Like so many startups, there was very little cash available to invest at the beginnings of my business. There was plenty of time though, so I often took a chance on software from people who were not in the software business for the long term. In many cases that also meant without support.
Because I’m geeky, the hours spent trying to fix a software or force it to work the way I want to was worth it. Because of those experiences, today, I know exactly what to recommend a client, what not to recommend and why. I also built up a lot of knowledge that allows me to better serve my clients. I continue to check out lesser known and tons of open source software.
The biggest reason why that works for me is, it is my business to know.
But for many small business owners, it is not your business to know. That is why support for any software you buy or use is so very important. If you purchase a piece of software for $9 with no or little support, you’ll wind up spending $990 in time and resources to get it working or to purchase something else that does work.
Sound like impossible math? Not at all. I’ve personally experienced it more times than I care to admit. Troubleshooting is not always a one or two hour task. A simple task can often have deeper roots and require much work to fix.
The take away – if using open source software – make sure you have a techy person at hand to help you. Make sure the community is active and you can get help fairly quickly. Also, look for signs that the project is still being actively developed.
If using paid software, always look and ask for good support. You may have to pay extra to keep the support after a year or 6 months. Do it even if you have a technical person in your employ. The people who develop it know it best and can help reduce the troubleshooting time your technical person spends on the problem.
Last thoughts, just because a software is inexpensive doesn’t always mean it is bad either. If your $9 software provides excellent support then congratulations! You’ve just found a fabulous deal.
Great advice Lynette. One thing I learned is that price has little to do with quality in the software world I’ve experienced. I am a big fan of shareware. One program I use for archiving my CD’s and DVD’s was shareware and I’ve been using it for years now. Early on I send the author their 10 bucks, as I felt and still feel that it saves me an enormous amount of time searching for archived files. I use a Mac and the Apple site has a fabulous resource of programs that I browse monthly.
Lynette,
Your are right! I am putting more effort on the scripts I bought than I thought – translated into money, yes – it’s a lot 🙂
I agree to your tip to hire a techie – I’m thinking to hire one myself, but still considering the return on investment of doing so.
Cheers!
I personally would be a hundred steps behind if I didn’t have technical help. I’m not hugely technical but have certainly learned alot. Every company should have a techie to help with the issues as they come in, it just makes sense so I can focus on growing my business instead.
Great information, in fact, I use mostly free stuff, I don’t have a big budget for software and so I take advantage of anything out there, there are many great tools that are free or very cheap.
Thanks,
JR
Great advice. I’ve usually had problems dealing with free/cheap programs myself… always some important bug or two that they never bothered to fix or don’t care about. There was a popular program I was thinking of using until I saw what support was like when someone reported a bug — “Buy our $500 with source version & fix it yourself”. :\