Running Out of Money (Crowdfunding?)

[AnonymousDoc]

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?

[rudasn]

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.

[AnonymousDoc]

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

[devdude1337]

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…

[AnonymousDoc]

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

[simne]

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.

[not_your_vase]

$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...

[AnonymousDoc]

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

[ungreased0675]

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?

[AnonymousDoc]

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 ?