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Joby Spencer
Guest
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 Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:10 pm Post subject: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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I have written an application for a niche market inwhich I had originally
planned to market myself. Now, a company wants to buy exclusive rights
to the program, but they have concerns about maintaining the code in the
future because I am a "one-man-band". I developed the program on my
own, and at this time, I am the only one with working knowledge of how
the program works. The company has little to no software experience,
and is nervous about what they would do if I was killed, or in some other
way, left the project.
I am looking for suggestions as to how I can alleviate their concerns, and
ideas for a risk management strategy to help protect their investment in
me and my program. I don't plan on getting hit by a bus, but unfortunately
it is a possibility.
The deal between us is not worth enough to hire another programmer, or
to cut-in a "business partner".
The company will get access to the source code in the deal, but then what
do they do. They don't know delphi, and would be in a position to go
shopping for a part-time coder who would be willing to inherit somebody
else's code. They're uneasy about this, as I would be if I were them.
Using Delphi makes their concerns worse because the number of skilled
delphi programmers is probably less than that of C or VB. The company
is in Omaha, Nebraska.
Any suggestions would be very appreciated. Thank you very much, Joby
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Mark D. Lincoln
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:22 pm Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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Joby,
You might look into you and/or your marketing partner taking out an
insurance policy on you. These type of policies are typically known as "key
man" or "key person" policies that offer a payout if you are incapacitated
or killed or otherwise rendered unable to fulfill your duties in the
company. I am not sure of the cost, but you can probably get a quote from
most insurance companies that offer other types of business insurance such
as liability coverage. What this would offer you and your marketing partner
is the necessary funds to hire another programmer or consulting company to
analyze your code and pick up where you left off in the project. It is
basically a "peace of mind" policy which might be just what you and your
marketing partner need.
Mark
"Joby Spencer" <joby_spencer (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote
| Quote: | I have written an application for a niche market inwhich I had originally
planned to market myself. Now, a company wants to buy exclusive rights
to the program, but they have concerns about maintaining the code in the
future because I am a "one-man-band". I developed the program on my
own, and at this time, I am the only one with working knowledge of how
the program works. The company has little to no software experience,
and is nervous about what they would do if I was killed, or in some other
way, left the project.
I am looking for suggestions as to how I can alleviate their concerns, and
ideas for a risk management strategy to help protect their investment in
me and my program. I don't plan on getting hit by a bus, but
unfortunately
it is a possibility.
The deal between us is not worth enough to hire another programmer, or
to cut-in a "business partner".
The company will get access to the source code in the deal, but then what
do they do. They don't know delphi, and would be in a position to go
shopping for a part-time coder who would be willing to inherit somebody
else's code. They're uneasy about this, as I would be if I were them.
Using Delphi makes their concerns worse because the number of skilled
delphi programmers is probably less than that of C or VB. The company
is in Omaha, Nebraska.
Any suggestions would be very appreciated. Thank you very much, Joby
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Joby Spencer
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:39 pm Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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Thank you Mark. I would have never thought about this. Like you said,
it offers some "peace of mind". Thanks again, Joby
"Mark D. Lincoln" <mdlincoln (AT) speakeasy (DOT) net> wrote
| Quote: | Joby,
You might look into you and/or your marketing partner taking out an
insurance policy on you. These type of policies are typically known as
"key man" or "key person" policies that offer a payout if you are
incapacitated or killed or otherwise rendered unable to fulfill your
duties in the company. I am not sure of the cost, but you can probably
get a quote from most insurance companies that offer other types of
business insurance such as liability coverage. What this would offer you
and your marketing partner is the necessary funds to hire another
programmer or consulting company to analyze your code and pick up where
you left off in the project. It is basically a "peace of mind" policy
which might be just what you and your marketing partner need.
Mark
"Joby Spencer" <joby_spencer (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:42b88251$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com...
I have written an application for a niche market inwhich I had originally
planned to market myself. Now, a company wants to buy exclusive rights
to the program, but they have concerns about maintaining the code in the
future because I am a "one-man-band". I developed the program on my
own, and at this time, I am the only one with working knowledge of how
the program works. The company has little to no software experience,
and is nervous about what they would do if I was killed, or in some other
way, left the project.
I am looking for suggestions as to how I can alleviate their concerns,
and
ideas for a risk management strategy to help protect their investment in
me and my program. I don't plan on getting hit by a bus, but
unfortunately
it is a possibility.
The deal between us is not worth enough to hire another programmer, or
to cut-in a "business partner".
The company will get access to the source code in the deal, but then what
do they do. They don't know delphi, and would be in a position to go
shopping for a part-time coder who would be willing to inherit somebody
else's code. They're uneasy about this, as I would be if I were them.
Using Delphi makes their concerns worse because the number of skilled
delphi programmers is probably less than that of C or VB. The company
is in Omaha, Nebraska.
Any suggestions would be very appreciated. Thank you very much, Joby
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Russ Holcomb
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:45 pm Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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The cost is surprisingly low. Something like $40 per month for a $500,000
policy.
Russ
"Joby Spencer" <joby_spencer (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote
| Quote: | Thank you Mark. I would have never thought about this. Like you said,
it offers some "peace of mind". Thanks again, Joby
"Mark D. Lincoln" <mdlincoln (AT) speakeasy (DOT) net> wrote in message
news:42b88503$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com...
Joby,
You might look into you and/or your marketing partner taking out an
insurance policy on you. These type of policies are typically known as
"key man" or "key person" policies that offer a payout if you are
incapacitated or killed or otherwise rendered unable to fulfill your
duties in the company. I am not sure of the cost, but you can probably
get a quote from most insurance companies that offer other types of
business insurance such as liability coverage. What this would offer you
and your marketing partner is the necessary funds to hire another
programmer or consulting company to analyze your code and pick up where
you left off in the project. It is basically a "peace of mind" policy
which might be just what you and your marketing partner need.
Mark
"Joby Spencer" <joby_spencer (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:42b88251$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com...
I have written an application for a niche market inwhich I had originally
planned to market myself. Now, a company wants to buy exclusive rights
to the program, but they have concerns about maintaining the code in the
future because I am a "one-man-band". I developed the program on my
own, and at this time, I am the only one with working knowledge of how
the program works. The company has little to no software experience,
and is nervous about what they would do if I was killed, or in some
other
way, left the project.
I am looking for suggestions as to how I can alleviate their concerns,
and
ideas for a risk management strategy to help protect their investment in
me and my program. I don't plan on getting hit by a bus, but
unfortunately
it is a possibility.
The deal between us is not worth enough to hire another programmer, or
to cut-in a "business partner".
The company will get access to the source code in the deal, but then
what
do they do. They don't know delphi, and would be in a position to go
shopping for a part-time coder who would be willing to inherit somebody
else's code. They're uneasy about this, as I would be if I were them.
Using Delphi makes their concerns worse because the number of skilled
delphi programmers is probably less than that of C or VB. The company
is in Omaha, Nebraska.
Any suggestions would be very appreciated. Thank you very much, Joby
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Joby Spencer
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:54 pm Post subject: Re: Company concered with |
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Thank you for your response, Rick. I was just sitting here thinking that
the best scenario would be to somehow team-up or partner with other
coders who might be in a similar situation. "Partner" may be too strong
of a word, but something in the spirit of "I'll watch your back, and you
watch mine".
Is there a website where this happens (besides the normal newsgroups)?
How did you go about getting on your "lists"?
Thanks, Joby
"Rick Carter" <carterrk (AT) despammed (DOT) com> wrote
| Quote: | No need to take on a business partner. But, rather than leaving them
worrying about needing to "shop around" in the event you are
incapacitated, give them names and contact information for two or three
competent coders who could maintain your code in the future, if necessary.
I know I'm already on one or two such lists, and this didn't involve the
exchange of any money to do so.
Rick Carter
[email]carterrk (AT) despammed (DOT) com[/email]
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG, Cincinnati PC Users Group
--- posted by geoForum on http://delphi.newswhat.com
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Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:56 pm Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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At 23:45:45, 21.06.2005, Russ Holcomb wrote:
| Quote: | The cost is surprisingly low. Something like $40 per month for a
$500,000 policy.
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Russ, the line above was your only new content, and yet your message was
68 lines long. Please cut your quotes to a minimum, next time.
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://velthuis.homepage.t-online.de
"I'm desperately trying to figure out why kamikaze pilots wore
helmets." -- Dave Edison.
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IanH
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:18 pm Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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Joby
You might also get some additional ideas if you post the question on Joel
Spolsky's software side.
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz
Regards
Ian H.
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Dave White
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:19 pm Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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"Joby Spencer" <joby_spencer (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote
| Quote: | planned to market myself. Now, a company wants to buy exclusive rights
to the program, but they have concerns about maintaining the code in the
The deal between us is not worth enough to hire another programmer, or
to cut-in a "business partner".
The company will get access to the source code in the deal, but then what
|
Joby,
Not related to your original question, but something jumped out at me from
your message. You say that the "company wants to buy exclusive rights
access", yet "the deal between us is not worth enough to......" Do you
really plan to sell all rights to your software for such a "low" value?
(Note, I don't know what the value is, but it sounds like it may be low for
an exclusive deal).
Dave White
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Rick Carter
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:20 pm Post subject: Re: Company concered with |
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No need to take on a business partner. But, rather than leaving them
worrying about needing to "shop around" in the event you are
incapacitated, give them names and contact information for two or three
competent coders who could maintain your code in the future, if necessary.
I know I'm already on one or two such lists, and this didn't involve the
exchange of any money to do so.
Rick Carter
[email]carterrk (AT) despammed (DOT) com[/email]
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG, Cincinnati PC Users Group
--- posted by geoForum on http://delphi.newswhat.com
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Brion L. Webster
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:43 pm Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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Joby Spencer wrote:
| Quote: | The company will get access to the source code in the deal, but then what
do they do. They don't know delphi, and would be in a position to go
shopping for a part-time coder who would be willing to inherit somebody
else's code. They're uneasy about this, as I would be if I were them.
|
I'm under the impression there are formal code escrow things set up, for
example with IntraWeb, where if the company goes out of business, the code
is still available to customers.
Maybe there's a market for a service that does independant code escrow and
referral services? I would imagine that other coders in similar
situations would make an ideal pool of candidates should the original
coder no longer be willing or able to maintain the software.
Actually, I think this would be a good thing for Borland to do, and
certainly a little different. Show how awesome StarTeam is for
distributed teams, how secure it can be. Set up a code escrow service for
Borland developers. Let us use our StarTeam client licenses to access our
own BDN accounts. Give us a way to register clients for access to certain
projects if we haven't connected within 365 days, or if they present a
passcode and we haven't rejected their request within 7 days. Add it to
the benefits of Software Assurance. Give it away free as a marketing
tool. Charge companies when they use the passcode.
-Brion
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Rick Carter
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:02 pm Post subject: Re: Company concered with |
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| Quote: | Thank you for your response, Rick. I was just sitting here thinking that
the best scenario would be to somehow team-up or partner with other
coders who might be in a similar situation. "Partner" may be too strong
of a word, but something in the spirit of "I'll watch your back, and you
watch mine".
Is there a website where this happens (besides the normal newsgroups)?
How did you go about getting on your "lists"?
|
In our case, it's mutual friends in the local users group looking out for
each other. Joining a local users group is always a great way to network.
Perhaps others are forming their associations in other ways.
Rick Carter
[email]carterrk (AT) despammed (DOT) com[/email]
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG, Cincinnati PC Users Group
--- posted by geoForum on http://delphi.newswhat.com
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John Herbster
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 12:04 am Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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"Dave White" <nospam (AT) spam (DOT) com> wrote
| Quote: | Joby wrote:
... a company wants to buy exclusive rights to the program,
but they have concerns about maintaining the code ...
Not related to your original question, but something
jumped out at me from your message. You say that the
"company wants to buy exclusive rights access", yet
"the deal between us is not worth enough to......"
|
Joby, It looks fishy to me, too. Could there be other reasons
for their apparently strange attitude? Could they be trying to
get you to lower the price? Do they really just want to keep
you from selling the program? Regards, JohnH
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Tony Caduto
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 3:03 am Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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If you ask me this fear is really unfounded, Pascal is not that
difficult to pick up and any "good" VB programmer would not have any
problem. A C# programmer also would not have any problem if you ask me.
you app is event driven right? It uses components right?
As long as it's a VCL app I don't see any problem.
What you do is set up a laptop or whatever with a copy of Delphi and all
needed components/third party libs etc. Then make a ghost image of it
so it can easily be restored(burn the image to a dvd).
If there is a compiling copy available to them it makes it much easier
for any qualified coder to jump right in.
| Quote: | Using Delphi makes their concerns worse because the number of skilled
delphi programmers is probably less than that of C or VB. The company
is in Omaha, Nebraska.
Any suggestions would be very appreciated. Thank you very much, Joby
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Bryce K. Nielsen
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 3:41 am Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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| Quote: | Using Delphi makes their concerns worse because the number of skilled
delphi programmers is probably less than that of C or VB. The company
is in Omaha, Nebraska.
|
Omaha? There should be a good number of Delphi programmers there. I'm out in
Utah, and in the late 90s I interviewed at two different companies in Omaha
(well, one was in a small town about 10 miles north, the other was for Union
Pacific). Granted, this was 5 years ago, but I was under the impression that
Omaha had quite a few Delphi developers. There should at least be an active
users group out there.
http://info.borland.com/programs/usergroups/uglist.html has one listed,
though the page is down.
I'd do what's been recommended, talk to a couple other developers and ask if
you can use them as a "back-up" reference. Most developers are used to
jumping in and working on someone else's code...
-BKN
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Lauchlan M
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 5:51 am Post subject: Re: Company concered with "One-man-band". |
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| Quote: | I have written an application for a niche market inwhich I had originally
planned to market myself. Now, a company wants to buy exclusive rights
to the program, but they have concerns about maintaining the code in the
future because I am a "one-man-band". I developed the program on my
own, and at this time, I am the only one with working knowledge of how
the program works. The company has little to no software experience,
and is nervous about what they would do if I was killed, or in some other
way, left the project.
I am looking for suggestions as to how I can alleviate their concerns, and
ideas for a risk management strategy to help protect their investment in
me and my program. I don't plan on getting hit by a bus, but
unfortunately
it is a possibility.
|
I think it's a reasonable concern on their part.
Some solutions:
(i) give them a licence to the code, that does not exclude your rights to
reuse it as appropriate (ie to reuse methods, components, etc in other
projects), and ship them a copy of the code. eg set up a source control
server on their site and check out the project from there.
(ii) tell them you are happy to grow your company, if they pay for you
employing more developers (and calculate rates for hiring people, buying
them hardware and software, etc).
(iii) put the source code in 'escrow' ie in a legal 'locked box' so they can
access it under certain specified legal conditions.
etc.
If I were the company, and I was buying an exclusive licence, I'd want some
protection of this sort. Probably I'd try to negotiate for access to the
code with advice from an independent consultant that it was well written and
maintainable. If I had this, I'd probably settle for the code in escrow,
otherwise I'd insist on actually having the code available so I could get it
reviewed. I'd sort this out before buying it, or mentioning/settling a
price.
HTH
Lauchlan M
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