Any of you running software companies?

Most notably at the end of the month when you are trying to prepare Invoices, and some idiot has put down 250 hours for the month. No client is going to accept that one.

On the bright side you can force rapid change and get things done. Have just introduced C++ ActiveX object methodology, (we got some stuff written for us), and now have people putting it in throughout the product range. Now of l knew more than "Hello World" programs in C++ would probably be able to modify them.

[Benjamin]

I am trying to start a software company... probably going to start over spring break, or summer...
I've been trying to start one for a long time... but I just currently learned C++(which is my prefered development language) so thats been holding it off... oh, and the fact that I don't have a job....

if I get a job, I can:

register a domain, and pay for a good web hosting service

pay for all the software I "borrowed" from people(IMO it's a good idea to pay for all your software that will be involved with selling software that is developed with it)

and... well... buy more stuff...

but the last one has hardly anything to do with anything but my personal needs/wants....

just so I don't forget later...

what do you guys think is an acceptable price per hour for website development in PHP & MySQL?

and application development in C++ and/or Java?(per hour, of course)

I am thinking, at a low $20 an hour for application development, and $27 an hour for web development(because of the amount of debugging, and loading-time issues)


Thanks,
Dennis

Dennis,
What you charge per hour all depends on how good a coder you are, and more importantly, what the market will stand.

The little guys (1-5 person companies) probably charge around $30-$80 and hour, depending on the work (generally, the design work is the most expensive, the coding is a bit cheaper, and the testing is cheaper still). If you get some sort of accreditation, like an MCP or MCSD, then you can probably charge a bit more, maybe $100/hour.

The other option is to charge by the job, which is more dicey, cos until you build up sufficient commercial experience, it can be very difficult to judge how long a project will take. On top of that, you need to have a good change management procedure to help you control the inevitable changes that the client will request.

It is a constant battle, especially when you start out, to make sure you are charging enought to cover you costs. More than likely, your first fixed price job will probably cost you a lot more thant you get paid, but as long as you learn from it, and work out why that happened, you'll go far

- gaffa

From my experience, Dennis, figure out what you think you
SHOULD charge and double it. Come up with a sliding
scale.

$75/hr hours 1-10
$70/hr hours 11-20
$60/hr hours 20-40
$55/hr 40+

Charge a full hour for 31min of work on the back end. Keep
track of what you're doing in 30 min increment. The bean
counters love it.

Thus a 100hr job: $750 + $700 + $1200 + $3355 = $6005.
Which is not bad for 2.5 weeks.


I've had people tell me that giving a discount for prompt
payment is productive, but I've never seen it happen.

Under NO circumstances should you discount your work. It
is worth what it is worth, and predatory pricing will
backfire in the long run.

Yup I run Switch Software a voluntary freeware/shareware group. It isn't much good right now cos I am the only member. If you are interested I am recruiting on this thread:
http://forums.vb-world.net/showthread.php?postid=195386
Later

[email protected]
http://switchsoftware.scriptmania.com

We can charge $154 per hour cos we have a lot of commercial expierance and present well. You need to understand that whilest the books and courses point out how to do a good design spec not many customers are going to read it. They want to see the bottom line quote figure and what they can expect to get for their money...normally conveyed in a one Page summary at the start of the preliminary design document.

Age is important...l wouldn't send Paul out to negotiate with a new client, cos he's viewed as too young (18 at the moment) and would not be taken seriously. As a programmer he could probably write rings around the rest of us.

Decide first on what sort of thing you are going to write, what is your market, are there enough companies in that market to support a software house, will they pay the necessary amounts to get good software. A lot of Industries don't really understand the share cost of development and maintenance.

We use VB because our clients like front ends that are just like windows, meaning their employees can learn the new packages without a great deal of training. Huge cost for some industries with high employee turn over.

Web design is overrated! There are now alot of companies and contractors doing it, which is bringing down what you can charge. Our local ISP for example is now throwing in free web design for new clients. Bastard! We had to pay for our development.

Have a look at VB7s Web making. Way cool!!!!!!! Total support for XML documents. Saw demonstration last month, what was taking a month or so of intense design and coding can now be knocked over in days. Just love its page navigation stuff. Of course that was only the first release candidate so could change prior to commercial release.


And yes purchase your software tools.

Thats my $0.02c worth.

[zmerlinz]

i am part of a softwaare company that Kovan setup, it is called alkitab and we are Islamic software specialists, you can see you website at http://www.alkitab.net, and i have my own little company called Blue skull, and i write little utilities and small programs for friends, you can see my site at http://www.angelfire.com/geek/zmerlinz

[parksie]

Do microsoft do any c++ accreditation?

[BoB]

me and some of my friends own a company(or so called) callled psyvision http://www.psyvision-soft.net . We are comming out with a server lanuage that only our server uses to like send mail. called client/server lanuage (CSL) it is going to have alot of functions and alot of other useless stuff just somthing else to make.In the buessiness of software you all ways have to be thinks ahead of other people . and while we think they make so we are always behind ....

[marnitzg]

Personally, I charge per package. Normally about $1500 for a month's work. Not much, and it does set you back when you buy Visual Studio. I just bought the package 2 months ago! Now they're bringing out a new version! Life sux!

So, are your various companies making money? Are you living of the software, or are you all woking other jobs that actually pay the bills?

- gaffa