Short about myself. From 1995 to 2002 he was a developer, wrote code. Worked in Belarus, and Sweden. In 2002 he began to engage in monetization of the software. Led by the Russian company Aladdin business of monetization in Russia and CIS. In 2012, he moved to vendor, the manufacturer of the products I sold in Aladdin, SafeNet company (later, when it was bought by the company began to be called Gemalto). It is the world leader in the market of monetization. In the company I managed sales in Russia, the CIS, parts of Eastern Europe, the middle East and Africa.
At the end of 2017, I have started to do their business. Continued distribution of products for monetization AT Gemalto in Russia and opened up its direction for consulting software vendors.
For almost 16 years of work with more than 4000 SOFTWARE manufacturers, there is an understanding of what problems they have and how you can help them solve these problems.
Today let's talk about monetization of the software, i.e. how developers derive money from their products and what problems they face.
The product can be perfect for execution, the right people, but if you pay enough time to monetize issues – the profit from its sales may be scanty, if at all.
Problem # 1: "Facism"
The developer pays all attention to the product and almost forgets about its wrapper, its positioning and introduction to the market.
This is often due to the fact that the main developer and Creator of the product is both technical and business people in one person. His main idea – is "I have a good product, buy and so" or " Good product marketing is not needed!»
Therefore, when the SOFTWARE is brought to the market, its Creator describes in detail the functionality of the product, tells in detail about each feature, removes videos and makes training courses how to use the product.
However, those people for whom new features are created and who really need them – often do not make a decision to purchase the product. They need to prove to those who allocate money to buy that the product (its new functionality) is really needed. Arguments for persuasion they should not invent themselves, they should give the Creator of the SOFTWARE.
Why is the product being developed at all? From my point of view, there are only two reasons for creating a product. The first is, conditionally speaking, an increase in profits, the second is a reduction in costs. Under the increase in profits should be understood not only money, but also to improve the quality of life of the user of the product, getting them pleasure from using the SOFTWARE. Reducing costs is also not only money, but also saving time and solving problems.
Now, all the functionality of the product should be created and communicated to the consumer through the prism of these concepts. The consumer should always clearly understand the benefits of a particular feature, what costs it will reduce, if it will have a new functionality.
Problem number 2 :" where's the money»
Developers do not always understand what to take money for when selling a product.
When working, you often encounter a situation where the Creator of the SOFTWARE says: "and we do not license our product and this is our competitive advantage. The client pays once and immediately for all functionality".
This approach is certainly very simple from the point of view of business processes and understandable for the end user. Paid and forgot. This is fine in some cases, where Your product solves one task and only one time. For example, your Outlook data file got corrupted, you need to restore it. You take the product to repair and run. When once again You will need this product, and will need more ever-is not known.
But, if Your product is needed on a regular basis, consists of many parts, the approach of using one-time license, from my point of view, not a good idea.
First, the price of the product will inevitably be overstated, because you clearly know that you will not get more money from the client,
……
Problem number 3: "the Desire to do everything yourself"
The problem stems from the previous two. With a lack of understanding of the product development strategy, what and how much money to take when selling software, the task of building a monetization system looks quite simple. As a result, the software manufacturer decides to do everything on its own and that's what it leads to. |
