Hot answers tagged cost-estimation
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Juan, there are no set standards in the software industry and there are many different methodologies. Varying from a waterfall development methodology where everything is specified and defined in much detail on the entire projects before developing anything. To, agile development methodologies where you have a high level view of the entire game plan, but ...
5
The main difficulty is that you have chosen a theme (sports) that is already well covered and extremely competitive, due to all the money involved. You make it worse by suggesting you'll cover "multiple sports", which means you'll have no focus.
Your budget of $15,000 probably doesn't even cover the running costs for a day, for one of the big sports sites.
...
3
From my feeling I would say this customer is a waste of time. Nonetheless I can really understand you don't want to miss an opportunity. I can imagine to do something like that:
create some kind of standard estimation for US users. Create a very general basic setup of your service. So general, everyone could use it. But also so general, everyone would add ...
3
How to Estimate the Cost of a Service?
I agree with and will paraphrase from Jeremy Parson's answer above/below: Start with an idea of the revenues you can expect from the service, then go figure out a way to create and provide the service at a price that will be self-sustaining (make a profit).
Here's my version of the same answer.
1st - Be reasonably ...
3
Forming a company in most modern economies is a fairly trivial process.
Starting a business takes significantly longer. Things we found take a long time:
Product development. Initial build is not so bad, but refinement to
1.0 (elimination of bugs and usability issues) can take a long time. The initial build is the '80' of the '80/20' rule, but you ...
3
You can ask somebody how much it will cost to do it. This is called "market price" and can differ significantly to what you estimate analytically. It can vary from place to place.
"and I do not want to deceive them to think that I would really buy the service from them" - This seems wrong to me. The only real price is the price they will give you knowing ...
2
In my experience in building the technology for http://www.Staff.com you're going to find that as you start building the software your requirements will likely change. It is very difficult to know the exact specifications.
When you said "Since its complexity surpasses the capacities for a one man army or perhaps of a small software team, it will be ...
2
If your quoting flat rates, I think in general you just eat it, and learn to estimate better/and include more buffer room in your estimates for future products. This is of course as long as what your building/producing hasn't changed. If your going to be going overboard due to client changes outside of minor expected ones, than I think that warrants ...
2
This is akin to asking "What exactly takes up a lot of time and effort fixing a car?" Having only worked for a company you don't get to see everything that goes on to keep the business running (under the hood).
I recently made the switch from "individual contributor" to entrepreneur. I have to understand bookkeeping, sales, applicable (and peculiar) laws, ...
2
You can't.
They want an estimate but they don't want to provide the parameters that let you formulate one.
If they really need a quote, go with your dart board idea, it's as good as any.
Your only other option is to try very hard to sell them on the agile approach. Charge time and materials and let them evolve the project as it goes along. This way they ...
2
Option 1:
Calculate a simple average of account revenues. When a prospect asks for a "general" estimate, send them that number and the services that come with. If the number sounds too large, check standard deviations and reduce it accordingly to sound more realistic.
Option 2:
Crunch the numbers on your services to find out which ones are used by the ...
2
First a Plan
After you have written a business plan you will know you actual cash need. The cash need will be the total amount that you need until your projected break even. The break even will be when your projected revenue exceeds your expenses. This is usually estimated on a monthly basis. Then you will be able to answer the question of whether the ...
1
There are too many open ended questions to give a sensible answer to this, as you realise.
It could be $50,000 or $10,000,000, or anywhere in between, depending on infrastructure choices, technology choices, lead times, regulatory requirements, quality expectations, etc. Without some guidance on these factors, your dartboard estimate is the best one ...
1
I feel the best thing is actually not directly answer any pricing question at this stage.
Ideally, your pricing structure is tied to different benefits, and you will ask your clients a bunch of questions to get the customers to better understand these benefits, and then give the price only after they are sold on the benefits.
If they insist, then give ...
1
The price for your product depends on your strategy as well.
If you are on a Startup you might be in one of the following cases:
You have solid customers, then you follow up the advices on
gross-margin
You are new and want to gain market-share and
recognition, you put the price at the lowest profitable level (that
means cost+risk+basic profit)
1
As today, I have this costs identified...
Let's assume a you can 'fix' a number to every item you listed and it turns out to be $100,000. Will it help? Does it paint a clear picture? Will you go ahead with the plan if you can afford it?
The fact that you've asked this question implies that there is still something more and it just may not be all that ...
1
My experience is in business software and for me, what takes interminable amount of time is connecting with the market.
Yes the software is written, it may have even been tested with one-two customers, but that is just the beginning of the story. You will need:
The website: 10 pages at least, for bis software, explaining ins and outs, offering trial etc ...
1
So basically you have a project which consists in 3 modules and you have some estimates of the amount of work for each.
I will answer the questions in a different order:
The customer/employer is always going to negotiate to lower the costs, also because he might have some insight on how things are done, thus he can roughly estimate.
This sounds like a ...
1
Making money with ads is only one way StackExchange could monetize the site. There's a case study at stanford which describes 4 potential models for stack exchange:
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee204/Publications/Finding%20a%20Growth%20Business%20Model%20at%20Stack%20Overflow.pdf
Sites like StackExchange and Quora optimize for getting everyone to use ...
1
It would cost nothing; meaning you're lack of clearly stated assumptions might lead to an example such as mine, which is to say I could move a ton of earth to one spot for free given I had somewhere to put it.
I could think of a million scenarios, which might not be what you mean.
More importantly than just a clear set of assumptions, also you need:
The ...
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