Sell your software development business.

Licensed product vs the services that keep it alive

A software company in this sense is a licensed or installed product plus the people who implement and support it—not a multi-tenant subscription. Buyers split perpetual or term licenses from professional services, from hosted “we run it for you” fees, and from one-off custom work. One asking price that blends those streams does not survive a quality-of-earnings.

Customer-specific forks are the trap. If every large account is really its own codebase, you do not have a product. You have a services firm with a shared last name. We separate the core release from the snowflakes before anyone models maintenance.

Support contracts, escrow, and who holds the source

Annual support and maintenance is the transferable book—if it is written, if versions are actually supported, and if a successor can still build the release. Source-code escrow, on-prem install rights, and customers who required a personal guarantee from you all belong in the first file, not after a tour of the office. End-of-life versions that still invoice are a conversation: some buyers will keep them, some will haircut them as a runoff.

Implementation backlog can look like growth. It can also be unpaid risk. Buyers will read utilization and whether your method is documented or lives in one solutions architect.

What we put in front of a software buyer

A versioned product list, a customer file with license type and concentration, and a plain note on what it takes to cut a release. If you own a trademark or a patent filing, say what is assigned. If the “product” is still a pile of client branches, we talk about that before we talk about a process. That honesty is what keeps a license book from being re-underwritten as a job shop. Add who holds compiler licenses, installers, and the last three release notes. A successor who cannot rebuild what you sold last year is buying a support obligation they cannot keep.