brothercake
04-29-2005, 05:00 AM
This is somewhat speculative, because I'm not really sure how it will pan out - but here's the background:
I used to offer a service with my Ultimate Drop Down Menu (http://www.udm4.com/) script to customise it individually for people's sites; it was a reasonable money-spinner - not huge profits, but the jobs were not difficult or time consuming either - but more to the point, it encouraged sales from people who might not otherwise be able to use the menu at all.
I don't have time to do it at the moment, or for the foreseeable future, so I've withdrawn the service in the short term, but I'm already feeling the pinch of that - not so much the loss of income, but the principal of it - turning down work, disappointing clients - neither of these are good things to do.
So, I'm looking to subcontract the process.
What you will need:
- to learn how the script works, the principles behind it, what its capabilities are, how to use it ... and so on - basically, to be prepared to invest the time gaining enough experience with the product to provide the service
- a very strong understanding of XHTML, CSS, best-practise and accesssibility issues;
- a general sensitivity for good usability, although you don't need specific expertise in that area
- a good grasp of JS, but it doesn't have to be your strongest point either - you'll mostly be customising the menu using its own configuration, and doing bespoke CSS; requests for new JS behaviors are not very common, and I can probably handle those myself if necessary
- real-world experience of building and maintaining professional websites
What would be nice:
- design skills, so you can guide customers if they're not sure, or even offer a complete design service if you so wish
- PHP or another server side language, so you can advise on architecture and integration issues, and again, offer compatible services if you wish
What you get:
- a service-based income derived from a strong brand, backed-up by solid tech support (me), from which you get to keep...
- most of the profits
What we're talking here is jobs worth, on average, $3-500 each, of which I would want the cost of the menu license (about $75) and 10% of the job cost (so $30-50 in this example) and you keep the rest. I was typically getting 3 or 4 requests for quotes a week, of which about 1 in 10 turn into real jobs - so thats roughly one job every 2-4 weeks, simply based on passive responses to a web form. Jobs typically take 1 or 2 hours to complete, but you should probably allow for longer job times at first, while you become familiar with the codebase and establish patterns of working.
But volumes and profits are not guaranteed either way - promotion and pricing will ultimately be up to you; although I will want to maintain some discretionary control in that area (to prevent you from charging to much, or too little, or advertising in a manner I deem inappropriate or inconsistent with the brand's reputation).
There are loads more details .. other licensing and reselling options ... we can go into all that ... but speculative interest is what I'm looking for now - if you think you fit the bill and you're interested, drop me a PM and I'll give you a test :)
I used to offer a service with my Ultimate Drop Down Menu (http://www.udm4.com/) script to customise it individually for people's sites; it was a reasonable money-spinner - not huge profits, but the jobs were not difficult or time consuming either - but more to the point, it encouraged sales from people who might not otherwise be able to use the menu at all.
I don't have time to do it at the moment, or for the foreseeable future, so I've withdrawn the service in the short term, but I'm already feeling the pinch of that - not so much the loss of income, but the principal of it - turning down work, disappointing clients - neither of these are good things to do.
So, I'm looking to subcontract the process.
What you will need:
- to learn how the script works, the principles behind it, what its capabilities are, how to use it ... and so on - basically, to be prepared to invest the time gaining enough experience with the product to provide the service
- a very strong understanding of XHTML, CSS, best-practise and accesssibility issues;
- a general sensitivity for good usability, although you don't need specific expertise in that area
- a good grasp of JS, but it doesn't have to be your strongest point either - you'll mostly be customising the menu using its own configuration, and doing bespoke CSS; requests for new JS behaviors are not very common, and I can probably handle those myself if necessary
- real-world experience of building and maintaining professional websites
What would be nice:
- design skills, so you can guide customers if they're not sure, or even offer a complete design service if you so wish
- PHP or another server side language, so you can advise on architecture and integration issues, and again, offer compatible services if you wish
What you get:
- a service-based income derived from a strong brand, backed-up by solid tech support (me), from which you get to keep...
- most of the profits
What we're talking here is jobs worth, on average, $3-500 each, of which I would want the cost of the menu license (about $75) and 10% of the job cost (so $30-50 in this example) and you keep the rest. I was typically getting 3 or 4 requests for quotes a week, of which about 1 in 10 turn into real jobs - so thats roughly one job every 2-4 weeks, simply based on passive responses to a web form. Jobs typically take 1 or 2 hours to complete, but you should probably allow for longer job times at first, while you become familiar with the codebase and establish patterns of working.
But volumes and profits are not guaranteed either way - promotion and pricing will ultimately be up to you; although I will want to maintain some discretionary control in that area (to prevent you from charging to much, or too little, or advertising in a manner I deem inappropriate or inconsistent with the brand's reputation).
There are loads more details .. other licensing and reselling options ... we can go into all that ... but speculative interest is what I'm looking for now - if you think you fit the bill and you're interested, drop me a PM and I'll give you a test :)