Ask HN: I'm a student with a Mac App; how do I sell it?

2 points by chrisshroba ↗ HN
Hi HN! I'm looking for a bit of advice as I'm a complete beginner to selling software. I've created a Mac App which I can't distribute in the Mac App store (It interfaces with some Apple software, and I'm certain Apple would not approve it). I'm looking at creating a website for the app, and signing up with Braintree to process payments, but the whole process is rather daunting, and I'm afraid of legal aspects I might not be considering (I'm selling a product; I don't want to make any legal mistakes that could get me in trouble).

Can anybody offer me any advice on how I can monetize this app as a student, without having to pay big fees in business formation/ etc.?

I hope this community is right to be asking this sort of question in!

Thanks in advance!

- Chris

3 comments

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You could form a corp but legions of shareware developers since the beginning of time (80s) have used licenses that absolve them of responsibilities.

A few things: you'll need a communication and update mechanism, such as sparkle. Then, get your app gatekeeper signed.

Thanks so much for the comment! Could you give a link to what you mean regarding using licenses to absolve responsibilities? I thought that would only work for distributing open source software.
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