Buy once / own it
It's rare today, but one-time-purchase software provides excellent value without tying users into expensive subscriptions. FitnessTracker is like that - users buy it once and will own it for that entire version history. If there are major updates previous users will have a clear and affordable upgrade path to it or they can continue using the current version for as long as they like.
For users though, a one time purchase can be scary because if a company isn't receiving constant income, why are they motivated to do updates?
The solution
Greg Hluska Consulting was founded by a startup founder and only works with startups. For the last 15 years, GHC has been almost 100% focused on products. Fifteen years of lessons go into all GHC product releases.
The product side of a consulting company
Greg Hluska Consulting built FitnessTracker to start earning income from products as well as consulting hours. Greg uses consulting income to build products in an attempt to diversify income and market consulting services. Since product is part of his marketing strategy, quality is quite important.
Reusable components > App specific code
When Greg puts products together, he finds patterns in the problem and repeats them as often as possible. Once he has repeated a pattern, he usually breaks it down into a component. Many components can be used across applications, so over time he has built a library of components. So a bug fix in one component will often improve multiple products.
Tooling
Part of reusable components is finding a set of programming languages and frameworks and largely sticking to them. But another important part is using the right tools to make building things more efficient. Sometimes for Greg, this has meant building things himself. Both Siteimp and Formimp (two older products) have played large roles in FitnessTracker's development. Siteimp's latest version has proven valuable for profiling and integration testing, and its logging tool provides almost perfect replay. Formimp forms the internal tech support tool and users have the option to upload logs created by Siteimp’s logger, making support faster and more effective.
Eat, prepare and improve your own dogfood
Dogfooding — the art (or curse) of using the things you build to solve your own problems. Since Siteimp and Formimp have played large roles in building Fitness Tracker, Greg has been able to put many hours into their development as well. He has built an entirely new version of Siteimp and plans to release it to the public soon. Formimp has improved dramatically and v3 of Formimp will soon release as well. Plus, Greg has been using FitnessTracker (or earlier versions) for quite a few years.
One codebase == three products
Greg built a few totally custom components for FitnessTracker and plans to release both as separate products as they're extracted and ready for release. FitnessTracker is the main one, but it includes a really usable tool for storing photos, working with EXIF data and building timelapses. That will become a standalone product. It also includes a really excellent workout planner that's like a gym notebook with analysis attached to it. It's all the same code and there will be a minimum of app specific code to get each one out so five of his products are in FitnessTracker.
Products are fun
Consulting is a lot of fun too, but building and supporting a product are really special. It’s rewarding to take an idea and turn it into a working product — especially when users are passionate enough to seek out help. He doesn't get the chance to do tech support often anymore so this is a chance to work directly with users again. It's a lot of fun.
Wrapping it up
FitnessTracker will not be a cheap piece of software, the code is reused across many things and working on it helps Greg not only market his consulting company but diversify his income. Users can trust that updates will ship, problems will be addressed quickly, and the product will keep improving for the foreseeable future. (Barring any unforeseen issues...and Greg had a heart attack at 41 so he's proven adept at attracting unforeseen issues.)