The crowning finish · only on this journey

From Tool to Product: does your custom software become an industry solution?

Sometimes custom software gets so good that industry peers ask whether they can have it too. Then a new chapter begins: pricing model, multi-tenancy, sales channel. We accompanied one customer down this path all the way to their own software company. An internal tool became Erna Software GmbH.

Request a conversation How the path unfolds

Who is this path for?

For companies whose software can do more than cover their own needs.

Not every piece of custom software is fit to become a product, but some are: namely when your process is the same bottleneck across the whole industry. This path is for you if you recognize at least one of these sentences:

“Industry peers ask whether they can use our software too.”
“Our solution can do something the market does not offer like this.”
“We are wondering whether this could become a second line of business.”
“What would have to happen technically for several companies to work with it?”

How the path unfolds

Four chapters: from tool to business model.

1 · The tool

At the start there is software for your own needs: it reflects your process, which no off-the-shelf software understands. It is exactly this closeness to real everyday work that makes it valuable later.

2 · Several users

The software proves itself, and word gets around. Industry peers with the same process watch and ask about it, because your problem is theirs too.

3 · The licensing idea

Now technical questions turn into business questions: license or rent? How does the software separate the data of several tenants? And through which channel does it find its customers? That is the business-model building block we work through with you.

4 · The product

The tool becomes a licensable industry solution, and you become a software vendor. From here on all of our journeys are open to you, because software vendors are our core customers.

What we clarify together

Three building blocks decide the product path.

Pricing model

License, rent or SaaS: what fits your industry, your customers and your support effort? We calculate the models honestly, with the consequences for cash flow and commitments.

Multi-tenancy

For several companies to work with one piece of software, data, configuration and updates have to be cleanly separated. We check what your architecture needs for that, ideally before it is built.

Sales channel

Direct sales, partners or a company of your own as on the Erna path: we think the path to the customer through with you. Your company has to do the selling, but with a plan instead of on call.

Your entry point

No fixed price. A conversation.

André Krämer smiling as he explains a sketch on the flip chart

The crowning finish — only on this journey

From Tool to Product

This path is not a product card with a fixed price, because it looks different at every company. Most of the time it grows out of ongoing sparring, in which your team and our architects sit together regularly anyway. Alternatively we start with a dedicated workshop on pricing model, multi-tenancy and sales channel.

The first step is always a conversation: we listen to what your software can do and who is asking about it, and tell you honestly whether the product path carries.

Part of the sparringor a dedicated workshop

Where does this step stand on the journey?

“From Tool to Product” is the crowning finish of the Custom Software journey, and it exists only here. Anyone who has the product idea early says so best already in the Software Roadmap: then multi-tenancy and the licensing model flow into the architecture from the start. The ongoing support is handled by the sparring.

The Erna path

A customer became a software vendor.

Systemische Hilfen Niederrhein places integration staff for schools and families. No off-the-shelf software fit this special process, so we built the solution individually: ASP.NET Core, Blazor, Azure, PostgreSQL, delivered in phases, each one usable right away. The result was so convincing that SHN founded Erna Software GmbH to license the solution to similar companies. An internal tool became a business model.

And honestly: not every tool becomes a product. A product means support commitments, update promises and sales work that have to fit your company. If we have doubts about that, we tell you in the first conversation, not after the third workshop.

Request a conversation

Frequently asked questions

Answered clearly.

What does “From Tool to Product” cost?

There is deliberately no fixed price here, because the path looks different at every company. Most of the time we accompany it within the sparring, alternatively as a dedicated workshop on pricing model, multi-tenancy and sales channel. What fits you we clarify in a conversation.

When is the right time to think about the product path?

Best early: anyone who thinks about multi-tenancy from the start saves the expensive rebuild later. But an existing custom solution can be developed into a product too, and then we first look at what the architecture and data model need for that.

Have you already walked this path to the end with a customer?

Yes. For the solution we built for Systemische Hilfen Niederrhein, Erna Software GmbH was founded. It licenses the software today to similar companies, and our customer became a software vendor itself.

What has to change technically for several companies to use our software?

The three big topics are multi-tenancy, that is the clean separation of data per customer, a deployment that supports many installations or a central cloud instance, and update processes that no longer serve just one house. How big the rebuild is depends on how early the product idea flowed into the architecture.

Do you also take on sales and marketing of the product?

No, and we say so honestly: we are your software partner, not your sales agency. In the business-model building block we think the pricing model and sales channel through with you, but your company has to sell the product.

Still unsure?

The product path often begins in sparring.

When your team develops the software further and our architects accompany them, the product idea grows quite naturally alongside. Or you clarify the question directly in a free first conversation, no obligation and honest.

To the sparring

The next step

Tell us about your tool.

Write us a short note about what your software can do and who has already asked about it. We will get back to you within one working day with proposed dates. You talk to someone who has already walked this path.

Quality Bytes GmbH · Brunnenstraße 21 · 53498 Bad Breisig
+49 2633 4899 430 · info@qualitybytes.de

That didn’t work. Please try again or email us directly at info@qualitybytes.de.

Thank you for your message! We’ll get back to you within one business day with suggested dates.