Ask HN: worth monetizing?

#1

Post by bitmoto » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 3:26 PM UTC

I've been developing a small mobile web app for personal use. My nephew is a "special needs" student and after talking with his teacher we found it valuable to monitor his daily behavior via a shared spreadsheet. Using all my dev skills at once (a fun task) I put together a web app.

Built on AWS EC2 (provisioned with sprinkle) using ruby sinatra (erb, sass) and front end uses topcoat.io, highcharts, roadcrew js (instead off jquery mobile) with redis for data (redis-cloud).

Currently works on "modern browsers" only, but looking to wrap with PhoneGap to push out to native mobile (for laughs). Someday-feature would be an api that exposes the data so that a raspberry pi can read daily reports and trigger rewards in terms of "game time." - about 80% done.

Question - is this worth monetizing? Any ideas on how to proceed? Ads? I thought about limiting tracking to 5 students and then monthly subscription for unlimited along with SMS notification. Thoughts? Or is this just too small and specialized? Is kickstarter an option instead?

It was a fun project for sure, but running out of money and probably going back to contracting until I can build up some more funds. Got a standard corporate gig but better pay than what I can freelance at moment. I can try again in 6 months.

Any ideas and feedback greatly appreciated!

Very rough but gets the job done. See

www.todaywent.com

try demo data with

username: demo password: demo

Thanks!!

Re: Ask HN: worth monetizing?

#2

Post by j-m-o » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 6:22 PM UTC

Have you thought of throwing up an email-collection landing page, and putting a few bucks into Adwords to gauge demand? If there's nothing else in this space, you may be on to something, but you'll have to do some legwork to generate interest.

This looks like something that could work well as SaaS, I'm not sure you'd get enough traffic for ads to work out for you.

BTW, the graphing library is beautiful, but you might want to outsource some logo and design work.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: worth monetizing?

#3

Post by bitmoto » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

j-m-o wrote: post #2

Have you thought of throwing up an email-collection landing page, and putting a few bucks into Adwords to gauge demand? If there's nothing else in this space, you may be on to something, but you'll have to do some legwork to generate interest. This looks like something that could work well as SaaS, I'm not sure you'd get enough traffic for ads to work out for you. BTW, the graphing library is beautiful, but you might…

Thanks for the input, solid points. Will rethink design. Good idea on email. Yes building interest is the name of the game. Considering blogging, SEO, SEM for long term organic growth but I like the Adwords idea for short term.