A client wants to buy old SaaS app – smart move or risk?

5 pointsposted 21 hours ago
by AbbeyRoadRunner

Item id: 44467722

7 Comments

csomar

10 hours ago

I don't know about your circumstances but if I was small, I would completely disregard this.

> We’re currently in a bidding process, alongside other companies. From what we understand, most competitors are creative agencies likely to: • build something from scratch, or • white-label past projects from similar events.

They are not interested in you. They just reached out to platforms to do price/feature/whatever discovery. They might decide on one of them, go with a friend or do nothing.

Do you want to expand time on this? Again, I don't know about your circumstances and don't have much info beyond what you are giving us but I wouldn't.

eschneider

21 hours ago

You're going to HAVE to give them support, if only to get them setup. Think long and hard if selling this sort of on-prem version of your product makes sense for YOU. If not, it's likely going to be an expensive distraction and just tell the customer no, you don't sell and support product X that way.

They very likely will be back and if not, no hard feelings.

AbbeyRoadRunner

20 hours ago

It does have much sense what you say. So 1. is off the table.

What I am pondering on is how much is worth the IP or to take it from another angle - how much should I charge for it as it's ready now (so we can ship it tomorrow vs. they have to wait for development) + it has been tested in the field so most of QA phase is gone.

nivertech

6 hours ago

1. Just agree to not raise the prices above some inflation-linked index.

2. Giving commercial project AS-IS without support is a no-no, and might be illegal in some jurisdictions.

3. Sell them a bank of on-prem support hours.

user

19 hours ago

[deleted]

HenryBemis

4 hours ago

What is the(ir) reputation? Do they delay payments? Do they try to find reasons not to pay?

I will oversimplify this (and I work like this when I have to pick a service (anything from SaaS to hiring one of them Big4+2 for a project): I want jeans. I look around. I buy jeans. I am willing to pay full price for jeans. I give proper project reqs/scope of work up front. If they fuck up, I fuck them usiny with the SLA/OLA. I also shit on them to anyone who ever brings them back (with real and damning info). If they do a good/great/their job, I "marry" them until the end of time.

If these guys "appreciate" you what you are, go for it. If they make you jump through 100 hoops then a) tht already picked option Z and they want the rest of you to voluntarily drop out of the race either through pricing (keep adding reqs and keeping the price fixed), or through features (keep adding reqs that they KNOW/sense you cannot deliver e.g. 'oh your app doesn't do liquids? too bad we wanted espresso to go with it).

Either way.. (and judging by the numbers you provided): - from scratch 60k - enhance 13k-38k

Even at the lower end (13k) it is still (almost) 25% of the whole thing..

Doesn't look like a good deal for you.

AbbeyRoadRunner

3 hours ago

1. Don't know anything about their rep. Big corp, that's all we know.

2. I do think they appreciate, we offer what they need in time which suits them. That's only my opinion TBH, they said twice that amongst other offers some bidders also have a ready-to-launch product. Maybe it's true, maybe it's a bluff.

3. Yeah, I was thinking about 50% more which makes it 27k $. Or maybe it should be 100%? I am balancing between not beeing greedy, and having a fair cut.