HI David:
David E Jones wrote:
On Jan 18, 2010, at 8:45 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Why David - thanks for the endorsement! Competition is always a good thing and
I welcome it as it makes me better. Let me just say, however, the ramp up time
associated with OFBiz is nothing compared to writing and self-publishing. It's
not as easy as it looks. And it is expensive. You can't just toss together a
computer w/Linux and Java (all freebies) and hope to assemble something useful.
And, it doesn't pay nearly as well as consulting.
This is just my opinion, but I think that if you wanted to make money on proper documentation (which is probably more than a 10,000 hour effort as a rough guess) you'd have to do it along with a supported commercial distribution and a good marketing budget. In other words, if your target market size is that of whatever the OFBiz open source project (with a marketing budget of zero, conveniently the same in any currency), then your target market is pretty small.
My intent was never to make money on documentation. I charge for the
books because it has been proven that "free" translates to "not worth
anything". My books are certainly worth "something". But, my real
objective is to develop high quality OFBiz training resources. Being a
lone wolf, I have to start somewhere. IMO there is a dearth of good
OFBiz end-user documentation. I saw a need (actually, I experienced a
need since I've lived through several generations of OFBiz without much
documentation) and as they say in Market 101, I'm tying to meet market
demand.
If you tried to spend on marketing for just documentation you'd have a limit of
whatever OFBiz draws, or you'd have to spend enough to lift OFBiz along with
your product which brings me back to the idea of doing a supported distribution
in addition to marketing because the revenue potential for documentation alone
is probably not adequate for that level of marketing spend, and you would also
be putting capital into marketing for something you don't control.
Agreed! It boils down to gaining mind share - which is really another
term for marketing. And marketing costs money. And I have only a limited
budget. Actually, all I have right now is my time, experience and
knowledge of OFBiz. So, there you go! It's a bootstrap operation.
Looking for new ventures are you? How about just invest in what I'm doing? If
there is anyone out there who would like to invest in my efforts, I'm all ears!
I could use a new server, some first-class editorial help, a professional
indexer, professional quality publication software (something like InDesign)
etc., etc., etc.
I'm sorry if I made the wrong impression, when I wrote "It would be interesting to
see" that's what I meant, putting me in the position of an outside observer. Not
only am I not in a position to invest, I'm not even in a position to participate in a
startup unless it is already well funded. I'm just a working man. Actually, it's worse
than that... I'm just a failed entrepreneur with more liabilities than assets and in this
labour market with growing supply and flat-lined demand I'm back to making what I did 8
years ago when OFBiz was a year old and little more than a very basic framework plus a
hacked together, primitive, ecommerce package.
You didn't leave me with the wrong impression. I wasn't asking for your
monetary investment. I'm trying to engage you in meaningful dialog so
that when I have questions about how OFBiz works or a new user makes an
attempt to solve an OFBiz problem (for example on the mailing lists),
you won't be such an ogre. Investment comes in many forms. I think you
will find if you lighten up a little and share your wisdom, you have
nothing to lose and everything to gain.
That is not to say that I wouldn't consider monetary investments from
others. I've been trying to find a way to get other people outside the
OFBiz community to get excited about this project and possibly invest.
That is another reason why I sell the books and spend way to much time
on the myOFBiz.com website. I have to prove to potential investors that
this stuff really works and what better way then to "eat my own dogfood"
with myOFBiz.com?
I'd like to think I've learned some lessons in all of this. One is that the old
saying about love does not apply at ALL to investing, and it is not better to
have invested and lost than to never have invested at all. In fact, I think
investing is all about timing, and I've blown it altogether. If you're starting
with nothing then you never want to invest immediately should you manage to
earn more than you need to live. Work like mad to make a lot of money when
markets are up, but for goodness sake don't invest it then! Hoard it and wait
for the market to fall apart, THEN start investing in whatever you're going to,
be it people and training for a services business, assets with the hope of
appreciation, intellectual property of any sort (documentation, software,
whatever), or anything else. Yes, timing this well is all but impossible, but
it's not like you have to cut it close. You just keep the money when you earn,
and invest it when you can't so much earn any more (especially if you know
others are also having trouble earning and are willing to work for peanuts to
survive :) ).
I'm sorry to hear that. I too am a working person, currently unemployed.
So, what is an unemployed, over trained, over-the-hill software engineer
to do? I'm using this time to do what I really love doing and that is
/*NOT */troubleshooting and fixing software systems - I'm really good at
that - but writing and perhaps one day providing the best OFBiz training
available to lots of new OFBiz users.
As for consulting, it's enough to survive if you're lucky, but certainly not
comfortable or secure, especially these days when the labour market is not
exactly favourable. Having tried at the documentation market, I'm guess that
isn't all that great either. I won't say much more about consulting though,
chances are I have clients or prospective clients reading in.
Since clients are probably reading in I should probably get back to work... ;)
-David
