How to Build an Enterprise Web App on a Budget
This was a great talk and made my top spot on the feedback. No-one ever talks about this kind of detail in the frank was that Ryan did.
You don't have to be big anymore. Web applications are much more acceptable to people than they were a few years ago. Combine this with the plummeting cost of hardware and availability of Open Source software and OS.
Ryan defines enterprise as mass market or 1,000+ users.
He says that the minimum cost for an enterprise web app is £30,000. you should make sure that the idea is financially viable ie that it is worth paying for. use your common sense - would you pay for it? be cautious about your projections - get a pessimistic guess and then cut by 45%. Are you still in business? Then go ahead, oh, and make sure you plann for profit from the start.
DropSend is a hardware intensive application so some of the following figures would need adjusting for other apps.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Branding and UI design | Ryan Shelton Mutado.com £5,000 |
| Development | Plum Digital Media £8,500 + equity |
| Desktop Apps | £2,750 |
| XHTML/CSS | £1,600 |
| Hardware | Old Linux box for dev testing £500 |
| Hosting and maintenance | 5 Servers from BitPusher £800 pcm |
| Legal | £2,630 |
| Accounting | £500 |
| Linux Specialist | £500 |
| Misc | £1,950 |
| Trademark | £250 |
| Merchant Account | Halifax £200 |
| Payment Processor | Secure Trading £500 |
| Total | £25,680 |
And that only includes one month of hosting.
To help with raising this capital Ryan ran a side business - Carson Workshops - but it still took a year to raise the necessary.
Go for quiet talent rather than rock-stars. Big names cost and are generally busy busy.
Offer a percentage of product equity (2-5%) which becomes bankable if the product is aquired.
Ask for recommendations - getting the wrong person can be disasterous. or you can always outsource - Ryan tried India but it didn't work out for him, largely due to the distances involved.
Buy just enough hardware to launch, but build your app so it easily scales - can you easily plug in disk space? Don't get tempted by lots of shiny new servers.
Plan for scalability but don't obsess about it.
You will go 10% over budget and 3 months over schedule. Plan for it at the outset and put it in the cash flow. Are you still in business?
Make use of those free 1 hour consultations!
Company terms of service will cost £1,000; contracts for freelancers £800; privacy policy (from Clickdocs) £15.
DropSend was developed primarily with cheap/free software from start to finish.
Don't spend money! Use blogs and word of mouth. Look for viral delivery tools - make your app tell other people about your app (eg DropSend sends email notifications and includes info on itself). Write about your app for the trade magazine of your target audience - they will generally be happy to accept it.
You need a seriously good reason to give away some of your company to v.c.
Posted: Mon 13 Feb 2006 ~ filed under Talks ;
You're reading "Carson Summit Part 6: Ryan Carson - DropSend", a post on my personal blog.
A web developer living and working in County Durham.