Simon B. StøvringA well-known company in our industry is offering me under half a month’s salary for the engine driving Scriptable. In fact, it’s not even the Scriptable engine, it’s the more polished Scriptable 2.0 engine.
LOL.
Follow up on this:
After I told the company that our prices are too far from each other to proceed with the negotiation, they told me that they believe that I should only be paid for the time it takes to extract Scriptable's engine from Scriptable and hand it over to them, not for the time it took to build the engine.
Bullshit!
I wonder if they would buy an entire company with this mindset.
"Hi Tim,
We'd like to pay a half month's salary for Apple. Can't imagine it'll take you more than a couple of days to hand us the keys to Apple Park.
Sincerely,
Shitty Company"
konrado0905
Kelly Guimont
carloslaso
Alejandro MartinezWith this mindset the next company interested in Scriptable's engine should get it for free since it has already been prepared for handover.
Last follow up on this:
I wrote the company to (politely) tell them their reasoning about the value of my product and my time is bullshit. Just now they replied "It's just supply and demand".
It's crazy how a company who recently got hundreds of millions of dollars in funding can be so ignorant about the value of other people's work.
BrokenFlows@simonbs I’m sorry that your work’s been so undervalued! You would think, by their logic, that there seems to be a lot of demand for this limited supply engine and that they’d be more respectful.
netop://ウィビ@simonbs I'd like to know the name of this company, if at all possible. DMs are open.
Jordan Morgan@simonbs I am irrationally upset about this, *but* on the flip side I am glad that you recognize your worth.
jegnux
TheMightySpitz@simonbs Tell then that you see this as a bad faith negotiation tactic, and the tax for that is a 100% markup. If they choose not to continue, then the best of luck to them finding a different supply.
m_eiman@simonbs They’re right: they demand it, you don’t supply it 🤷🏼♂️
Miguel de Icaza ᯅ🍉@simonbs oh good lord. Well, they can replicate it themselves, will cost probably 6-9 months to productize for a Silicon Valley engineer at 300k/year. So about 150k expense to start
multigreg@Migueldeicaza @simonbs They’re not totally wrong, just bargain hunting. With the present tech downturn and layoffs, some people might be willing to sell their work for much less than before. Unless they were rude about it, I wouldn’t think much of it. If they’re truly interested, they’ll come back with a better offer and that can prompt a negotiation on more reasonable terms.
@multigreg @Migueldeicaza They were rude when they offered half a month's salary for my product.
@simonbs @Migueldeicaza trying crude psychology about value setting. You did the right thing just saying you’re not interested
Colin Humber@simonbs That’s just straight up insulting. Glad you stood your ground here! Absolutely brutal.
Chris Wagner@simonbs this is insane. Glad you told them to hit the road.
Pelle Wessman@simonbs That’s infuriating!
This while they probably value their own code as an asset within their company when they do their accounting and being very protective about all their own IP 🤦
Did you ask if you could license their code on the same terms?
Naman@simonbs All I’d like to say is that it probably not ignorance on their part. Rather they hoped to be able to pull a fast on you and get great value for almost no cost.
If they’d gotten their way they would’ve gone around bragging about their “savvy deal making”
I wouldn’t take it personally. Just counter with an unreasonably high number and give them a taste of their own medicine!
Jim Rea
Joe Chott@simonbs Honestly I think all these companies do is lowball everyone. Some people bite. Profit! :(
Gavin Anderegg@simonbs If it's just supply and demand, they should have a very easy time getting an equivalent product from someone else. It isn't worth your time thinking about further because they sound like idiots. (That said, I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I'd also be fuming if it was me.)
Alex Dong@simonbs remember. During a negotiation, whoever is ready to walk away holds the power.
Roman Lefebvre@simonbs don’t give them ideas… shitty company might get in touch via a subsidiary otherwise!
Christoffer@simonbs did you try a licensing agreement? Half a month’s pay every month for 18 months minimum? It might be an accounting issue
@cton If it was an accounting issue, I imagine they would have proposed something like this. It's very clear from my conversation with them that they think my project is very little worth.
@simonbs that’s a shame. A lot of people don’t understand the actual value presented, nor the value they get for something like this.
Erik@simonbs I’m going to try going to a car dealership and telling them I will only pay for inspection and delivery fees - since the car has already been manufactured and is just sitting on their lot.
Gustavo Medori@simonbs name and shame homie. This is messed up behavior and shows blatant disrespect for the indie dev community.
Don Whiteside@simonbs Tell them you’ll agree to this so long as they foot the bill for the necessary eduction for you to become a lawyer so you can draft up the contract. After all, you haven’t done /any/ of that already so obvs they should foot the entire bill there.
Georgetown Law’s about $75k/yr for a 3 year program. But don’t forget to add bar study prep fees.
@simonbs I mean, why should they get to be the only people who are being ridiculous in this discussion? Seems unfair.
@simonbs all digital media should also be free, distribution of the first copy was already sorted out.
@simonbs losers. You are licensing your IP.
Alexander Blach
J. Blake@simonbs Not even a hint at who it is?
@jblake No. I don't want to put anyone at shame, especially not the developers working there. I just want to tell the story because: 1) it's sad but funny and 2) I don't think other indie developers should put up with crap like this.
Ell Neal@simonbs Really it’s best for them if you don’t divert money they could be spending to actually hire marginally competent negotiators.
Cliff Maier@simonbs similar story. Big company wanted me to retire my app, modify it with their branding and sell it to them. Only offered $$ for time it would take to modify it for them. This was at an in-person meeting, so at least i got a free lunch :-)
@cmaier I hope the lunch was good and that you told them they're crazy.
@simonbs i declined their offer. Their comeback was to offer me what they said it would have cost to pay someone to write the app. I declined that, too, and suggested that in that case they should just go pay someone to copy my app.
Massaging the Medium@simonbs as in you are only worth your exact current state of being, not your years of formation, work, experience, and knowledge.
Horrible people !
Matt Bonney@simonbs Wow, that’s… terrible.
Name the company, they should be shamed for that.
@bonney I don't want to shame anyone, in particular not the developers working there. I'm almost sure this is the result of poor management.
Old Account@simonbs Got to give them some credit, that's some mad gall they have trying to think that they could get away with that sort of deal. Why would they ever think that you would go along with such a bad deal? 😂
Will Browar 👨🏻💻@simonbs hahaha hard pass. It sounds like they don’t realize the issue with their ask, or if they do they are purposely being cheap!
Either way, it sounds like an opportunity to pass on.
Or tell them a billionaire offered $44 billion for it and they need to get closer to that number. 😈
Ricardo Carvalho@simonbs Interesting mindset. Then farmers should be paid only for the work of picking up, not all the seeding process. Life would be much cheaper 😛
@rabc I like the analogy.
Pascal B. Kreil@simonbs give them a day and they start telling you that you should be proud that they decided to use your product and you should give it to them for free 🤦♂️
Christopher Lawley@simonbs You respond back and double your price. I did that to a brand that wanted to advertise on my channel. They changed a bunch of stuff after I made the AD and video. I basically told them it’s double or nothing now. I got double. 😅
@ChrisLawley Haha, that’s both a horrible and lovely story 😄
@simonbs It’s a company I will never work with again. They kept changing the deal and demanding more.
Tom@ChrisLawley @simonbs Might need to demand more than double by the sounds of it 😀
Considering the treatment though, probably best to not deal with at all.
Dan Betcher@simonbs sounds like you made the right choice to end negotiations. Good grief. 🤦♂️