[throwaway35784]

Aside: Costumers, er prospects rather, love my products until the end when they ask, "so... how many people work there?"

As though that would indicate how likely it is that the product will have a long life. They are telling me with that question they want my software for a long time. But when they hear the answer they bail.

I still don't know how to get over that hump.

[nradov]

You'll have to find some early adopters who are willing to take a risk in order to solve a critical business problem. Once you have those few reference customers, additional sales become much easier and you can afford to hire more employees.

In the short term try offering to put the source code in escrow so that if your company fails the customers can take over the product themselves. This reduces their risk a little, at least for large enterprises with competent IT departments.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

My company payed once for an outlook plugin written by, near as we can figure, a single guy and has been using it for over a decade and it continues to get updates for free.

The hump you have to get over, I think, is the one where your product doesn't explode the second you disappear. That's tough with web stuff, but easy for native.

[_ah]

"Most companies are bloated and would require a huge staff of N to maintain this product, but I'm able to do it with N/10 because we've invested heavily in the very best intelligent automation. I've staked my entire life on this project so I cannot afford to let it fail."