Partner #1 and I decided that I was going to seek a new brand for the company and that he was going to keep the old brand as well as the hosting server that was named for the old brand. Doing a changeover from the old server to a new brand was impossible, and I already had a hosting plan in place, so wiping out the old brand’s source code from Partner #1′s server and moving the stuff to my own was the first step.
I also ended up doing 3-year registrations for all domains (.com, .net, …etc…) related to the new brand. This will save me trouble later on, I’m sure.
While I believe that technically nobody “owns” the original brand and I also trusted Partner #1′s integrity to not shake me down with regards to possible mentions of the old brand somewhere in the source code, I decided that it would be the best idea to sanitize all of the production code in my source code repository of any/all mentions of the old brand name. This includes text that appears in the application, messages sent to log files, variable names in the code, and even changing the file naming scheme in parts. In short, it took two full days to sanitize the code so that it reflects the new brand name and is definitely clear of any references to the old brand name. Then I had to reimport all sanitized versions of the code back into the source repository to ensure that even old versions didn’t have any mentions of the old brand. It was an unenviable task and I’m glad that it’s done since there’s still so very much to do — far and beyond what actually involves the application(s) I’ve been writing and their functions/features.
I’ve managed to put together a list of things that need to be done, excluding the actual act of incorporating itself, and this involves:
- Hiring a graphic artist (read more below). I realized that since I’m at the point of both creating a Windows “wizard” type of installer for the application(s) and a www storefront, it’s really high time that a consistent design is applied to both items. This shouldn’t stop development from continuing, but is definitely a gating factor for the packaging and business end of things.
- Acquiring and testing the licensing software. I found a company that had the license key generator/validation software I was looking for since I had zero intentions of releasing completely unprotected software over the internet and I didn’t have the time or energy to develop licensing software myself. Note that a fair amount of coding/testing will need to be done with my application(s) to facilitate testing of the licensing software’s API.
- Windows hosting. I’m going to sell a Windows application that uses a licensing scheme for the Windows platform. It makes practically zero sense to shoehorn my licensing solution into a Linux hosting environment and hope for the best once license keys are used on Windows hosts.
- Building a website. I currently have zero storefront — not even a mock-up.
- Settling the details about e-commerce and integrating them with the website. I think I’m going to go with the Google stuff here since it’s totally flexible, but a lot of coding and testing will need to be done once I get the website going. Outside of the coding I’ll need to do to get my storefront to work w/Google, I’ve been mulling a few problem areas around in my head for a few days and I realize that there’s a conflict in policy between Google (refunds must be provided) and selling unbundled/downloaded software where the customer getting license key(s) is part of the purchase process. You simply cannot give someone a software download and permanent license key for software only to turn around and refund their money; this is practically like not licensing your software at all and giving it away for free to boot. I figure that I have two choices: hope that I’ve interpreted the Google policy correctly such that I implement a one-stop shop to get the software/license — and as a result refuse refunds on software purchases – or I make the purchasing part of the transaction separate from the licensing part. Maybe it’s a non-issue, but I’m really trying to have things be dirt simple for the buyer here.
- Licensing verbiage. My wife is a lawyer. I am not. I have seen programmers do their own renditions of the Ruby, Perl, MIT, GNU, etc artistic licenses and I am not inclined to do so myself. I do not purport to have any legal skills, and after living the experience of watching my wife go through law school, I firmly believe that the law is not written in “plain English” as some may claim. With this in mind, I really need to have both a mock-up of both the website and the “wizard” applications and take both of these items to a lawyer who specializes in technology. This lawyer will write an appropriate license for me and tell me exactly where to place this text or mentions of it in both my website and my application(s).
So as you can tell, I have all the tiny pieces of getting the company together. Now I have to choose which one(s) to work on first while still bringing the product(s) to fruition. I’ve decided to do a rough cut of the artwork myself. I know, it’s probably folly, but I got tired of having nothing to look at when coding/scaling application windows and installation wizards and such. I really need to know how a “real” graphic will look and maybe, just maybe, I can save a couple hundred bucks in the meantime if I get something passable and functional out the door.
