Joint venture with software company

What percentage/profit should I be aiming for? 20%? 40%? 50%?

[sleepy]

I have identified a small company (one man band) selling a niche software product ($270 US - $390 US) with a poorly designed website, no sales text and no credit card facility. I am thinking of approaching this person and offering to create an ecommerce website (autoresponders/ credit card etc) and do all the online marketing for their product.

Does anyone have any idea what I should be aiming for percentage wise given that its a niche software product ... and how should I broach this topic.

Cheers,
sleepy

[NeedScripts]

I would personally always prefer to work on % basis, however I don't get always what I want :(

However in your case there are lots of things that you need to think about
1) How well do you know the person (cuz, that other person also needs to know you well enough to get into any kind of partnership)
2) How well you know that market
3) How well you think you can promote & sell the product
4) Take a pen & paper and do some math, lets say, you get 15% or 25%, then ask yourself, how much sales can your work generate. Count your profit and analyse with the time you plan to invest
5) Think about how long will it take before you can start making money
6) Till you start making money from this partnership do you have other source for making money? if not, then you will be better of working on web site development end and taking some upfront and ongoing fees.
7) Think about other people :) Always remember, if you plan to *milk* the person, then you can almost be sure that there are tons of other developer/seo/programmers who will contact the (generally they all do) person and give him better offer or charge just one time fees for some development work.
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ok, it is time for me to go to bed so I am not going to make this long ;)

But just make sure, treat him like you would like to be treated and I think % should work fine, else you can always charge him one time for basic development :)

Hope this helps.

[gopi]

I think 40% of the sales is fair here...Most likely the person will accept it ...

If you are so sure about the sales of that software maybe you can buy the entire rights for the s/w and resell it...

[vibgyor79]

Who will be taking care of technical support for the software and customer service? Remember that when you introduce online purchasing, you will be getting lots of non-techical (customer service) phone calls and emails.

[sleepy]

Thanks for the great feedback.

I was thinking along the lines of 40% given that (assuming I got the OK) I would be completely redoing the site, organising and paying for the credit card payment (ie $50US signup + 5-6%), autoresponder fees, hosting fees out of my own pocket.

I also envisioned leaving the technical support for the software and customer service to the guy who created the software. My role would be creating the site, automating payment + delivery, and doing the marketing.

Would moving the site onto my web host be a good idea and if I went with 40% should I absorb the 6% credit card fees (leaving me with 34%) or split it 3%/3%?

Cheers,
sleepy