Well, this is anonymous, just in case it causes any problems, but I wondered what the monastery thought...

I've been given the chance to take some ideas and sample scripts and bundle them together into a commercial product (sorry, have to be vague here :)

Trouble is, my business head is the size of a peanut and I have no idea how to progress on this? I could push for a salary, but I tried this in a previous lifetime :)and found the marketing droids ended up with too much say on future development, ultimately making my position unenjoyable - "put this feature in" - "but it's crap and will cause issues with this" - "well, I've already sold it to client X" etc (over-simplified - please don't flame on business issues - it was deeper than just that and my tale is already rambling enough...)

So, I'm prepared to take a gamble. I would rather they paid on a percentage of gross sales, and I think they'd be happy with that. The question is though, how the hell do I work out what's fair? I don't even know where to start on this.

I hate it when money gets in the way of me writing the code I love, but I have to get it right this time.

How have other monks dealt with the big wide world of business? How do you keep the balance so that you can afford to do what you do without feeling you're getting screwed or demoralized?

Eeek Eeek (A Nony Mouse)

ps - I would have put this in SOPW, but felt this was more of a philosophy of work than a Perl question.

In reply to taking care of business by Anonymous Monk

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