Ok the protection issue is going to come up, you can probably say that is part of what you are seeking funding to cover.
AS others have pointed out the real questions will come around
How are you going to sell it? Once of price, per month subscription, per user subscription?
How big is your market?
A comment mentions 2000 clients which is not enough for the price tag, but you could do a per user which may be 2000 users in 2000 uni's @ $5 per month ... now that is worth listening too ... or it could be free to these users with targeted sports related advertising aimed at the exact user, which is a valuable demographic to the right advertiser.
NOTE: The current price and current market you can say is a beta/early adoptors price but you need a better answer to the question.
How much of that market can you capture in 6 months, 1 year, 2 years?
Its useless if you can only sign on 1 per month because thats only 24 new ones per year ... unless your charging $75,000+ per install you won't cover your costs ... seriously I know :)
Realistically can you sign up 100 new users per day for 24 months ... again worth listening too.
Do you have others who can help you grow?
As you grow you will not just be developing and blogging (well not if you have investors, if your going solo then sure). You will be doing marketing, sales, support, PR trips, trade shows ... oh and development too. Each of these take time and specific skillsets, which cost money, which is why your asking for funding.
Have a read of my answer on this question about what it takes in a startup. Do the work to know these numbers ... the answer you come up with is how much you should be asking for.
To wrap up:
Do NOT talk about the functions or features of your product, they don't care much ... if the market likes them enough to buy it that is all you need to cover as far as the technology is concerned.
Do look at the benefits to the market, it allows them to do SO MUCH more. My advice is ring up or email all of your current 32 end users and ask them
- What benefits did you get out of using the application?
- How much time did it save you?
- Would you subscribe to it if it was a service?
- If I was to go commerical would you pay $1000 per month, $500 per month, ... etc until they say "yes" without a lot of hesitation. Over the 32 it will give you enough of a feel for the pricing for now.
This is a set of broad brush strokes to give you a feel for what you need to do to prep for this thing.
- How much is it going to cost you to build this thing?
- How are you going to make money from this thing?
- Is it going to make 4x to 10x between these 2 values?
- What do you need help with? This is essential, don't lie but have a plan to get this hep.
- What do your existing users think, how engaged are they. This is critical, if they all love it you have an essential first step. Anyone who knows what they are talking about will listen if you have that qualification in place ... the pricing and skills can be fixed if you know its something worth fixing.
Good luck.
