For some time I have had some ideas on a software application used to simulate attendance at college. It would be something like the Sims for a college student. But it would concentrate more on the academics and class taking. This has remained an idea for a very long time. But I had some free time. So I started working on a prototype. The high level idea is not too complicated. However as you get into the details, things get complicated.
Given enough time, I am sure I could knock out a nice implementation of my ideas. The real trick would be how to market and profit from this software. On grand idea would be to license the thing to colleges. If even a small amount decided to license the software, it could prove to be highly profitable. The hard part would be to make the contacts at the colleges and broker the deal. A slick demo might help in this regard. But I am a one man software shop. I imagine a university might not take me seriously. Perhaps I should start with my own alma mater.
I could try to market the software directly to the public. Then this turns into a normal software sales and marketing task. It would be prohibitive to try to get this thing displayed in stores by myself. I could go through a publisher, but that would eat into my profits. Then again I could market the thing on the Net. Something like Google Adsense might be of help. However this would require initial capital and provide no guarantee of success.
The last idea I had would be to produce a web version of the application. I could then release it for free and run it from my web server. It could be monetized by putting ads on the site. However this suffers from the same problem as some of the other techniques. The word has to be put out that there is a web application available. I suppose the crucial problem to solve is the marketing of the software. This is the difference between working as a developer for a shop, and working in a Micro ISV for yourself. The benefit of the Micro ISV route is the potential to make the large bank.
