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I was once contacted by a company who wanted to purchase my code to use for their app for their company. It wasn't a flashy app, but had a few time-consuming, a

by hrabago 14y ago

I was once contacted by a company who wanted to purchase my code to use for their app for their company. It wasn't a flashy app, but had a few time-consuming, and at the time, unique features. I gave my starting point - $10k. I expected them to come back to negotiate, but I think they were taken aback at the price I quoted and decided to go another way. I suspected they instead outsourced it or developed it in house. Several months after that (likely over a year) I checked the App Store for their company name, and they still did not have an app. Whenever I remember that episode, I wonder if they ever realized that the deal I offered them was actually reasonable.

hboon 14y ago
Someone offered to buy an entire app from me, a paid iOS app that was making stable income and has a proven codebase. I quoted 80k (or was it 100k) and the enquirer was shocked, replying that he was assuming a 10k price tag. And he is a CTO of a startup.
- Gustomaximus 14y ago
  There needs to be a clear distinction between pricing for an existing app vs pricing for building one from scratch. If the former this will be priced based on revenue, potential revenue and how much the owner wants to keep it. If building from scratch then the cost has to be based more towards developer/admin hours. So given your app existed then potentially $10k could be a great price no matter how many hours you put into it if; you not particularly fussed about keeping it from an enjoyment sense, it makes sub $1000 per year in revenue and you don't see yourself creating significant future revenue from it.
drewcrawford 14y ago
It's not just a matter of convincing them what the market rate for software is. It's convincing them that it's worth that rate to them. If I had a nickel for every time I was approached by someone with a spec that exceeded their purchasing authority (usually by an order of magnitude), I would be a very rich man. There are a lot of mondays out there where some manager says "We need an app, here's $10k signing authority, go figure it out" and what they do is e-mail 3 developers for quotes. Each developer looks to the right, looks to the left, and sees competition, so there's social proof that there's money in the deal. Exactly one sales rep has a brain in his head, and uses the situation to score a meeting with an actual decisionmaker to talk about a totally different project that might be worth paying actual money for. Everybody else just expenses a few lunches and enjoys pretending that meetings are work. But despite all the social proof, there's usually no real desire (within several multiples of required effort, anyway) to actually produce anything. It's just some lower manager read in a magazine article somewhere that they need an app, and they have the authority to use the corporate letterhead and book conference rooms, and nothing better to book meetings about.
flyinRyan 14y ago
$10k sounds crazy cheap. Your offer wasn't "reasonable", it was a steal.

by hrabago 14y ago

hboon 14y ago

Someone offered to buy an entire app from me, a paid iOS app that was making stable income and has a proven codebase. I quoted 80k (or was it 100k) and the enquirer was shocked, replying that he was assuming a 10k price tag. And he is a CTO of a startup.

Gustomaximus 14y ago
There needs to be a clear distinction between pricing for an existing app vs pricing for building one from scratch. If the former this will be priced based on revenue, potential revenue and how much the owner wants to keep it. If building from scratch then the cost has to be based more towards developer/admin hours. So given your app existed then potentially $10k could be a great price no matter how many hours you put into it if; you not particularly fussed about keeping it from an enjoyment sense, it makes sub $1000 per year in revenue and you don't see yourself creating significant future revenue from it.

drewcrawford 14y ago

It's not just a matter of convincing them what the market rate for software is. It's convincing them that it's worth that rate to them. If I had a nickel for every time I was approached by someone with a spec that exceeded their purchasing authority (usually by an order of magnitude), I would be a very rich man. There are a lot of mondays out there where some manager says "We need an app, here's $10k signing authority, go figure it out" and what they do is e-mail 3 developers for quotes. Each developer looks to the right, looks to the left, and sees competition, so there's social proof that there's money in the deal. Exactly one sales rep has a brain in his head, and uses the situation to score a meeting with an actual decisionmaker to talk about a totally different project that might be worth paying actual money for. Everybody else just expenses a few lunches and enjoys pretending that meetings are work. But despite all the social proof, there's usually no real desire (within several multiples of required effort, anyway) to actually produce anything. It's just some lower manager read in a magazine article somewhere that they need an app, and they have the authority to use the corporate letterhead and book conference rooms, and nothing better to book meetings about.

flyinRyan 14y ago

$10k sounds crazy cheap. Your offer wasn't "reasonable", it was a steal.