Ask HN: How to keep our software free while obtaining a revenue stream?

8 points by katla 3 years ago | 7 comments

We are a small team that spent the better part of a decade building an application to aid web devs and we are almost release ready.

Our goals are to keep this software free of charge, require no user account, collect no data and avoid all forms of ads while obtaining a revenue stream to fund further development.

The idea at present is to release this as a free closed source software and start looking for investors while developing new features to be released in a shareware version should we fail to obtain capital in other ways.

If we released a shareware edition we would then gradually move every feature to the free version with a timeframe of 3-24 months for each feature. This would provide incentive for funding while ensuring all content is available for free over time.

Should we get lucky enough to find a VC or similar we would instead open source it in a heartbeat.

I’m wondering though if this would be an accepted approach by the community. We have the best intentions at heart but it torments me.

Any thoughts on this?

jqpabc123 3 years ago |

Any thoughts on this?

The VC community exists for return on investment. All the objectives and requirements you have laid out pretty much eliminate what they are looking for.

Have you thought about partnering with a cloud services company and try to tie into their revenue stream?

katla 3 years ago | |

Thank you for your insight! I will look into this option, it may be a really good idea! :)

toast0 3 years ago |

Regardless of your plans to eventually be free, don't release as free and then switch to a pay model; it'll generate a lot of strife. Figure out an angle where you say it's paid, but just don't charge people at the moment. This seems to work well for WinRAR, and worked well for WhatsApp (for a long time it was $1/year, and there was no way to pay, then there was payment, but no enforcement, then enforcement in some countries but not most, then FB bought us and made it free everywhere)

aviramha 3 years ago |

Sorry but I don't understand even as closed source or open source how you plan making this profitable - as VCs or any kind of investor would ask the same...

katla 3 years ago | |

Thank you for reply!

Getting an investor is a long shot for us so I’m not expecting it. The application has the potential for services around it, but such services would be expensive and the hope is to pitch that as a potential for return.

mattbrewsbytes 3 years ago |

You could try having the free OSS version, then have a pro or enterprise version with license keys, costs, support, and enhanced features (closed source) that might be more suited to larger companies. This looks to have worked out well for many open source projects. In the Rails world, Sidekiq is a prime example, look it up on GitHub if you’re not familiar, solo dev too.

katla 3 years ago | |

Thank you! This is one of the things I’ve contemplated greatly and I will definitely look into that project. I have some concerns about this approach but maybe taking a closer look at such projects will leviate them. If you have any other examples they would be greatly appreciated! ^^