Member Avatar for sungod000

I've come to realize that there is a need in the industry for which I currently work in, that can be addressed with web software. Existing software exists, but is very expensive. From my research, I did find a company who is doing it at a reasonable cost, however, they lack marketing and sales to capitalize on their price advantage (which comes from low development costs as its all done in India).

I'm not a programmer. I'm a business person. But at heart, I'm a "nerd". I love technology and I was a skilled "designer or pseudo-coder" back in university. But never got into it.

This idea is exciting me and I truly believe in its potential. And I know I can market and sell it. The problem is, I don't know how to go about doing it. This software would need to be built, maintained, continually improved and supported. And obviously, the sooner the better.

I have my own ideas of how I'd go about it, but software development is out of my comfort zone. Can you help me outline a process?

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A practical, low‑risk route for a business founder with domain knowledge is to validate demand quickly and convert that validation into a focused, maintainable MVP and an operations plan. already has the most valuable asset: industry insight and a sales/marketing angle. was right to push for documentation, but for a non‑technical founder clickable wireframes, user flows or a simple working prototype are usually faster and more useful than full UML at the start.

Recommended staged plan:

  1. Customer discovery and pre‑sales: run targeted interviews and offer pilot access or paid reservations to prove willingness to pay.
  2. Prototype: use no‑code/low‑code tools or interactive mockups to validate core workflows.
  3. Scope an MVP of 3–5 core user stories with clear acceptance criteria.
  4. Pick a delivery route that matches risk: technical cofounder (equity), a specialist agency (fixed price), vetted freelancers (milestones), or acquire an existing supplier; compare control, speed, cost.
  5. Build iteratively with short sprints, staged demos and version control. Require basic automated tests and a staging environment.
  6. Pilot with paying customers and iterate using measured KPIs.

If pursuing acquisition or outsourcing (as discussed), insist on concrete protections beyond an NDA: written IP‑assignment or work‑for‑hire clauses, source‑code escrow, an independent technical audit, a dependency/license inventory, and a handover checklist (credentials, DB export, runbooks). Use milestone‑based payments tied to explicit acceptance tests to limit exposure; seek counsel for cross‑border deals.

Plan operations from day one: budget ongoing maintenance (a common rule‑of‑thumb is 15–25% of initial development annually), define support SLAs, backups and monitoring, and keep the roadmap tied to measurable outcomes (activation, retention, revenue). As hinted, more concrete user stories and examples make estimates realistic and reduce friction with developers.

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Member Avatar for \007

How complicated is it? What kind of software are we talking about here? What systems will this be needed to work on? What are the target clients? What are the requirements? What technology/language/framework is best suited to tackle this?

Write up a document that outlines the software, even dip into UML/charts to express how you think it should work. Take it to a trusted friend/programmer to help hammer it out. Then bring propose it to companies/hire programmers to implement it for you then market it yourself?

Member Avatar for sungod000

I don't know how complicated it is. It is a back-end web platform solution for a specific industry. I could modify an existing platform to do what I want. It would need to be integrable with various other platforms. Mostly database driven stuff. Beyond that, I'm not too sure, as I said I'm new to this. I know there are platforms out there that are built on both PHP and Java.

If I approach these companies is there a way to protect my ideas? I know I can have them sign a non-disclosure agreement, but I don't consider that real protection.


My initial thoughts were to approach this Indian company and simply partner or buy them out and then tweak the platform and re-market it under my own vision. I thought it would be an easier way, instead of building it from scratch.

Member Avatar for Narue

It is a back-end web platform solution for a specific industry.

That's such a helpful description. :icon_rolleyes:

Member Avatar for BitBlt

Buy them. As you say, you don't have the skills to build it yourself. That means you would have to hire someone to build it. Costs time and money, assuming you have a good enough idea of how to build it (my impression is that your understanding of the details of the app is...fuzzy).

If you have the money, you can bypass the development time factor. Then buy out (or get rid of) a large portion of the senior management and work with the guys who built it so they can modify it to suit. Of course, you have to successfully negotiate creative control, deal with the (possibly nerdy) personalities, get the buy-in from the developers, all that executive stuff. Then hire yourself some really good salesmen. Let them sell for a while, get a track record, then hire yourself some really good marketing types.

Trying to partner is hard if you don't start from the ground floor. Almost always, there will be competing agendas. If you don't have anything they want, it would be a tough sell. Also, whose laws have jurisdiction? You'll need legal advice, probably from both countries, unless you want to move to India and run your business there.

If you decide to buy (if you have the money or investors or venture capital) then you can keep your ideas close to your vest and don't have to worry about the rest.

Edited by BitBlt because: n/a
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