bglenn09

I am shifting from a one man consultancy to a formal product development shop. I am currently working on the first version of a mobile and desktop SaaS product for an enterprise client which I have priced on a fixed price basis. I am struggling with how to structure and price my services beyond delivery of the first version of the product.

There will be incremental iterations with new features and I would like to pitch my client on having me operate the service for them (basically hosting it and taking responsibility for security patches, database backups, performance monitoring and optimization, etc.). I am curious how development shops and consultants would structure such an agreement.

A few questions I have:

- Do shops typically operate a SaaS service for their clients and how do they typically price that?<p>- I typically offer a 90 day warranty on fixed price engagements for bug fixes. Does a warranty make sense when we will be changing the software within the warranty period to build out new features?

- How do you typically structure your maintenance agreements in a case of ongoing development like this?

I have searched around a bit but if anyone can point me to standard agreements that would be very helpful to me. I learn a great deal from this board and am very interested in hearing all your thoughts on this.

Thank you.

I'm looking to modify themes from themeforest, etc. to build sites for clients so I can market at attractive price levels. I'm wondering if people typically tell their clients that they are modifying themes when they do so and, if so, how that is generally received.

I've been in and out of the start-up space. I've been out for some time and am looking to return. I've left my job and am dedicating most of my time to upgrading my web development skills. I'm studying Ruby (and portions of the related ecosystem) as well as HTML/CSS/jQuery (where I'm weak). I've never had mentorship and I'd like to meet somebody that can give me high-level guidance to ensure that I invest my time wisely so that I can get back in the game as soon as is reasonably possible. My hope is that this person would either be a Ruby contractor or someone at a start-up and that I could therefore work on real-world projects as I progress. In exchange for the guidance and opportunity, I would be happy to work below market for a period of time that will more than fairly compensate you for your (very limited) time invested. Of course I also hope for a long business relationship. Please contact me if this might interest you at bglenn09 at gmail. I am in New York, but it doesn't matter to me where you are. Thanks!

I spend a lot of time on here and I'm hoping to get some advice. I'm in my mid-30s. I've started several start-ups since I graduated college, none of which achieved any traction. I've been working a full-time job for the last few years developing and managing the internal business process systems for a manufacturer. I'm now trying to transition back to the start-up world and am looking to rebuild an income flow to support myself. After many years of being out of the freelance game, I'm looking to restart a freelance practice which would buy me the flexibility to work on another start-up if I could even secure the rates I billed 10 years ago. My concern is picking up work, as many years of working in almost masochistic isolation on various start-ups has left me without much of a professional network and my skill set is lacking in sex appeal. While I am well-versed in Javascript and I'm currently studying Ruby, my background is in the pretty staid world of SMB line-of-business applications (and Microsoft technologies). While I'm sure that there is still plenty of demand for these kinds of intranet applications, I'm not quite sure how to break back in. I've been looking at postings on craigslist and some of the other boards mentioned here, but most listings seem to revolve around consumer-facing web apps. Does anyone have any suggestions on where to look online or what sort of events I should be looking for to network myself to find these sorts of gigs? I suspect start-up community events will not lend themselves to finding this kind of work. I'm in New York City. In the event anyone on here has work, I also have experience with SMB ERP systems (my first start-up was an ERP as a service flameout) and am very strong on business and financial analysis (I'm trained in finance) as well as project management stuff like gathering requirements and writing specs. Thanks very much for any guidance.

I'm a software developer working on a (non-software/non-technology) line of consumable products that will require significant capital costs to even do a sample production run. Given that, I'd like to test the waters to try and estimate metrics like customer acquisition costs and whether a given product will actually sell before investing the capital. Based on what I've learned here, it seems to me it would be a good idea to put up a landing page of some sorts and maybe drive traffic to it with an Adwords campaign but what sort of conversion would you guys use to proxy for a sale given that I can't actually sell the product without having produced it (or even having invested in the branding yet)? I supposed I could have people sign-up for a newsletter or something but I would really have no clue how that conversion rate might convert to a sales conversion rate. I'm just getting up-to-speed on digital marketing so any pointers to key background reading material on running exploration tests like this to test business ideas before investing in them would be greatly appreciated as well.

Thanks.