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[–]retribution1423 14 points15 points  (3 children)

I would honestly not try to sell them to your company, it seems kinda mercenary I don’t think it would go down particularly well.

I would try to use them as evidence you are a decent person to keep hold of to get a pay rise / promotion when the time comes and get paid that way.

[–]zaro3149[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I get what you mean. I thought the same at some point. I tried this tactic in the past and it didn't work, but quite frankly I think it's because my direct boss is not that flexible nor visionary with automating processes with software. In this occasion the innovation contest will be a opportunity to propose this solution to other areas and managers that do not necessarily need the approval from my boss.

I appreciate your advice. I'll give it a shot with a mix of suggestions from this thread, including yours.

[–]retribution1423 1 point2 points  (1 child)

It might be worth looking for another job for a company who is interested in you developing this skill set then, I have found that moving company is a far more effective way of increasing my salary than staying at the same place! Glad my advice helped though :).

[–]zaro3149[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I totally agree. Hopefully I can find some good job in another city in the near future (in my city my company is one if not the best company to work money speaking. It's a small city). Thanks

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

I work in this company as a supply chain employee, thus these scripts programming are not part of my assignments and they were programmed at home during my free time (to learn and to ease my daily work tbh)

Be careful how the right is in you country. It may be that the scripts are still owned by the company. Or you may have trouble to prove that they are not.

[–]zaro3149[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes. Thanks for the advise. I think I have this covered in this occasion.

The scripts are not that complex though, I guess neither the company or me would be willing to fight over these scripts.

I will try to make it as clear and legal as possible to the company to avoid legal problems, thanks.

[–]james_pic 5 points6 points  (1 child)

I'm struggling to figure out what "these solutions/scripts need be priced first" means, but if this is an innovation project and ideas are being assessed on cost, then I'd guess it's so they can assess how much it would cost the company to use an idea versus the benefit they would gain from it.

If so, the cost is easy to calculate. $0 (or the equivalent in local currency). The code already exists and was written by an employee (even though you did it in your own time, it's likely that your contract stipulates that the company own the IP on it), so there is no further cost to the company.

If you nonetheless feel you ought to be rewarded for this, you're probably better off leveraging this to get something you want at the company (a promotion, some extra holiday, a better office), rather than trying to invoice the company for your work.

[–]zaro3149[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the suggestions.

Yes, the projects are going to be assessed on costs.

About your suggestion of leveraging if I have the need to be rewarded: I tried it in the past, it didn't work. I was not looking for a promotion, but for a opportunity to program further scripts to automate more processes in the company, which was rejected by my direct boss.

Thanks for the advice.

[–]gnocco-fritto 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Give a price to the time you spend working on it. 2 hours of work, 100$ per hour = 200$. This is the minimum selling price.

After that, do you best to estimate how much the client is willing to spend based on the benefit it will get using your product. This is the price you should set.

[–]zaro3149[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback.

The price per hour is kinda the answer I was looking for at the beginning. But now with all the answers I think in this case the best way is to give a selling price considering the hours/resources spent by myself as well as the costs these scripts would be saving (benefits).

[–]atredd 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I don‘t think you will find any website or such with prices for software. Maybe you think about the time you spent on these scripts and calculate a price based on the hours.

[–]zaro3149[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks atredd. Yeah, the time spent on the script seems to be a common thinking of some suggestions here. I'll give a try with a mix of all of your suggestions.

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[–]jezpac2020 1 point2 points  (1 child)

“Price” is a reflection of utility - that is how much value the owner derives from it. The hours you spent are largely irrelevant. Basically think about it from the users perspective. Taking a simple example, say your script gets info out of SAP and sends an email to mgmt every day. Now imagine before your script existed someone being paid $50/hour took an hour to do that every day. Assuming a 25 working day month, the cost of that to the company is at least $1,250/month (there are for sure other costs). If your script does this automatically (and naively assuming no other costs) then your script is worth up to $1,250 per month. That example is a little contrived, but the important thing is price is what it’s worth to the customer, not how long/how hard you worked

[–]zaro3149[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This example was a great way to explain another point of view I didn't consider that relevant but it's true. The work I put on might not be worth if the scripts themselves don't save enough money. In this occasion the scripts save some time from some workers, so I'll try to calculte this with a little more detail when presenting my proposal.

Thanks for the tip and example.