Eight Golden Rules for an Indian shareware author

In the last edition of Developer IQ, I mentioned that a shareware developer on an average earns in excess of 4,000 dollars a month or about 20 lakh Rupees a year. This is an average figure, and there are shareware authors earning in excess of USD 100,000. I am sure a few authors may be earning practically nothing too. I have always felt that an Indian developer has a greater chance of succeeding as a shareware author than a counterpart sitting in the United States. But you need to think global!

If you are setting up a small software development team, hoping to get projects and execute them for a living, you generally look for customers in the neighborhood. It is not easy to get customers from the international market if you are small in size. Size does matter, for another organization to trust someone overseas. The general plan will be to grab some projects locally, make some money, hire better developers and then pitch in for big deals. Most companies you see around you have grown the same way. They started small, infused some capital organically or inorganically, hired more people, pitched in for bigger deals, and grew.

But shareware companies generally remain small, or else merge with other companies. Most of them survive on their own after some time. This is because the idea of a shareware author is not to create another enterprise, but to create products that he can sell for a living. And a shareware author does not look at selling software in the neighborhood but looks at the global market.

Some of the developers who tried selling software through the shareware model in India made the mistake of choosing to go after products for the local market. I recently met a developer who spent nearly eight months trying to create a financial accounting package. The product is ready, but there are no takers for the product in India or globally. This is because accounting is an application that has several regional attributes to it. The way you do accounting in India, is not the way you do it in North America or in Australia. This brings us to Rule number 1…

You need to create an application that is useful to everybody, whether Indian, American or Japanese. Remember, even if you have created an accounting package that rivals Tally or even Microsoft Money, selling it through the shareware model is difficult. This is because accounting is an area where customization is required. And the shareware model limits your scope for customization. Hence rule out applications that will either have regional influences or need customization. It will also be a good idea to look at an English name or a name originating from English words for your product. Our Indian readers of Developer IQ will understand and even appreciate that an e-mail management program that you have developed is called Dakiya (Hindi word for postman). But in another language it may sound and mean something totally different!

Every organization has a different approach to handling their business. That is why we have so many development projects being commissioned globally, which employ millions of developers. Companies involved in the same business in the same city would prefer to use different approaches to the same business problem. Hence developing an application that has pronounced business impact is a bad idea if you are going the shareware way.

Have you heard of an enterprise investing in a shareware application? It is true that many enterprises buy software, such as Winzip, that is sold through the shareware model. However this is because of Winzip’s consumerist appeal. It is definitely one of the best software available for compressing and archiving files, and that is why a Procter and Gamble or NASDAQ is buying WinZip licences. But they would not buy an application that is mission critical that is sold through shareware.

Look at applications that have or can have a mass market. Shareware model is a model where may be one in a thousand users actually comes back and pays for your product. And if your software cost 10 dollars, you may have to entice at least a million downloads, to make 10,000 dollars. Hence a mass market or a potential mass market is a great idea.

You can also try some niche market, which is not susceptible to the idea of the shareware model of try, use and buy. When I describe a niche market, I am talking of a market where competition is less, and you have users who are willing to experiment. An example can be Photoshop plugins. Not everyone uses Photoshop, market is big enough and though there are a lot of plugins available, there are several themes where products are not quite there.

Marketing gurus always advise you not to attempt developing products where there are strong market leaders. Shareware model allows you to compete with established leaders even if your product is not as good as that of the already established players. You can always beat them on price! However Open Source/Free Software is a model, which you can never beat on price. It may not be a very wise idea.

Shareware model is a marketing model. Some of the simple rules of software development dynamics remain the same. If you are planning an idea, make sure that your idea is sound. Also make sure that you have enough resources to accomplish the task in the shortest possible time.

These are some of the thoughts I want to leave with you in this section. If you are a software developer (well, you must be since you are reading this page), and want to get involved with some shareware authoring, write to me at ramdas@developiq.com.