It was my first desktop app, so the code isn't great, but it's found a loyal user base over the years has netted over $50k since 2011. Unfortunately, Magic Maps is now suffering from neglect and bit-rot, and some of the users are starting to revolt. At the very least, it needs a bit of work to fix crashes, ensure it works smoothly on Yosemite, etc.
I'd do this work myself, but I am putting all my time into another app, and as much as it pains me, I just don't have time to invest into Magic Maps any longer. I'm putting this out there because I'm honestly not sure what to do with the software at this point, and I'd like to hear other people's perspectives. I see my available options as:
* Open-source the project. I think open-source works well for a lot of things -- and I've done a lot of open-source work in the past -- but user-friendly software doesn't seem to be a good fit for open-source without ongoing sponsorship.
* Try to sell the project. This seems ideal, as I think there's potential for Magic Maps to be a viable business with a sufficiently savvy owner, but I'm not sure there's a market for code that doesn't include a developer or test coverage.
* Wind down the project and call it a day. This would be the least amount of work for me, but it hurts me to think about it. It just seems like a waste to throw away all that design and engineering effort -- it's a neat little package and I'd hate to put it in the trash.
Have other people been in similar situations? What did you do, and what do you think I should do? Sell it, open-source it, or call it quits?
BTW here's the Magic Maps home page: http://magicmaps.evanmiller.org/
> I (or we as a company) faced pretty similar situation just a few weeks ago.
> The app is called ______, and it was our first app ever, our child - app that constituted our company brand and still is pretty useful for many small business owners (_______ is an invoicing app, making something like $20k/year on our domestic market).
> Unfortunately(?) business is business, so finally I decided to decline it. Now we’re making some final touches and will release it as open source project - again facing similar problems - the codebase is almost 6y old, app is not trivial, build procedure is not single click etc etc.
> Besides all those risks and problems, I still believe that opening the source code is worth doing. That way we can help other (less advanced) programmers to start their own mac products/businesses. I’m sure that you’ll agree that after a certain point you need to look inside something bigger than a trivial app from examples folder, something that is/was a real thing, something ‘alive'. That’s IMHO a single priceless source of practical knowledge.
> That’s my 10cents :)
Your software doesn't have bit rot, it's just old. It was useful at one point in time and it is just a bit less so now. Consider the value proposition of a Magic Maps 2.0 to your users and what sort of feature list you could create. Decide an upgrade price point, and send an email to your users and create a newsletter allowing them to sign up for the new version. If you get 500 sign ups, cost out the features and have a freelancer develop them. If you get no sign ups, pack it up or sell it to someone.
If it was me, my financial situation may be different, but, I'd drag myself up by the scruff of my neck and set aside some time to fix it......$10k a year!
I personally find it difficult to work on multiple large software projects at the same time. There's just so much I can keep in my head at once. If it were a few thousand lines of code, maybe, but Magic Maps weighs in around 35 kLoC, and the other one is pushing 100 kLoC. It takes a fair amount of mental bandwidth to dig into deep bugs, and I'd like to save that bandwidth for my other app.
I had a similar situation, and went the route of open source. The product died, as no one but me really wanted to maintain it. It was effectively the same as turning my back on the project while maintaining sales, except without the $$.
I'd recommend you ignore it and focus on your new app for long periods of time. Don't fix any bugs for months on end, then take a little time to knock out the big ones. Ignore the edge cases and focus on the big picture, that this app isn't your big thing, the next app is.
For the record the Yosemite issues are the most glaring ones, but there are deeper crashes and bugs (think "mysterious Core Data error") that have eluded me.
Odesk and Elance. Only hire people who've worked on multiple projects and have high ratings. There are plenty of talented people out there.
> For the record the Yosemite issues are the most glaring ones.
I commiserate. Apple's arbitrary decisions on what APIs are deprecated in newer versions must be really frustrating for developers. One of many reasons I shy away from creating desktop applications.
I own small consultancy and am an iOS / OS X developer myself. We are in Ukraine, so 10k / year goes much further here.
We can help you with support, e.g. for percentage of sales. Or we can negotiate other deal. Drop me a line to vgrichina@gmail.com, let's discuss the details.
I'm not a software or web dev but things like that definitely influence my decision to try or buy software.
If its generating a profit, maybe its worth it?
You get 3 benefits:
1. Continued income from it (people aren't going to continue to buy it if the bad reviews keep coming in).
2. You keep/improve your reputation. If your software isn't working well for any reason at all, it can give a bad reputation to the person/company attached.
3. You increase the chances of a good buy-out in the future, over what it would currently bring now.
We all know it can be difficult to get traction on a project, not to mention paying users. You already have proved this one can get both.
There have been a few times where I've followed that exact logic to fix it up, spent a weekend or two on it, and gotten pulled away again. The software has reached a size where it's hard (mentally) to switch back and forth between it and my other app.
The other issue is that now that I have more experience doing Mac development, I'm starting to see that it's not a simple matter of bug-fixing. Some significant development would be needed to bring it up to the same level of polish as my other app, and in the meantime I'm concerned it's detracting from my App Store reputation.
If you truly believe there's no chance of it ever growing larger, than by all means, retire it. I've sunsetted many apps that never caught on. But don't give up on it too soon!
VirtualHostX was my first app, the one that grew slowly over a few years and then took off. Hostbuddy is a small, companion app that does moderately well. Hobo is my newest, still in beta, that I hope to kick off in February.
(1) I think its worth trying to sell the app - you did a good job, obviously it has a user base, and I think its fair you get paid for it and have someone continue to maintain it.
(2) If that's a hassle and you lose control of the project's trajectory - why not open-source? Your users would still use it, it would be free, and there might be some power user willing to take it on and improve the code base.
(3) As someone else mentioned in the comments below, maybe find a contractor to maintain it? This only makes sense if the cost of the contractor is less than what you're making off it, of course.
This assumes the purchaser isn't just shelving it and killing off a competitor.
It't not an awful idea, especially since you know your competitors in the space (who to target).
You said you're concerned about how much it might cost. Surely you can afford to try someone out for a short amount of time, given the app makes $10K a year. If you shut it down or open source it, that income's gone anyway. So why not try to keep a good product alive?
One good place to look for a programmer might be the monthly HN threads by whoishiring - https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring
It benefits both parties, you know what features the project needs to implement and what direction it needs to take to make more money, while the new owner/developer gets ramped up. You guys can even agree to a one year period of help and then separate, but at least the project keeps running and making money.
Not sure if this is usually done, but it seems like everyone wins :)
I also have a very marginal side business I want to dispose of (about the same revenue). The best model I could come up with was that I would be willing to sell it for, say, 100% of the next years revenue, 50% of the next two years revenue, etc. That way, the buyer doesn't risk paying too much (since the price is tied to revenue), and the seller is incentivized to do a reasonable handover, take care of teething issues, etc, but the buyer will also try hard to take things over completely for when the seller is no longer around.
Or just throw off this project and focus on another one. It's old. It's kind of liability not a money generator.
Crowd source further development and continue to participate in revenue and product direction.
It might be unwise to give some certain away for something not so certain.
Are there many active competitors?
Is it written in all Objective C?
It's mostly Objective-C. The core map-projection library is C and OpenCL, which I had a lot of fun with! I open-sourced that library (ProjCL) a while back: https://github.com/evanmiller/ProjCL
It's a real elegant looking app, better visual design than your competitor in my opinion (although I'm sure lots of work has gone into that app, as well).
