and charge for support on a per call, per month, or other frequency basis,
d) offer a "light" verson free and a fully-featured version for $200, or several differently-featured versions for different prices,
e) provide it free to atract visitors who are likely to buy other things you sell.

I'm telling you nothing new, here - these are all methods that are in general use in your industry. Just, don't fall into the trap of assuming you have an "either-or" situation. One rarely is ever in an "either-or" situation.

Method:
1. What's the problem? - Cheapskates taking the free stuff but never buying the priced stuff.
2. What's the solution?
.. a) stop providing anything for free (and forgo the advantages of attracting potential customer.)
.. b) somehow eliminate the cheapskates but continue to attract potential customers. How?
.. c) get the cheapskates to help you develop the product. How?
.. d) get the cheapskates to help you sell the product. How?
3. Application - Answer the Hows.

Harold Mansfield
04-12-2010, 02:40 AM
Okay - I go with what you are saying there, by and large, but take issue with...Why not, if that serves a purpose? Besides, that doesn't mean you have to choose between starting at $200 or starting at $10 and bumping it to $200 a short while later. You can--

a) start at $10 and increase the price in small increments over a period until you reach $200, or beyond,
b) provide it free without support and for $200 with support,
c) provide it free and charge for support on a per call, per month, or other frequency basis,
d) offer a "light" verson free and a fully-featured version for $200, or several differently-featured versions for different prices,
e) provide it free to atract visitors who are likely to buy other things you sell.

I'm telling you nothing new, here - these are all methods that are in general use in your industry. Just, don't fall into the trap of assuming you have an "either-or" situation. One rarely is ever in an "either-or" situation.

Method:
1. What's the problem? - Cheapskates taking the free stuff but never buying the priced stuff.
2. What's the solution?
.. a) stop providing anything for free (and forgo the advantages of attracting potential customer.)
.. b) somehow eliminate the cheapskates but continue to attract potential customers. How?
.. c) get the cheapskates to help you develop the product. How?
.. d) get the cheapskates to help you sell the product. How?
3. Application - Answer the Hows.
I think we are in agreement more than disagreement.
I understand what you are saying.
The community site that I am putting together now is both free and paid, so I do understand the concept.

vangogh
04-12-2010, 10:19 AM
Basically my conundrum in this instance is "Developing and selling for profit" vs. "Developing and releasing the products for everyone to use".

James it's up to you to decide whether to charge or give it away for free. Doing either can be good. You have to understand the different goals with each approach.

If you're going to charge then you're building a business model around the idea of charging for this one and probably more plugins/themes. One difficulty is you're not well known at the moment and would need to do a good deal of marketing for your plugin in order to sell in large enough number.

If you're going to give the plugin away it will help with the marketing. Assuming people like the plugin work of it should spread and you become more of a known entity. However you wouldn't be making money on this plugin. You'd more go this route to build your brand so that you can profit from future plugins/themes that you do sell. You could try adding a commercial aspect to a free plugin, maybe in the form of support, but for the most part if you're going to give away the plugin for free then know you're doing it for the marketing and the brand building and the money will come in later projects.

Harold Mansfield
04-12-2010, 01:11 PM
Also remember that the plug in (once it's installed) is a marketing tool all on it's own.
Most plug ins have an authors or company bio box in the settings with a link back to your site and a donation button right in the settings, so that it is a constant reminder when the user installs, adjusts or changes the settings of the plug in.

So there are some immediate benefits even if you give it away.

Advertising you and your business on the installation and settings screen itself.
Back link to your website

I've even seen some plug in developers put an ad at the top of the settings. I'm not particularly crazy about that one, but I understand and I personally don't consider it out of line at all.

jamestl2
04-14-2010, 07:44 PM
One thing to note about Microsoft is that they were already a relatively large company by 1995 (already having a large foothold on the OS market), so they could afford to experiment and give products like IE away for free.

Can the same business plan and marketing tactics be applied to small businesses as they already have been for big ones? It seems as though there's more of an "All or Nothing" risk when it comes to SBs. (Not completely All or Nothing, but still large enough to make or break the business model of the small company.)



The only thing about free is, you have to answer support questions


I thought it would have leaned more towards being the other way around, if people are actually paying for your products, then you'd be more inclined to keep offering support. People want the products that they paid for to actually work and continue working.



You'd more go this route to build your brand so that you can profit from future plugins/themes that you do sell.


That's my main appeal of offering people the free products now, I'd say. Goes double for being a small business and it can definitely support the marketing aspects that would be otherwise take longer and be much harder to obtain.

vangogh
04-15-2010, 11:13 AM
You're going to have to deal with support questions whether your plugin is commercial of free. You could charge for support even for a free plugin if you want.

jamestl2
04-17-2010, 01:32 AM
Often for products that people don't charge for, I'll see a disclaimer warning usually something along the lines of "Feel free to edit the functionality to your stylings" or even "Use at your own risk". One of the reasons many do decide to give it away is so they don't have to deal with support. They aren't always released this way, but nevertheless it still happens from time to time.

Also, did you get my PM Steve? I went into more detail there about the specifics of what I'm developing. If anyone else wanted to know about what I've been working on, and you think it'd help or you were curious, let me know and I'll send you a PM too.

vangogh
04-19-2010, 11:47 AM
I did get your PM James. Sorry I haven't responded yet. It was a busy week which ended in me feeling a bit under the weather. I haven't been on the computer much the last few days, instead I was laying on the couch wrapped in a blanket.

jamestl2
04-19-2010, 01:47 PM
That's alright Steve, I was just assuming that since you replied to here and not my PM that there may have been a DB error or something.

So, don't worry about it. I'm actually going to be working on a few other themes I had in mind too, so it won't always be the same one up.

Anyway, just hope you feel better soon.