How do I price my software?

I'm in some illusion that I'm going to sell my VB software...:)
I was wondering how this business goes. How do I estimate my software for sale (price).

few details

Its designed to handle Telemetry Log Data files extraction for a very specific system.
The idea is to sell it to this company i work for (through other company) exclusively. Then they will be able to sell it to their clients along with the System.

I think it has all the features/options one can think of with regard to the purpose.
I invested a lot of time and though for the User Interface design and comfortablility. I will write an extensive Help file.
all the Controls has Tool Tips and every case was taking into account with regard to User input error - MsgBox's informing the user what is the problem - also i made this Form of Tests sequance displaying the user what is failed and what is passed. Progress Bars and everything.

The User Interface is in VB but the real extraction/processing implementation is in C++ because it works much faster with regard to Excel CSV file processing. The VB launches an EXE (the C program) to perform the processing.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Sharon.

Sounds like some nice software there but I would say to price it as compared to the main software it goes along with. Not a one for one but some percentage of it.

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Originally Posted by sharikon

The idea is to sell it to this company i work for (through other company) exclusively.

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Isn't that called "confilct of interest"?

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Originally Posted by baja_yu

Isn't that called "confilct of interest"?

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not exactly,

i work for a comany(X) that represent an abroad company(Y).
The system/product is made by company Y.
i know they don't have this program i'm making.
so through the company(X) i'm working for, i want to sell it to company Y.

Have you even asked if its a possibility to sell it yet?

yes there is such a possibility, but i havn't looked into it more then that, i just want to finish the program first

What if they say its a conflict of interest?

If you signed an employment contract with you employer, read it carefully.
Make sure it doesn't have anything like "Conflict of interest", "Any work done during our employ belongs to the company", etc...

A friend of mine was caught in the latter one and now the company he used to work for (notice I said "used to"!) owns the rights and sells the software he created on his own, while employed with them.

well i do have that "conflict of intrest " thing but not like that...
the company i work for represents the company i wish to sell this to. so that conflict of intrest does not apply in this case....
and i can't recall anything like Any work done during our employ belongs to the company"....

but that case you mentioned with your freind does sound bad..... i should really think this through....

In Holland it's called Fraude It's not allowed to sell products to your employers compagny or it's foreign branches. It would get employers in situations an employer can hijack an application in such a way that the employer has to buy certain products from an employee (extorsion).
Even without a conflict of intrest clause, you would be in serious trouble if you even tried to sell to your employer.

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Originally Posted by Dnereb

In Holland it's called Fraude It's not allowed to sell products to your employers compagny or it's foreign branches. It would get employers in situations an employer can hijack an application in such a way that the employer has to buy certain products from an employee (extorsion).
Even without a conflict of intrest clause, you would be in serious trouble if you even tried to sell to your employer.

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well its nothing of this nature, see.... my contract is how u call it? sublent contract. i work as Electronics Technician - the contract says i need to fill my duty as an Electronics Technician in the best way and use all my knowlage for the sake of the system and all that. but it clearly says Electronics Technician. During my time as a Elec Tech i needed to extract some Recorded data of Telemetry inorder to investigate and troubleshoot electronics problems. i'll spare you the details but the nature of Recording Extraction was hard and i was in need of an additional features to handle long range of Recorded data extraction. i asked the big company if they have that software so i could use it inorded to analyze problems, they said such software does not exisit at the moment but the client can approach with a need and they will be able to create that software for probably not a low price.... so i told them its for me as a technician, but if they don't have it i'll make it my self.

so it doesn't fall under Fraude / hijack an application / conflict of intrest / and way not extorsion

but thanks for the warning...

It's just how dutch lawe is implemented, i do not know about the laws you reside under... and as a matter of fact overhere it doesn't matter what you were hired for.
there's a case somone could get stock cheap through relatives for his employer even after he added 5%. He was fired, had a provational jail sentence and had to handover the 5% to his ex-employer.
Why... he wasn't acting in the best intrest of his employer.

BTW I do not accuse you to do any of the boldface thinghs in your post. I'm merely stating how this would be interpreted here legally
so please don't be offended.

hehehehe i'm not offended, i actually appriciate your input on the matter! onestly...
i already talked with my boss regarding this issue (of selling), didn't talk about all the small details but he is intersted. i want to finish it and then talk about alllll the details and the aspects of this process. and now that i know more from your input i will know exactly what to ask him.

so thanks..... :)

Just keep in mind that your relation with your boss can change over time.
So be sure to have his approval on paper or e-mail to ensure it won't become an issue in a nasty firing procedure..... and good luck.

One way to find out if you own it, is to sell it.
If you created this program on company time or used company's resources, they could make a claim.
As for pricing, what will this market bare? How much will they pay for it? Maybe a annual subscription.
Rent it and lock it to a PC using a wide number methods.

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Originally Posted by sessi4ml

One way to find out if you own it, is to sell it.
If you created this program on company time or used company's resources, they could make a claim.
As for pricing, what will this market bare? How much will they pay for it? Maybe a annual subscription.
Rent it and lock it to a PC using a wide number methods.

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Good solution :)
the plan is to sell with my boss (and let him nagotiate) to the other company... he will earn % and so will i.... every1 will be happy.... :)

Interesting how a thread starts in one direction and ends some place else.
Glad to be of help, how about a reward point !

Or a few % :)

I'll take the % any day... the rep is nice, but the % is in higher demand... could be worth something someday.

Question is are you selling the program with source code or just the application?

Something else to consider is if you worked on this software on your current employers time.
If you did, I think it's theirs, not yours to sell.

Also, as a electronics Tech, do you have access to Visual Basic?
Is the copy of VB you have at home from a disk at work?
Did you purchase your own copy of the software, before you started working on data collection?

Stuff to think about.

I think after going through all the posts in this thread, you would be better off giving it away for free. [:D]

I created a bunch of utilties in an organization where I was contracted. All those utilities were created with the sole purpose of enabling people to change database records. They were not clever enough to use SQL, so I had to create those forms. Then they stopped bothering me after they got the nifty toolkit to make db updates on their own. I also lost my contracting position shortly after they found the toolkit was very effective and they had no further need for a fulltime onsite contractor.