My things

As I move further into the development of my event-planning desktop application, I am reaching a part of the project that has nothing to do with C++ classes, Qt widgets or file formats. I need to decide how the product could eventually make money. That question sounds simple. Build software, choose a price and sell it. In reality, the business model influences quite a few technical decisions: licensing, update delivery, account management, documentation, cloud infrastructure, downloadable content, localisation and possibly even how much server-side functionality I want to introduce. There is also a principle I want to preserve from the beginning. This is intended to remain a real desktop application. I do not want to turn it into SaaS simply because recurring revenue is attractive. The user should be able to install the application, create an event, work on it locally and retain control of the resulting files. That does not prevent online service...

For the last few weeks I have been doing something that, at first sight, probably looks remarkably unproductive. I have not incorporated a company. I have not hired anybody. I have not rented an office. I have not written a triumphant announcement saying that I am now the founder and CEO of the next revolutionary technology start-up. Instead, I have been asking questions. Lots of questions. I have been talking to Moldovan institutions, technology organisations, people involved with investment and exports, people involved with the IT industry, and people who understand the various programmes available to companies here. I have been trying to understand taxation, incorporation, intellectual property, investment, grants, export assistance, the Moldova Innovation Technology Park, and how all these pieces actually fit together. And the more of this homework I do, the more convinced I become that creating a technology company in Moldova is not merely one of my slightly eccentric ...