[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Built an app for my university. Faculty love...
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Ask HN: Built an app for my university. Faculty loved it. Should I
charge them?
I built an app for my university in the US. They love using it. Now
I want to charge a subscription ($16 per month), but I am an
international student with F1 Visa. Should I form an LLC or
incorporate? If yes, how, should I find a US partner? Or, I
shouldn't charge them at all?
Author : KhoiUna
Score : 27 points
Date : 2022-06-25 19:10 UTC (3 hours ago)
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| If you're serious, you may want to talk to a lawyer.
|
| For example, depending on what type of student you are, and if
| you used school resources, your university might have some
| ownership of what you created.
|
| So, first confirm you actually own copyright over what you made.
| Then work out what to do next.
| temporalparts wrote:
| +1. The best advice is to go talk to a lawyer. HackerNews is
| full of opinionated people who aren't lawyers.
| yeputons wrote:
| Moreover, I believe not all kinds of work are permitted on F-1
| visa, so "built an app" with(out) "charge for the application"
| may actually be a violation of the visa rules and lead to an
| explusion/deportation/whatever.
| pintxo wrote:
| Most (all?) universities have a commercialization
| department/program. Maybe get in touch with them?
| snarfy wrote:
| Sell it to a different university.
| boiler_up800 wrote:
| Charge them for it and see how it goes. If it's successful and
| very useful then you can iron out the details.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Mmm...that's too little money, like...turn that into a job
| instead. Consulting-ise it more.
| tartoran wrote:
| May not work due to student visa. May also legally not be able
| to sell as well but that could be circumvented through a third
| party.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Right, so what I would do is develop it more customized to
| the specific university he's in, until they like HIM/HER so
| much because HE/SHE solves so many problems with HIS/HER
| software that they figure something out for HIM/HER to stay
| Stateside. An American institution can figure this out for
| him. That's what he's gotta shoot for, the exact opposite of
| the startup route.
| malshe wrote:
| As others have mentioned, before you do any commercial things
| talk to two kinds of lawyers. First talk to an immigration
| attorney. Second talk to a lawyer dealing with IP. Both these
| issues have serious consequences if you ignore them.
| abhv wrote:
| I am a professor in a CS department.
|
| * Easy: ask your dept for a job or RAship to continue to support
| and build the app and grow its utility. We pay students all the
| time to build website infra for us in the cs dept. It is usually
| a ~20$/hr rate, though, so you won't make too much, but it will
| fund your improvements.
|
| * If you built the app on your own laptop, and you've published
| the app to the app stores on your own account, you likely own all
| the rights. Good for you. If the app is hosted in anyway on
| university resources, then you should be careful if you want to
| grow this into a business.
|
| * From my own experience, it is very difficult to sell to
| individual university departments. Much easier to get hired as a
| consultant. But "enterprise software" that is sold by a license
| may require the "university procurement" people to get involved.
| They will went some evidence you'll be around for 3-5yrs, etc...
|
| * Look into how Piazza, Gradescope, Overleaf are doing with
| university-wide account sales. From what I know, those sales
| processes are slow and expensive, even though the apps bring
| enormous value to faculty (e.g., i end up paying for my own
| single accounts and expensing them against my research budget).
| Use your network to find someone at those companies to do more
| research.
|
| Good luck!
|
| btw, happy to try your app and give you feedback
| jmathai wrote:
| I've been through the university procurement process. My
| experience wasn't too bad. There's a bit of red tape but the
| folks who want your solution are probably willing to minimize
| the process as much as they can (though you'll still need to
| complete it).
|
| I would also consider charging for non recurring engineering
| fees (sort of like consulting).
|
| Instead of $16/mo/user charge a few thousand $s for integration
| or custom development. Paying for labor is something companies
| understand very well.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Or, I shouldn't charge them at all?
|
| Would you feel right about charging them? I know this sounds
| hopelessly naive on HN, but not everything needs to be monetized,
| even if it can be. You have a right to make money, but you don't
| have a responsibility to charge them if you don't feel good about
| it.
|
| Consider also how much responsibility you want to have to
| maintain and update this application for paying customers, and
| how much of your life you want to devote to supporting it.
|
| Any answer is okay, I don't know your situation.
| nerdawson wrote:
| Why not? They're charging him?
|
| People get into enormous amounts of debt for the privilege of
| being at university.
|
| The university has something of value (cynically a
| certificate). The poster pays to receive it. Now the poster has
| built something of value. If people are willing to pay for it,
| there's no reason to give it away for free.
| temporalparts wrote:
| If you don't own the IP, like other people said, try packaging as
| an opportunity to sell the same app to other universities, with
| you sharing in the profit.
| analog31 wrote:
| I wonder if you could sidestep the visa issue by forming a
| business entity in your home country for the purpose of selling
| your app. I'm thinking that if I was getting a good app, and
| willing to pay $16/mo, I wouldn't care what country my money was
| going to.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Are they willing to pay for it? Most people love free apps, but
| don't buy the paid versions, so the fact they like it does not
| mean they will be interested to pay.
|
| This kind of stuff needs to be discussed upfront.
| 960design wrote:
| Selling software is no longer the best path to success. Open
| source your software and offer alternative means to make money.
| If the software is really good, "they" will throw money at you
| through:
|
| 1. Paid support.
|
| 2. Software as a Service (OpenSaaS)
|
| 3. Open-core model.
|
| 4. GitHub sponsors.
|
| 5. Paid feature requests.
|
| 6. Get paid to build open source extensions for existing
| products.
|
| https://cult.honeypot.io/reads/6-ways-you-make-money-as-an-o...
|
| Check y-combinator for seed money.
|
| https://www.ycombinator.com/deal/
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Prove you have something by first selling it to a different
| university at a price - you can use your existing university to
| say "we have existing users".
|
| Don't charge your existing university - let them use it free -
| you need references.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Brilliant idea. You would make a good business partner.
| Raed667 wrote:
| Before you form anything. Are you sure they will transition from
| free users to a subscription model? Did you already talk with
| them about it?
|
| I'm assuming the 16$ is per seat? Are the people currently using
| it the ones that can get the budget approved?
| ghiculescu wrote:
| Is it $16/user/month or $16/university/month?
|
| If it's per university, see if you can have someone Venmo you a
| few months worth of subscription (to prove the model) before
| worrying about anything else. But it's gonna be hard to make a
| living at this price point. Consider raising your price by 100x
| and see if they still love it then.
|
| If it's per user, see if it works for non-universities. If you
| can, let them use it for free, get a case study and go sell to
| every other industry, they will all be easier. We started our
| SaaS in a similar way at a lower price ($5/user/month), 10 years
| on we're still rolling and we have never charged our uni a
| dollar. Feel free to email me if you want any more advice on
| this.
|
| (Not a lawyer.)
|
| ps. What does your app do?
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