[thelist] Making A Spreadsheet Macro a Product

[Norman Bunn]

I have a client that owns a car dealership who has asked me to extract 
information from a web-based tool from the car maker and then reformat the 
information so he can make business decisions from it.  I built a macro in 
Excel that does what he wants.  After several iterations of this tool, he 
is now so pleased with the results that he would like to look into selling 
it to other dealerships.  Before we do that I would like your input on what 
to look out for.  Some of my thoughts are:

- the only technical expertise on this is me (yea! uh-oh!)
- since this tool's output is used to make business decisions, I would 
think a disclaimer saying we make no guarantees as to applicability or 
accuracy would be in order.  First to protect us if I wrote a bad 
algorithm, second if the data source changes, third if they misapply the 
results.
- should it be sold or leased?
- the macro is password protected, but how secure is that?
- what sort of support options should I offer? I am thinking about 
providing documentation on-line and using a forum for support (would take 
some burden off the lone tech person).

Norman
www.CraftedSolutions.com
803-405-1008