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Business Model Development: How to determine if software licensing is profitable or feasible? Suggestions on how to prospect for leads?
TW
TW
Tom Williams, Clarity's top expert on all things startup answered:

Willis & Shawn answer your question as you've asked it. I'm going to suggest a slightly different tack. Don't think about licensing at all, and don't spend any significant effort on attempting to sell licensing deals.

Instead, focus on building your product to a point where it's so great that people in your industry (including potential licensees) start sharing it with others. Product excellence will generate all the inbound leads you can handle.

Conversely, you could be the best salesperson in the world, and if your product isn't excellent or doesn't look too complex to replicate, then the likelihood of you generating sufficient momentum and motivation for someone internal to recommend that they license your product is pretty low.

I can only think of four reasons you'd be thinking about licensing right-now, and only one of them is a good reason:

1) The good one: You've got so much traction with your product and you've achieved the max of what you can do without raising more, and you'd rather license than build further.

2) The bad investor: Some investor has told you that (s)he thinks that licensing is the way to go or is crucial to their investment and has asked you to model it. If it were me, I'd walk away from that investor.

3) You don't know how to grow your business, and you think licensing will be a magic fix. It won't be.

4) You're over-thinking the business part of your startup. One of my investors who recently sold his company for a billion dollars, told me that at the startup stage, don't over-think your business. The only over-thinking energy should be in the product.

Happy to do a call with you to help you evaluate your best opportunities forward based on knowing more of the specific of your situation.

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