Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

Re:Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downlo... by elemcontrib on Monday January 20, 2025 @02:24AM (#42765885)

Slightly tangential but perhaps somebody could answer this question:

So having decided that rather than trade as a fictitious company and go the "personal brand" route, I'm interested to know who has successfully sold their own desktop apps from a website with their personal domain eg. JoeBloggs.com. Do buyers really care so long as the software meets their requirements, or does the psychology of a trading entity really affect peoples' appetites to purchase?

Reasons include authenticity, the ability to self brand for freelance dev work, and being able to list ad-hoc products as I develop them without having to market each one separately.

Comments welcome, as well as success stories, or otherwise.

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Re:Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downlo... by tomcam on Monday January 20, 2025 @03:00AM (#42766098)

Corporate customers are allergic to one-person shops because software price considerations pale next to stability of your company. They care much more about being able to depend on an SLA than whether the software costs $499 vs $999.

In fact, they prefer paying too much for software because that impresses management and keeps budgets increasing.

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Re:Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downlo... by tonyedgecombe on Tuesday January 21, 2025 @03:04AM (#42777612)

I'd keep it separate just for liability reasons. Also if it fails and you have to go back to a normal job you may want to obfuscate that part of your CV, that's going to be easier to do if you presented yourself as an organisation.

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