Need Advice for a good start

Question

Hello All,

I'm in the process of bringing my programming skills up to VB.NET 2015 from VB6 :).  I'm unemployed and partially disabled.  I'd like to create applications and offer them for sale.  My problem is I don't know how to proceed beyond creating the application itself.  I'm a terrible salesperson and I have no marketing experience.

I had originally thought to use the Microsoft Store but it seems that is mostly for games, phones, and movies...

The applications I have in mind to start with would be Databases for hobbyists.  They will be databases that I would like to use.  I have enough Database knowledge to get the job done, as well as creating useful interfaces.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Answer 1

If you create good software it will sell itself more or less. But you will need to advertise.

Creating hobby software for yourself to use and then selling it can be very good business. You know what you want to do and you love doing it. If you make the software do it and easy to use and there are not already 50 free versions available then you will do well. Assuming the hobby has an active market.

However, the software needs to be something special. Something that not any hobbyist can make. As you know if a hobbyist thinks "I can make that" then they will before buying it. So you need a barrier to entry. LIke only you know how to make this software.

Then you have the software and then you have the data. For many things the data is what is valuable and hard to recreate and what is really what folks will pay for.

And on and on...

So you should shoot for making your app. Making a setup and install package for your app. Testing your app. When you are down to fixing bugs faster than you find them you will be close to the selling phase. Run an ad in a hobby mag on your topic and see what happens.

I have a single file the customer can download with everything. I have a hosted web site that I rent and it has  store software that allows the customer to securely enter credit card and then download the file. I also offer on DVD or both.

Oh did I mention the docs? You have to make those. Help file, pdf, printed, etc.

And then finally everyone especially your Mother will tell you you are ruining your life, taking a big risk (which you are) and generally try to discourage you because 9 out of 10 fail. But that is what it is all about. Risk vs Reward. If you have the attitude that you are going to have fun and get it done and try and if it does not make $$ you dont care because you are having fun in your hobby and you might just succeed with doing what you like .... then you will be fine.

:)

Answer 2

Hello All,

I'm in the process of bringing my programming skills up to VB.NET 2015 from VB6 :).  I'm unemployed and partially disabled.  I'd like to create applications and offer them for sale.  My problem is I don't know how to proceed beyond creating the application itself.  I'm a terrible salesperson and I have no marketing experience.

I had originally thought to use the Microsoft Store but it seems that is mostly for games, phones, and movies...

The applications I have in mind to start with would be Databases for hobbyists.  They will be databases that I would like to use.  I have enough Database knowledge to get the job done, as well as creating useful interfaces.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

In addition, I think that a well-made (hire a pro, don't do it yourself) website will be helpful. If done right, the search engines will find it (hopefully with a high ranking order).

---

In the middle of difficulty ... lies opportunity. -- Albert Einstein

Answer 3

Have at least one newer quality PC probably with Windows 10 installed on it and with as much RAM as you can afford. For developing apps you may want other PC's with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 on them for backwards compatability testing. Maybe even Windows XP if the hobbyists in question still use those. As you will need to test your apps to see if they fail on any of those if your app is supposed to run on any of those.

Create a restore point on your PC before after downloading Visual Studio 2015 Community ISO which you can select to download the ISO after you select the button for Download at the link. Copy the ISO to a DVD so you can then install Visual Studio 2015 Community on your system from the DVD. The download is over 3 gigabytes so it taks over 12 hours on my system. Performing an online install is not advisable since anything can happen if the install quits due to your internet connection failing during the install or any number of things.

Learn the Visual Studio 2015 IDE.

Learn Visual Basic .Net;

Visual Basic

The New Boston Videos - Visual Basic series

VB Helper - Select "Index" under "What's New" at link. Then look in VB.Net listing for code examples and peruse other listings too.

Getting Started Tutorials - Try these four program tutorials to learn some basic skills.

ClickOnce Security and Deployment - Learn how to use an installer creator. There are various available on the net. This one comes with Visual Studio versions. Learn what prerequisites are and how the installer can determine if a system has the prerequisites necessary for your app and how the installer can download and install a prerequisite if necessary such as a newer .Net Framework if a users PC can support it.

Determine if you want to use Windows.Forms or WPF for your applications. WPF is more difficult IMO but has much greater capability with regard to a variety of things than Windows.Forms. There's a separate forum for WPF which is language inspecific. For pure VB.Net code questions those can be asked in this forum as well as Windows.Forms questions. For WPF questions not specific to pure VB.Net code those would be asked in the WPF forum.

As far as Databases go there's various types. You could use a free SQL database which you could install with your app(s). Microsoft® SQL Server® 2016 Express is free and there's three different ones you can download (LocalDB (SqlLocalDB), Express (SQLEXPR), Express with Advanced Services (SQLEXPRADV)) . It also has tools to use with it which have nothing to do with Visual Studio and you may want to download SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to see what it can do. Or maybe other tools. I'm not a database knowledgable person so I really don't know what as far as a database would be best to use or what is necessary to use one outside of programming for one.

With regard to selling programs outside of others websites then you may need to create or pay for a website so others can purchase and download your programs from your own website. How to make your website known to a hobbyist community of some type would be another issue. Run adds in hobbyists magazines or pay hobbyist websites to run adds for you.

Back up your programs to some external location from your PC such as an external Hard Disk Drive or Solid State Drive or even other PC(s) or your onedrive before you begin working on them again every day in case something bad happens so you don't lose years of work.

Have an IT skillset to a level necessary to understand systems as far as how your program works and what areas of a system it works with and necessary knowledge of systems for troubleshooting them if your program will not work with them but will work with yours.

There's also online C# to VB.Net code converters since there's more code examples for a variety of things in C# than there is in VB.Net.

---

La vida loca

Answer 4

Well you better find out how to design solutions from the front-end UI to the back-end database and do it effectively. VB COM based solutions are not  VB.NET based solutions plain and simple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb384398.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/21115/Building-an-N-Tier-Application-in-VB-NET-in-Step

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/228214/Understanding-Basics-of-UI-Design-Pattern-MVC-MVP

Forget that the first link below is talking about C#, because it applies to VB.NET too due to both are Object Oriented languages using the .NET Framework.

http://www.dofactory.com/net/design-patterns

http://www.dofactory.com/products/net-design-pattern-framework

http://www.hackinghat.com/index.php/windows/mvp-aka-mvc-in-vbnet

Yes the talk is about MVC usage in ASP.NET UI solutions. But as you can see in the link below that MVC was there long before MS's hijacked it for Web UI's. MVC can be applied to Windows form UI, just like MVP can be applied to Windows form UI, which are forms of design patterns/UI design patterns.

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/383153/The-Model-View-Controller-MVC-Pattern-with-Csharp

What I am telling you is learn design patterns and learn how to architect .NET solutions effectively.

There is no sense in developing trash if you don't have to. :)

Answer 5

 I'm a terrible salesperson and I have no marketing experience.

I had originally thought to use the Microsoft Store but it seems that is mostly for games, phones, and movies...

So be the first one. For sure you have no marketing experience. 

A database for hobbyist? You are number 10000000002 who want to sell that. 

It has really to have unknown facilities to sell that. 

However, nobody can (or will) give you the advice what to build very special and make you a billionaire, you have to do that yourself.

In addition to Crazypennie and Monkeyboy. 

---

Success
Cor