Running Out of Money (Crowdfunding?) | Hacker News Reader

Running Out of Money (Crowdfunding?)

1 pointAnonymousDoc13 comments

Hey guys,

Just finished med school and I’m developing a software for hospitals with a developer I’m paying by the hour.

The thing is, I’m running out of money (and honestly, I’m getting a bit embarrassed to ask my parents for more). The dev is super talented and reliable, and I really don’t want to lose him.

Do you think I should try crowdfunding? (And any tips on how to go about it?)

Right now, I think I’d need around $2-3k to finish the software (software = the minimal viable product that I've already made and that I could try to sell as a ready-made product. Ofc that if it works, it will cost a lot more)

If I realize this is going to cost me way more money and effort for some reason (like if my customer wants a more complete software but won’t pay me to develop it), then crowdfunding might be the way to go, right?

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Did you find buyers for your software, or have shown it to someone who might be interested in buying it?

If yes, and they somehow validated your idea and implementation of it, congrats! You have completed the hard part of developing commercial software. Asking anyone for 2-3k is a very easy now.

If no, you may be overestimating the usefulness of your product, or the willingness of hospitals to pay for something like that, or underestimating the work required to get it done in a way that both fulfills the needs of your target customers and their own compliance-related must-have requirements.

The majority of IT projects fail for being under scoped or over budget or both. As a new med school grad, you may be lacking the knowledge, skills, experience to pull off a project like this in the way you hope.

My advice would be to think it through rationally. You may not have found the billion dollar idea, and if you have, maybe you are not equipped right now to pull it off in the way you think you should.

Good news is you can work these issues and achieve your goals. But it may be way more work than you'd think. Especially in this field.

The thing is, my users are doctors, and the potential buyers are not (a manager of a hospital that would think about hiring me).

I have shown to my colleagues (doctors) and they loved it.

But rn my plan is to finish a minimal viable product and then try to sell it to a small hospital

Well, you won't be the first to build something users love but their employer/your customer won't be willing to buy.

Have you found the small hospital you will be selling this to? Or made a list of such potential clients?

And why would a small hospital be more willing to buy than other, bigger ones?

Maybe there's a feature or two that you/doctors have not considered useful but your clients find crucial, and you must focus on those ones more than anything else.

Maybe there's a reason almost all hospital/health-related software is bloated and sucks for anyone actually using it.

Maybe you should be spending more of your time thinking about these questions and how to answer them before spending any more money on this.

I'm not trying to stop you, just point you to what I think is the right direction. I could be very wrong here, is what I mean.

A small hospital would be more willing to buy than bigger ones cuz the bigger ones already have a huge software that is solid (bad, but solid) and costs a ton of money

I’ve found one or two hospitals that could be potential clients, but I’m still a bit hesitant to try selling just an idea since it’s not something solid yet. But maybe it’s all in my head, and I should just go for it anyway.

The reason I wanted to develop software like this is exactly because the ones that already exist are terrible. As a doctor, I understand the pain points we deal with every day. My goal is to create something that's 10x better, which I believe I am, based on the pain my colleagues and I have experienced

"Maybe there's a reason almost all hospital/health-related software is bloated and sucks for anyone actually using it" : actually That’s one of the reasons I decided to create what I’m working on. Once I realized there was no real connection between the software and the users (who are the ones that should be served), I came to the conclusion that I’d have to build it myself

I think I’m going to start reaching out to some potential clients even without a solid product... who knows, maybe they’ll save me financially if they like my idea, I think you're right

For any production ready software you plan a budget around the cost of a new car. Mostly even a lot more.

Just finishing a software project takes at least 80% of time and money besides the other 80% already done. Sounds funny, but I want to make it clear that effort and time of projects are almost always extremely underestimated.

If you need funding, the best and most reliable way is to have a customer willing to pay for development. In your case try to use contacts to hospitals and simply ask them if they are interested. When you hit a spot (and the right person) you might be surprised how easy money comes when someone needs or wants something…

At first, I looked for a company to build the software from scratch, but they charged me a ridiculous amount (almost the price of a car).

So, I turned to freelance devs to help me build it step by step, and that’s what I’ve done so far (converting to USD, I’ve spent around $2.5k, but in my currency, that’s a lot lol)

Don’t you think it’d be easier to find a hospital that wants a ready-made product instead of paying to develop one? I don’t think your idea is bad, but it feels like it’d be way harder and not convincing

You need to talk to expert with magnitudes more details, not about technical internals of product, but about your market.

Sometimes happen wonders, and product sell just because it is technically good, but these things are rare and you should not use business strategy based just on technical goodness, need also good marketing and sales.

I even say more - very typical cases, when bad unfinished product, but good marketing and overall good organization rescue business.

$2-$3k? That's a credit card. Or get a job? Either a medical one, or burger flipping, shelf stocking? $3k isn't an unattainable amount...

Actually, the currency in my country (Brazil) is worth 6 times less than the dollar, so it's a pretty decent amount lol.

Also to mention : this would be enough to make a decent MVP (basically, just the really essential features for a minimally complete software for a small hospital).

It’ll definitely cost more if this thing works

It will almost certainly cost you a lot more than $2-3k.

When it’s done, how will you distribute/sell it? Can you pre-sell it?

this would be enough to make a decent MVP (basically, just the really essential features for a minimally complete software for a small hospital).

It’ll definitely cost more if this thing works

I've iterated, and right now, I’m focusing only on the ER (emergency room) (since that’s where I spotted the problem). In the future, I plan to scale this to the rest of the areas of the hospital, but first, I need to sell the product to a small hospital that still isn’t using electronic medical records, and to solve the problem only in the ER

what do u mean "pre-sell" it ? Sell the idea first ? I don't think this would work cuz i'd say the hospitals (even a small one) wouldn't be willing to pay for something that's not ready yet

what do u think ?

If the idea is solid, and actually saves time or money or lives they would be more than willing to help you out in many ways (not just the promise of future money).

If the idea/product is just nice to have, or marginally makes it easier for some employees to do their job, you will be fighting an uphill battle that not be worth your effort or money or time.

Without knowing more, I’d advise you to stop spending money on development and try to find a customer. The critical part of this project is not your software but the willingness of small hospitals to pay for your product. Maybe they would sign a letter of intent? Perhaps they would bankroll further development if you sell it as a custom software project. You don’t need a fully functional app before you can sell it. I’ve sold things when all I had was a Figma wireframe.

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