few thoughts -search for reseller by specific country,starting from most populated China and India.Give customers 2 months trial for free which automatically became a buy upon expiry,so they need to provide a card details(like Esignal used do) -make sure software is data independent,customer can upload his own data,even in a trial version. -Separate yourself from others by adding technical analysis scanner,this will compensate for need to code,customer will figure out what he wants to do with it.The scanner is about any past set ups not just set up today.Example it needs to scan all occurrences of 20 EMA crossing of 80 EMA on 5 min chart if daily chart is above 50 day SMA of CADUSD.I suggest you look at custom scanner of investertech.com to get ideas -lower the price to half,you are not a recognized brand just yet. -i see when you had your previous business you twitted everyday,set up youtube channel and often upload videos of tests,scans by you or reseller You need to be different and you need to do it better-that's the theme I looked at the lay out of the samples of your simulator and i know you aren't coming from trading background,but all the panels can be modified so this won't be an issue for your clients. Good that you decided to stay away from trading,the amount of learning and perseverance required is mind boggling.No shame in that.,there are easier ways to earn a living. BTW good World Cup, i applied in FIFA lottery,but was unlucky,never been to Russia
Thank you for the advice! As for the World Cup: while I'm not a fan of the footbal, this time it was fun Regarding Forex Simulator: the main problem isn't in the product itself or a lack of marketing ideas. I was the leader in my niche in the past and I know what to do to become the leader again. I just want to invest my time more effectively. I know that if I spend a week developing the product, the business will become much better over time. But, if I spend the same week on marketing, I will just make more money, nothing else will change. I don't need more money, I want to give people something they actually use and love. Money will come, especially if there is somebody dedicated to it. In the past I made the biggest advancements in my products when I managed to offload marketing and sales. It also converted into bigger profits as well. I can have an edge in software development, but not in marketing. I can't become a jack of all trades. Every time I do anything not related to product development I feel that I'm just wasting my time. There are people who are better than me in that and they will always be. There is no way for a footbal player to win Wimbeldon. It was fun to learn and practice marketing in my first business. It was a huge achievement for me personally to launch a profitable venture and grow it to some big numbers. Now it's just boring. When you know what exactly do you need to do and what you will get out of it at the end, there are 2 options: either hire someone to do the work or find a partner. I had negative experience in the past hiring, so I prefer partnership. It's just easier for me personally not to "manage" but to cooperate, to enjoy the business together, to share profits and to worry about the same. What I'm looking right now is a partner who can take marketing side of the business. And, if I fail to find one, I will better sell it because there is no way for me to do marketing in this niche. In the previous one, where I actually did SEO and PPC, I was fine-tuned to my customers, we did the same work and shared the same ideas. I wasn't "selling", I was helping. This time, if I don't want to trade, I will always make a feeling that I'm a stranger. Something like you noticed in the product interface. I still have a chance to stay in the business, but only if I focus on product development. I like the niche because it enables me to develop complex products, using all skills and experience I earned in the past. I'm proud of the product I developed, I just don't want to promote and sell it.
The market for your product looks mature and everyone here who reads your replies is also aware who offers what.Imho to break above the competition is important to offer more than just simulator with prices passing from right to left.This is why i was suggesting to have these extra features,possibility to see straight away some statistics and only click on each result dates and that opens new window where the trade happened according to defined criteria. Better yet execute trades under optional risk reward parameters so those who will be testing will learn quicker.Your customer doesn't know programming that's why he will buy your product,that doesn't mean he has limited knowledge about trading.You need to give him something to stimulate his creative process. Few years ago i bought this kind of simulator,but i already had defined logic to test,that never changed,secondary details yes and it was of great help.It worked,because i was not gonna share anything so i needed manual option Good Luck !
Thank you again! You give the most helpful and detailed hints about the product. Don't stop, I'm writing them down The more I think about your words, the sharper is the picture. I'm seriously considering getting back on track but just lower my expectations for a while. Something like 2-3 months of product development and market research to launch, not just few days that I initially expected based on my prior experience of product launches in a hot IM market. I will make the final decision this Monday, don't want to change my mind every few hours
Do you know how many ppl have built a trading platform ? FYI it's nothing unique ... http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/topic/7060-open-source-trading-platforms-master-list/
BTW open source is free development. But you will need to code up base app, enough to demo lifecycle, it must be unique and better than other platforms. Then you'll need to convince developers to live on nothing and incubator with deep pockets to get you started, they'll want % of end product. The team will need to live on ramen and tap water for a few years. Then maybe a VC will look at you, pray they have millions. Good luck.
The link you posted is great as a source of ideas for my product, not as a critera for selecting my business model Being in the software business for 15+ years, I know from my personal experience that it's easy to compete with free or open-source products. They have no marketing budget at all, you can't expect high quality (especially in terms of UI) from people doing it in their spare time. Almost all my freeward/cheap/open-source rivals went out of business at the end. You can't count as a "business" bugy and cluttered products with no support. People usually tried them before coming to me, this time they were happy to pay even more If you can pay for a customer more than your competitors, you literally own the market. It's the hard truth, it doesn't make software business easier. While I would personally prefer to charge less and make my customers save money I clearly know that the moment I drop the price I will die both in business terms and in product quality. For me it's easy to develop products, it's hard to promote them. I will never outsouce software development because it's fun. I tried, by the way. My biggest team was 7 developers, until I found that the more people I get, the slower and buggier becomes the product, the less features and bug fixes we actually ship. I can't expect the same speed and quality from other people. When I fired all of them, I was able to ship in 2 weeks what we expected to do for the next 3-4 months as a team.