So, I was contacted today about interest in my iPhone App – they asked about several options and really I’d rather sell it outright then deal with SLA’s and shit.

I really haven’t made much with it yet – it has moved but meh. I’d rather rinse my hands and move on to something else.

Anyone have advice for this with this kind of thing?

Would the easiest be to figure out what it would cost them to develop and deduct a %? I mean it took me 4 months and Iknew what i was doing

Why not sell licensing and distribution rights? I know it kind of depends on what the app does or what kind of back-end systems you have to maintain for it but you might find yourself making more money by holding on to the main rights to it.

eh, i’d rather not have to deal with all that crap

probably could make more cash that way, but i figure it would be a solid payout to just sell all rights away.

i don’t want to post (i’ve deleted all the previous ones referencing it) – thanks to OT’s new "fun" ideas to fuck with peoples personal lives

Optimize your revenue model and show a reliable growth before considering selling. Entertain an offer but withhold temporarily while you tidy your systems and make it a seamless process to transfer ownership. Start high; make them negotiate you down rather than you negotiate them up—with freelancing, I often quote a client 2-3x as much as I need the project to make. Often, a client will agree to the original price, and when they don’t I still make twice as much as the comparable talent.

This relates to you because negotiating is always the same. You lose your leverage, you come out burned.

i think thomor has sold companies in the past

maybe he’ll come in here and share his input. try pming him.

I know he had the phpbb forums and a pet store

I already talked to him about it, dude is about to make some cash

So he’s about to have more monitors on his desk than you? Quick, time to remodel the office again!

Thanks for the input guys. thormor has been around the block – so he dropped me some good advice

I dropped Intellex a line too since he has sold some software in this fashion as well.

I’ll keep you all posted as things progress (if it goes anywhere). I really didn’t expect this to happen, so it is a bit out of the blue (hell, i write software to keep myself entertained).

yeah I was gonna suggest holluring at intellex

best wishes

are we talking 4 figures? 5 figures? 6 figures? 7 figures?

mid 5’s and up i am guessing.

depends how bad they want it – it is a $40b company, so if they want it they will buy it

if not, there are a few other i can shop it around to.

Biggest thing this week has been shopping for a lawyer and talking to my CPA. Biggest problem I have it has been on sale for only 20 days – so long term capital gains would normally be out for a typical product. Since it is IP, you get some other protections that could bump it into long term capital gains.

If you are selling a patent, you have LTCG as soon as it is invented. "Trade Secrets" can also be lumped into this – but it depends how the deal is structured.

I’ll post more up about that after I talk to the LOLyer and CPA. I am sure plenty here would be interested.

And ugh, every god damned hour with a layer is basically a Glock

you are talking to the wrong lawyer mine charges 150 an hour unless you were there for more than an hour. Also reply to my pm I sent you i got some ideas for the app that will make them want to buy it but we’ll discuss that.

$400 for a partner, $175 for an associate

wrong line of work

ugh. talked to them today – they want it. but, they gave no help with valuation. I’ll basically be "bidding" against some Indian development firm. So, major advantage I have is that I am "turn key"

Take your yearly profit and triple that for a selling price.

10 mo

Just sent out my valuation. We will see how it goes

I basically took 900 hours it took my to develop it * my bill rate and arrived at
my figure. While it is high, they are also thinking of outsourcing, so I know I am 3x as much as that would cost.

But, I am feature complete, I am stable, I am turn key. Quite a few risks going with an offshore firm.

My boss used to do valuation and told me I should be asking $150,000-250,000 but that’s totally out of what I think is reasonable. Then again, he did get paid for that kind of thing lol. Basic reasons for asking 3-5 times what you think are as listed above, developing new software is risky – you are buying risk mitigation.

I’ll be happy if they come in at half my offer, but if they flat out say no, I’ll be sending letters to their major competition the next day

it’s been a stressful process, but we will see how it goes in the next few days.

what does your iPhone app do? Are you allowed to talk about it?

My only question is: What’s the first thing you’re going to buy with your new fortune?

lol

i basically doubled the figure you told me, i figure if they come in at half i’ll be happy

hardly a fortune

might put $10-20k towards either a machine gun or a fun car, save the rest. i firmly believe in treating yourself when you get money out of the blue. i wish this was this time last year, there was a place in a strip mall open i could have dropped a 5 guys and i would have been PRINTING money

machine gun would be a good investment since it would hold its value

i mean it ain’t a fortune by any means, but it will be ncie sitting in the bank

we will see, they could rebuke me and lol at me, but who knows. it is a $40billion company, they have the cash to blow

the valuation talk with my boss was interesting. talking with people that have done the offshore thing was an insight as well.

my first thoughts at valuation were, "figure out what competition would charge and fall in under that" – but by bosses input was – figure out what it would cost YOU to write it if you were being paid, then add a "multiplier" on to that.

Your multiplier factors in 1) time to market 2) risk 3) cost.

As I said earlier, and many, many know – developing software is rarely straight forward. Anytime you hire out someone you involve risk. So, what is risk to the firm basically.

IMO time to market was a big one for them – no other competitor has a product out there that does this. So it would be a good win for them that happens in just a few weeks.

Plus, the multiplier helps because they will offer half off the bat I will assume. Should I have gone higher? Maybe, we will see. I may have priced myself out of the purchase. But I doubt they will say no outright.

Time shall tell

I’ll write more about long term capital gains when I have those talks with my CPA and accountant. structuring intellectual property a certain way certainly will play a factor here. Hopefully, I haven’t fucked myself and will not be qualified for LTCG.

sell it for the license of the software a % of profits for life thats how u make bank and set yourself up for life, theyre sharks and will always under valuate it

tell them you’re represented by Mr Bonus.
Watch the offers roll in
???????
Profit

his app was stolen, he was murdered and dropped in a trashcan behind a five guys.

well fuck, i was hoping he’d post pics of his hookers and blow.

Nothing to report yet. They are dragging their ass.

I did write their main competition today and asked if they would like to make an offer

they kicked my dog

lol, never heard back – I guess my price was a bit steep

Going to be writing some of their other major competition here next week. Need to devise a good strategy.

No worse off than I was two months ago, so I can’t complain much.

lol those nurgs could’ve at least made an offer or declined

who was it?

Not sure writing their competition was the best idea. If nothing comes out of this, remember that this who thing means your business model is more than viable and the interest in your product suggests it is very scalable.

How many viable competitor-suitors are there?

If any of them go into this market, they can destroy me in one swift blow. These are $50+ billion dollar enterprises

Swing for the fences then.

have you/can you do anything to prevent them from outright copying you?