KVR Audio

Zaphod (giancarlo) · Post by **Zaphod (giancarlo)** » Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:07 am

If it was 2005, it was 500k
today realistically you need 5 millions and a lot of luck

stratum · Post by **stratum** » Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:33 am

If it was 2005, it was 500k
today realistically you need 5 millions and a lot of luck

Since development costs didn't actually change much, for what the remaining 4500K is being spent?

stevieoswald · Post by **stevieoswald** » Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:11 pm

Good points all. Although in my experience (admittedly in other fields) there are always some talented people with just the right experience level (maybe they've been doing freelance or are at a middle level in NI or somewhere) who have ideas and are ready to develop them, but cannot financially take a year or two off work to do it - they have not yet made their own mark but can do so with the financial side covered. That's where someone like me might come in. Admittedly if it were someone already in permanent employment then they would probably want a share of the IP too, and that could be negotiated.Thanks again for all your valuable insights.

syntonica · Post by **syntonica** » Fri Feb 02, 2018 5:34 pm

Work-for-hire kills the music industry. Please don't extend that to the musical programming domain. Offer a percentage or salary + percentage to get the best and, more importantly, positively-motivated talent.

Zaphod (giancarlo) · Post by **Zaphod (giancarlo)** » Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:08 pm

stratum wrote:
If it was 2005, it was 500k
today realistically you need 5 millions and a lot of luck
Since development costs didn't actually change much, for what the remaining 4500K is being spent?

Complexity of plugins nowadays (and expectations from users) is completely different
It's like the gaming industry. In 1993 a single guy was able to deliver a good selling fps. In 1996 it required 6 guys. Today you need hundreds of employees

Andrew Souter · Post by **Andrew Souter** » Fri Feb 02, 2018 9:16 pm

Hundreds of employees?? Who has that? NI maybe. Izotope is approaching it perhaps. No one else that I know of (excluding host developers -- and even there hosts like BitWig and Reaper are made by small teams AFAIK?)

I'd guess 99% of the companies in plug-in development have less than 10, and 95% have less than 5.

We have 2 (and a half). And have made pretty complex plugs I guess...

Andrew Souter · Post by **Andrew Souter** » Fri Feb 02, 2018 9:26 pm

aciddose wrote:All of these companies started out with young entrepreneurs who wanted to solve a small, specific problem using their own talents and resources and only grew larger and included investment from external sources after they had already become successful.

Yes! This is the proper way to do it IMHO...

Make something great first. You don't need investment money to do that. You need only talent and time and sacrifice... (and a reasonably good computer, but if you have talent in coding dsp, you likely already have that.) A small number of people, or even one person, can do it, even today, with such assets.

But you need to actually make something novel and unique to make any kind of lasting impact, and that gets more and more challenging these days as all the low hanging fruit has already been picked...

FYI I went here:

https://www.marshall.usc.edu/department ... al-studies

We were taught the same thing there: the best entrepreneurs can start a business (in most industries and certainly in software) without any investment at all...

The investor is not your customer. Getting investment money is not selling a product. Selling the product to users and establishing an actual real demand for the product is real selling. Once a demand has been established clearly, maybe investment is appropriate to help growth, but IMHO it's completely the wrong mindset to go write a business plan in hopes of selling it to an investor who will finance your business and absorb all the risk.

Make something great first. If you build it (great!) they will come (eventually!).

Guillaume Piolat · Post by **Guillaume Piolat** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:44 am

OP's question could indeed be rephrased as "Is making plug-ins capital-intensive?".
Do you take investment, yes or no?

However, any further discussion about this market comes back to the fact that there is a big opportunity cost making audio software. While you are stuck creating audio apps, you don't get a fat check optimizing ads for Google.

So if money earned was the only metric to be considered rationally, the best solution would be a 3rd one, to do something more lucrative in the first place.

Krzysztof Oktalski · Post by **Krzysztof Oktalski** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 3:33 am

To throw you a bone Stevie, if someone does PM and say "hey, I'm just what you're looking for" that chicks nearly certainly got a joy stick. You're missing many key facts regarding what you've asked and revealed much about what you don't know; I think you're opening yourself up to getting rinsed by a confidence artist.

A guy used to email us, said he'd done something similar. He pleaded with us to help him work out what was wrong with the product he'd got someone to develop (a "freelancer" he found on KVR), because he'd spent his life savings and over a year on it and was seeing no returns after launch. Ironically it was meant to be a product that competed with one of ours and that was part of the spec he gave the dev! The irony was profound, the product less so - we did feel kinda bad for him though and that's why I wrote this post.

mgw38 · Post by **mgw38** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 3:47 am

Lotuzia wrote:Maybe LinnPlug ? (Maybe not the best example as they recenly bite the dust, ...

If the OP has access to the kind of cash he is hinting on, I would suggest to try to buy already existing IP and take it from there. A lot of people would be very happy if somebody would restart development of the LinPlug synths.

Frantz · Post by **Frantz** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 3:52 am

OP: Maybe you should license the already complete Tranzistow synth engine and hire someone to create a nice UI for it.

More info here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=498656
http://www.hrastprogrammer.com/hrastwerk/tranzistow.htm

Woodgardens · Post by **Woodgardens** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 4:02 am

The market is pretty saturated, so I guess you are too late.

Zaphod (giancarlo) · Post by **Zaphod (giancarlo)** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 12:22 pm

Andrew Souter wrote:Hundreds of employees?? Who has that? NI maybe. Izotope is approaching it perhaps. No one else that I know of (excluding host developers -- and even there hosts like BitWig and Reaper are made by small teams AFAIK?)

I'd guess 99% of the companies in plug-in development have less than 10, and 95% have less than 5.

We have 2 (and a half). And have made pretty complex plugs I guess...

Not yet. And yes today you need 6 guys while in 2005 most of companies were based on a single guy part-time. But it is pretty obvious the complexity is increasing
When I say 5, I'm optimistic. Just consider the complexity is increasing "today". You will deliver it after 2021...

hugoderwolf · Post by **hugoderwolf** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 2:47 pm

stevieoswald wrote:Good points all. Although in my experience (admittedly in other fields) there are always some talented people with just the right experience level (maybe they've been doing freelance or are at a middle level in NI or somewhere) who have ideas and are ready to develop them, but cannot financially take a year or two off work to do it - they have not yet made their own mark but can do so with the financial side covered. That's where someone like me might come in. Admittedly if it were someone already in permanent employment then they would probably want a share of the IP too, and that could be negotiated.Thanks again for all your valuable insights.

These people certainly exist. But in the first post you made the impression that you already have a rough idea/concept/spec for what you want to make. So just to clear things up: the product actually doesn't matter yet, you just like to take part in that specific market?

Because I guess if you find the right talented people at the right moment in their career, they'd rather be looking for ways to fund the development of their own ideas instead of implementing what somebody else spec'd. And they'd certainly not sell out the IP totally for a salary.

Oh, and if it's a good idea with potential for making a fortune, it's most likely not a copy of a product that already exists.

Perhaps you should look at it the other way 'round. You're not looking for someone to help you build your business. You're probably looking for an investment opportunity to fund someone else's business (and of course reap the financial benefits you deserve for putting in the money). A guy who puts in money and marketing/sales/business expertise but depends on someone to bring in the ideas and engineering skills? In my book that's called a venture capitalist. PM me if that's what you want.

VST Development: Salary required