Like all entrepreneurs and specially the ones in IT space , it is a dream to own products and create a high value portfolio which can lead to crazy valutions. This is because as a services company there is a fixed range of valuation.
Although as a services company we are not interested to become part of any valuation game. We are extremely excited about what products can do to us a business.
I have been running a services company since 10 years , quite happy with what we are doing. Completely self funded etc etc. In-fact most of our large clients happen to be product companies for whom we build world class products without owning the IP though.
We do not regret this at all as we take pride in translating the vision of our customers in to tangible products. Also most of the times our role in the product development is limited to developing the front-end and defining the User Experience.
The discussion of building our own products have happened a thousand times among my teams. There is always a long list of things we have to invest in for the services business itself so to allocate funds for product development has always been out of reach.
However our CTO struck a unique deal with one of our customers last year. We had demonstrated very good skills in what we do and it led to discussion of developing a re-usable component in Flex. We charged a very less fee then usual for developing the component and the company agreed to make it a Joint IP. It was certainly not just to save money but to get our long term commitment to future demads of customizations of the component from their customers. Even we are allowed to sell the component and share revenues with them for funding the development.
And so after many months of development efforts and inputs from the company we are on our way to foray into the Enterprise products space. Cannot think of a better start to the new year.
Hope to share the link for the product soon !!