Finding out demmand?

[RwGast]

This is a question for you people like Dan and Jacco with commercial products. I want to produce a commercial program written in eVB to administrate a sql database including ms-sql/oracle/mysql/postgress etc etc from your ppc. My question is how do i do the research to find out if it will acually sell. Should i just ask in brighthand forums and such or is there is a better way to go about this?

[Dan East]

Wow, that would be difficult to determine. The problem is what you are producing is for a specific niche - primarily for administrators and other types of IS professionals. You certainly could start discussion threads, etc. You could also try hanging out in non-Pocket PC specific places that potential customers frequent.<br><br>The real problem is making your product known and accessible by those types of people. I don't have a good answer for that. You should get a surge of purchases when you first release (several purchases in the first few days), as people that need your product see it on the various news sites. The trick is all those people that only check in on the Pocket PC "scene" once or twice a month (if that). The majority of people that could use your product aren't actively looking for it. They aren't going to PocketGear once a month and searching for "sql adminstrate" to see if a program has been produced that they can use. If you can somehow round them up, you could do well. Otherwise it would be very difficult to even let them know you have something that will help them out.<br><br>Dan East

[Dan East]

And even worse, if they searched for "sql adminstrate", they wouldn't find your product because they misspelled administrate! <br><br>Dan East

[RwGast]

lol, thanks for the help. But i bet i could get the word out if i mailed like cgvb.com and other popular sites that have to do with this stuff then they may post it in there news and the developers/db people are more likely to see it becuase they go to those sites more. The hardest part for me though is finding out if anyone would want it in the first place, i mean how many db programmers/admins really have a ppc and a cell-phone? There probably isnt to many, but im not sure its just i guess. So i guess my first step is to post a message in all the forums asking if anyone would be intrested in it. All i really hope to make is like over $200 and sell it at 20 bucks maybe via paypal.

[randall]

First of all look at products that are similar to yours. If you can't find a mention anywhere of a similar product then your pretty close to an answer: there isn't enough demand.<br><br>That doesn't mean "don't bother". It just means if you start now, you'll be a pioneer in this niche.<br><br>Next, find out which are the most popular, and why. Are they freeware? do they offer outstanding features? Prominent placement on key sites? Big marketing budgets? Nude splash screens? (~)<br><br>Basically if there is already a demand for that product AND a few products aleady exist, then you have to figure out a way to steal some of that market away from competitors.<br><br>A BIG hint here is that you can't do it by offering an inferior product at a high price. Believe it or not, this is done over and over in the industry, because some people just can't seem to grasp this simple concept.<br>

[cryo]

hey Robert,<br><br>youre right, not every admin wants to remotely administrate a database with a ppc/cell phone combination using IR. But with a smart phone or a bluetooth cell phone the picture looks somewhat different, so i think there is definitely a market for that app. <br><br>The thing is, accessing a database from home with your handheld means that the database is badly configured since it would be a huge security breach to leave open a database to the internet.<br><br>My hint is that you think about a complete product that contains the setup of a secure gateway for the administration.<br><br>

[Keira]

how do you spell demand?

[Matt Keys]

I think you just answered your own question.

[Keira]

just playin