Ask HN: Organizations keep trying to give me money for a thing I made
Assuming that $5.99 is a license that you get for each user...<p>- For outbound marketing and finding VARs, I&#x27;d do some research into the wide variety of software that hospitals and health care facilities use and then look into the channels they are purchased through. Follow the chain back to the devs and it is likely that one of those intermediate businesses would be interesting to talk to as a VAR candidate. Then it&#x27;s a matter of phone, e-mail, tweet, or whatever works to get through and talk to them.<p>- For inbound marketing, your web site and standard SEO practices should suffice.<p>- Look for trade shows to attend both to identify software in the domain that could use your dictionary, and also identify VARs and distributors.<p>- If you find a large enough variety of companies to target, focus on the ones that are 2-5 times larger than your largest to date. I.e., try to catch larger and larger fish until you&#x27;re knocking on the doors of the biggest catches. And in any case, don&#x27;t be surprised if you catch the eye of someone in the largest ones who is willing to sponsor you at that business.<p>Once you&#x27;ve found them and they are interested in signing up...<p>- Be sure your VAR agreements give you solid protection and a clear way to terminate.<p>- Ask for an annual unit estimate.<p>- Require a minimum payment that represents an amount that is worth your time to support that VAR. Get that minimum payment at the beginning of the year. (sounds like you&#x27;re getting recurring revenue for updates already, so maybe this is already handled)<p>- Figure out what it would cost for them to make it themselves or have someone else to make it for them. If they do a lot of business with you, at some point, a VP or GM is going to look at the amount they are paying you and say &#x27;why are we paying so much for this, we should build it ourselves and reduce cost&#x27;. For example, if your feature took you 1 man-year to develop and a customer is buying 20,000 license&#x2F;year, they are paying $100,000&#x2F;year. They may figure they can pay someone to build it for them for $100,000 and see an ROI beginning in only one year.<p>- If getting &#x27;designed out&#x27; is a realistic outcome, offer fixed annual pricing below that threshold (with payment at the beginning of the year), or, offer a buy-out where they pay a large amount one time and then a small annual fee for updates thereafter.<p>- If the revenue amount is large, look into copyrights and other IP protection.<p>- If there is a low barrier to entry, be alert for competitors. Bank a portion of the revenue. Be receptive to exiting.<p>Hope that is helpful.<p>Good luck!