Selling Code in the DotNetNuke Store - From Idea to Execution

Selling your Code in the DotNetNuke Store
– From idea to execution
Bruce Chapman
iFinity Software

1 Company Confidential

Why Sell Software?

2

Why sell software?

 Software is a high margin business
 Virtually no startup capital
 No inventory, manufacturing or suppliers
 No physical premises
 No business licences, regulations or permissions required
 Write anywhere, sell everywhere
 Write once(ish) sell many times
 Your progress will be governed by your skills more than
any other factor.


Why sell software?

Paul Allen - Microsoft

Larry Ellison - Oracle


Selling vs Other Revenue Models for
the talented developer

 Consulting => no work means no pay, can mean doing
projects you‟re not excited about
 Salary => Having a boss, commuting, not capturing the full
value of your work, not choosing your work
 Donations => Much harder in practice than in theory
 Training => travel, hours in=hours paid


Why not sell software?

 Need to know how to write good software
 High up-front cost, highly uncertain returns
 Low barriers of entry mean lots of competition
 Difficulty in finding customers in a very wide market


Why sell software for DotNetNuke

 Defined, segmented and active market
 Platform is open source, free to install, widely used and still
growing
 You‟ve probably already got the skills required
 Community is easy to enter and participate
 DotNetNuke store + Extensions Catalog provides a zero-
cost distribution channel with lots of traffic
 Market is international in scope, and international in
makeup


About me
• First module went up
for sale in beginning
of 2008
• Started selling
modules as a result
of a stillborn project
• Income is primarily
from DotNetNuke
software sales
• Regularly in the top
10 module sellers list
• Background as
corporate developer


Roadmap for Building Software for
DotNetNuke

9

Roadmap to selling software

1. Identify an idea and a market
2. Create your PSM – Pricing, Support and Marketing
3. Build your software
4. Create your website and DotNetNuke store pages
5. Find your first customers
6. Work out what is working well, and what isn‟t
7. In case of sales, GoTo 3, else GoTo 1


Identifying your idea

 Avoid „Yet another X‟ syndrome
 Focus relentlessly on what people will find valuable.
 Don‟t be afraid of competing against free & open
source
 „Cool‟ sometimes sells, but „useful‟ sells much more.
Try and combine both for a winner.
 „Eat your own dogfood‟ or find someone who will
 Try and explain the value proposition to a non-
technical person. If you can‟t, start worrying.
 Shortlist is superior to a single idea


Identifying the market

 Your ideas have to find a market to turn into
products
 Find indicators of real demand. Do some market
research. Hunches are not reliable market
research.
 Be wary of markets with lots of competition
 Be wary of markets with no competition.
 Don‟t write software for people who will never pay
for it
 Don‟t create technology for the sake of it.


Creating your PSM - Pricing

 Pricing is a very difficult decision
 Don‟t try some wacky cost basis. Price according to value.
 Ignore the competition
• Should have already chosen a market without destructive
competitors
 Build with the price in mind
 Price communicates quality
 Don‟t try and please everyone
 Don‟t feel guilt about asking for money
 Design your licensing system from the start


Pricing Continued

 Pricing Segmentation and Discrimination
• A price for corporates and high-use customers
• A price for smaller users

 Price higher rather than lower
• Concentrate on revenue rather than customers
 Concentrate on building a quality product for a good price,
rather than trying to unload rubbish onto the market at a
cheap price
 Decide if you want to make money, or publish on the Forge
and be done


Quote

 “To make a living from a module it needs a 3 figure price.
The DNN market is really great but not yet a billion dollar
industry”
Peter Donker – brin2mind.net


Support

 Start thinking about support immediately
 Support is a big problem and a big opportunity
 Software is like insurance
• Premium (sale) is collected up front
• Claims (support time) are paid out during the life of the product
• Your success depends on being able to provide support to your
customers at an effective hourly rate higher than a job.
 Support must be non-linear. Higher sales must result in
less support, or you will drown in support requests.
 Your product must be built with support in mind from the
beginning.


Marketing

 Don‟t be afraid. Marketing majors are less skilled than
developers.
• You don‟t need strange hair, ridiculous shoes and a hat full of
buzzwords, just a plan
• Marketing can be approached in the same way as code. Analyse
problem, Inputs/outputs, bugs to be fixed.
 Marketing at this end of the software market is simple
• Two-way conversation between sellers and buyers
• You‟re not building global brands or conning people into buying
things they don‟t need


Quote

“Provide exceptional support for your products and don‟t
worry too much about competing solutions because there
are plenty of niche product needs for all type of
implementations. Just focus on the best support you can
offer with unique solutions”
Chad Nash – datasprings.com


Marketing

Marketing Problems for the DotNetNuke
Software Vendor
1. Getting people to know your product exists
2. Getting people to convert from a browser to a
buyer
3. Getting them to return for more and/or tell
others about it
There are no other problems worth worrying about
for a DotNetNuke software vendor!


Marketing Problem 1 : Do you exist?

 If your customers don‟t know you‟re around, you don‟t exist
 3 Main Avenues for creating existence
1. DotNetNuke Store Listing
• Includes „new releases‟ email and in-site catalog
2. SEO and Social Media
• Twitter, Facebook, Google+
• SEO for your problem domain, main terms
3. Forums, Blogs, Email Lists
• dotnetnuke.com forums
• Start a blog
• Collect your customers emails and remind them you exist


Marketing Problem 2 : Conversions

 Looking is free. Pageviews are (mostly) meaningless.
 Concentrate on the messy business of closing the sale
 Understand design, copywriting, your value proposition
 Have a trial version
• Time limited
• Feature limited
• Output limited
• ...or combination of above
 Ask people for the sale at the conclusion of their trial


Marketing Problem 3 : Returning and
Spreading the word

 Repeat customers are the most profitable.
• You can build a real business off repeat customers
• Both parties are getting value from the transaction, or it wouldn‟t
keep happening
 Some people are natural product champions.
• Find them and nurture them. Shower with praise and free stuff
• Give everyone the benefit of the doubt in the beginning. Be
generous with time and spirit
 Come up with ways for satisfied customers to give you
more money
• Extensions, upgrades, customisations


Repeat business and Spreading the
word cont.

 Support will make or break your repeat customers and
word of mouth
 Reviews are important in the DotNetNuke store
• Don‟t be afraid to ask for them
• Problems should never get to the point of a bad review, especially
for support.
 Unhappy customers are a fact of life, not everything works
out.
• Give refunds immediately and generously.


Quote

 “ Don‟t panic if a customer gets irate. It happens. Be
gracious in admitting fault and the customer will reward
you.”
Peter Donker – bring2mind.net


Building and Launching your
Product

25

Building your Product

 Get the best tools and processes in place
• Source Control, backups, build scripts, unit testing
• Work on the ability to create a real build quickly
• Create the skeleton of your help information, and include it in your
source control
 Start with the end in mind
• Licensing, target market, trial versions, final sale price
 Launch fast and iterate.
• Version 1 within a month or two of starting
• New releases within weeks of Version 1
• Find early customers and adopters, be generous with your time
• Spend time on a good UI. Pay someone if necessary.


Building your product, cont.

 Keep your ears open for any talk on forums, social media,
once launched
 The most valuable feedback will come in early.
 Be prepared to abandon unpopular or unused features
 Don‟t flog a dead horse. If it flops, quickly move on to the
next idea. You can always come back and revive it.
 Your most precious commodities are time and motivation –
don‟t waste them, positive feedback will keep you going
even when sales are thin


Launching your product

 Try and talk about it everywhere
• If you don‟t have the uncomfortable feeling of overexposure, you‟re
probably not doing enough
• Tweets, forum posts, blog posts, emails – do whatever you can to
get people to look at your product
 Optimise your DotNetNuke store listing


New DotNetNuke store


New Search


Create your DotNetNuke Store Listing

 Signing up as a seller is fast and easy
 Put time and effort into your store listing.
• It is your 24 hour a day salesman
• It is your main chance at converting browsers to buyers
• This is your chance to make some money
 There are 2 main selling points:
• Solve a pain
• Gain an advantage
 3 Rules for listings
1. Don‟t talk in features, talk in benefits
2. Keep it short and snappy
3. Identify the top two (ideally one) points of your software and push
them the hardest


Create your DotNetNuke store listing

 Be aware of the smaller listing in the DotNetNuke app
catalog
• This will become increasingly important going forwards
 Don‟t!
• Enumerate features and technical details
• Fill up with screenshots that don‟t show much
• Endlessly waffle. Length is not a substitute for quality
• Think it‟s finished at version 1.0. Always think about and test new
ideas.
 Set up your referral codes, make sure you have a plain
install package.


Editing Store Listing


Adding Store Downloads


Create your website

 Buy a good domain name if you don‟t already have one
 Build your website out of DotNetNuke
 Build a demo site of your product, or at least make it
obvious where your product is on your own site
 Pay a designer or buy a skin. Unless you‟re the rare
developer/designer who can do both, stick to what you‟re
good at.
 You should have, at a minimum, an „About‟ page, a contact
form, and specific product pages. A blog is very good.


Create your own Website – Product
Page

 Make a non-technical person try and download your
product trial and tell you how much it costs.
 Don‟t hide the price
 Registration for trial download – do you need it?
 Again, speak in benefits, not features. Bury technical
information on sub-pages for those who want it.
 Don‟t make assumptions about readers familiarity with
DNN
 You can‟t make the Download or Buy too big or bright.
 Copy some good reviews onto the page


Why use the DotNetNuke Store?

 Why pay commission when you can build your own e-
commerce site?
 Think in terms of benefits:
1. Cart, multiple payment types, coupons, refunds, helpdesk, FAQ,
upgrade notifications, feedback scores and IP violations.
2. You could build and list two products in the time taken to setup a
similar system on your own site
3. You have to be in the DotNetNuke store anyway, or miss out on a
big slice of the market
4. Splitting your sales across two channels reduces your sales rank
in the DotNetNuke store, and the benefits that go with it.
5. Let someone else deal with returns, chargebacks, lost downloads
etc


Why use the DotNetNuke store?
• Extensions Catalog
• Direct access to
every single new
install of
DotNetNuke
• Be there or miss out
• Marketing Budget
• Revenue from the
DotNetNuke store is
being reinvested in
marketing
• DotNetNuke store
has prominent links
from
dotnetnuke.com
• Access x00,000
visitors for free


 Customers growth



 International in scope



 People are spending more and more


Finding your first customers

 Once launched, you‟ll be in the first DotNetNuke store
email. This will give you traffic.
 Shamelessly beg people to install your module. If
possible, get them excited about it before you send it.
 Shamelessly beg for feedback. Ask for brutal honesty, and
thank each person that gives feedback.
 Shamelessly write about any success story you can find.
 Shamelessly plug your product if it solves someones
problem
 Be shameless, but not annoying or lame. Don‟t spam
anything, whether emails, forums or blog comments. You
should know by now what is acceptable online etiquette.


Understanding the Numbers

People who could use
your product (Unknown)

People who have found your
product (100%)

People who have downloaded and
installed a trial (10%)
People who start your sales process (2%)
People who purchase (1%)
• Sales are very numeric => 100/10/1 rule works well
• Assume a 1% Browse=> Conversion figure
• Increase Sales by Increasing Browsers + Increase conversions


 Real life example - % of people who complete a licence
request on ifinity.com.au
Percentage Visitors Completing Licensing Step

Step 1 -
Intro, 78.55%
Step 2 -
Customer
Details, 3.14%
Step 4 -
Complete, 15.0
0%
Step 3 -
Domain
Name, 3.31%



 % of people logged into the site completing licence request
Percentage Registered Visitors Completing Licensing Step
Step 3 -
Domain
Name, 13.18%

Step 2 -
Customer Step 4 -
Details, 5.07% Complete, 48.0
Step 1 - 2%
Intro, 33.73%


Iterating and Improving

 Listen to customer feedback. They will tell you what they
want. When they go to the bother of telling you, they‟d
probably pay for it.
 Use your intuition to sort out wish list items from must
haves
 Use your blog to get a conversation going about the
product. Blog comments are „lighter‟ than forum posts.
 Quickly turn around new features and add what people
want, then tell everyone the new feature exists.
 Concentrate as much on improving the product as
streamlining support


Iterating and Improving - Product

% Chance of no Sale by minutes from first bug found

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
1 minute 10 minutes 2 hours 1 day 1 week


Iterating and Improving - Sales

 Always measure new sales ideas
 Try anything, but measure everything
 Abandon any approach if not working
 Keep an eye on your conversion funnel metrics, look for
problem areas
 Key metric is your trial=>sale conversion rate
 Most likely your best sales strategy will turn out to be
making a better product
• Easier to install
• Easier to use
• Less Bugs
• Nicer to look at


Iterating and Improving - Support

 Make a commitment to yourself answer all support
requests within 24 hours.
 If someone has taken the trouble to ask for help, it‟s
something they can‟t live with. It is already affecting other
sales. Fix it, and post information on how it is fixed.
 Always treat customers with respect and dignity
 Unpleasant people are a reality. Use special strategies to
defuse the situation, but don‟t deal with unwarranted
abuse. $50 does not buy someone‟s soul.


Iterating and Improving - Support

 Work on continuous improvement.
• Try and avoid answering the same question twice
• Focus on driving down average support requests/sale and average
time/support request
 Eliminate repeated support requests with:
1. Better code : fix a problem or code around it
2. Better communication : an automated email, reworded help, popup
messages – anything that helps people answer their own queries
3. Better documentation : blog it, put it on the DNN Forum, put it on
your site in multiple places. Not everyone uses the same
searches.


Things to think about along the
way

51

Piracy and IP Violation

 Piracy will happen if you‟re successful
 Remember to concentrate on helping the people who are
paying you rather than fighting those who aren‟t.
 Rules for dealing with piracy:
1. Develop your code with a licensing system
2. Create some way of detecting piracy so you can monitor it
3. Don‟t spend time/money/reputational capital trying to track down
and abuse/berate/fight/flame pirates. Let it go.
4. A certain level of piracy is ultimately unharmful to your business.
5. Develop a honey pot page
6. Have a free trial.


IP Violations

 Unlike piracy, IP Violations are where someone steals your
product and re-sells it as their own
 Keep an eye on new products in your category
 DotNetNuke store staff will greatly assist if you find this
situation. They can (and will) remove offending items for
sale.
 Don‟t assume guilt if you suspect it. Verify and report the
problem to the DotNetNuke store.
 Keep it private.


SEO for your product

 Search Engine referrals are ultimately the best source of
leads
 SEO is up to you, you and you. There are no shortcuts
and it never ends. Keep at it.
 Optimize your website product page and your DotNetNuke
store page for your search terms
 Don‟t bother trying to rank for „DotNetNuke Module‟. Rank
for the problem and associated questions instead.
 Know where „the line‟ is with regards to SEO links, and
stick to it.


Your Blog

 Unless you are incapable of writing, start a blog
 Jot down 5 broad topics to start with, and post one every
week
 If you have any tricky support requests, blog about the
solution
 Use blog posts as a very early type of market research.
Post on a topic, and if it gets read, commented and
linked, you probably just found a viable product.
 Use the DotNetNuke Blog module – show you know the
platform.
 Read and Comment on other peoples blogs. You might
find they start reading yours.


Community Involvement

 Successful software sales means being involved with the
DotNetNuke community
 The DotNetNuke Community is the killer feature of the
platform
 Community visibility = relationships = sales
 Contribute to the community by:
• Reporting bugs you find in the framework, along with a solution
• Spend 10 minutes here and there answering questions on the
dotnetnuke.com forum
• Come to conferences and talk to people
• Build useful things and add them to the DNN Forge


Wrap up!

 Writing software is a rewarding way to make money
 Selling software is hard, but easier when you have a
targeted platform
 The DotNetNuke ecosystem is a big market full of
opportunities
 The DotNetNuke Store is the easiest and best way to
access that market
 We‟ve all got one good idea that others could use.
 Go forth, build and prosper!


Questions and Feedback Forms

58

Selling Code in the DotNetNuke Store - From Idea to Execution

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