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Comment by tjosten | Hacker News Reader

I wrote a document management software for students, DocMan (https://docman.me). The software's ready and awesome, unfortunately I'm not a business guy so I never tried to make money out of it. I'm nearly graduated, and after that I guess I will just have it running for the bunch of users signed up for free. Let me know if you're interested.

(Consists out of web app, iOS- and Android app.)

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Looks really good. Why don't you offer a 30 day free trial and then charge a monthly or yearly fee. If you don't try to make money out of it, you won't make money out of it.

Because it's not that easy: Who do I charge? The one person who signs up is able to create accounts in a private environment, e.g. for his fellow students, so this one is most likely the one to charge. This person would most likely be the class representative student. But I don't think this one is willing to pay money for all his fellow students using DocMan in his private environment, so.. that's the circle. The software was initially build for being used by a whole university, but as those in Germany are mostly broke or not willing to pay money for anything or both, I also cannot charge these. You see?

I have individual teachers paying $100 a year for software I have created. You should definitely charge for that main account, or limit the functionality of the main account (ie, they can only create five private accounts) unless they upgrade. You have put a huge amount of effort into your software - and it looks really professional. You've got to charge. Or at least give people the option of being charged.

Instead of charging students, you want to be charging the schools for licenses that cover all of their students.

Or, better yet, charge lawyers, REO brokers, etc where there is a large pool of customers that will not be phased to pay you a reasonable amount monthly and give it away to schools for free.

What's your email?

Feel free to message me at tj@docman.me

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