Software solution using Smartsheet

M. David

Hello,

My experience thus far with Smartsheet has been as a Systems Administrator for the last four years. Prior to my even learning Smartsheet, I had this idea for an app that would help to streamline a very specific business practice within the higher education industry. The thinking was that I needed to have someone build an app and accompanying website to achieve this. Now that I know Smartsheet and the capabilities it has, I believe I can create a solution to this specific pain point entirely within Smartsheet.

My question for the group is, do any of you have experience with this side of Smartsheet? I did some searching in the forums and came across posts of people offering consulting services and others looking for consultants. I couldn't find any posts specifically about where someone was using Smartsheet to create a product and then sell that product to customers on an annual basis.

Some of my specific questions include:

1. Did you create your product in Workapps or within the regular software?
2. How did you develop your pricing model? I am thinking that I would charge $2,000 annually for this service.
3. How do you convince a customer to pay several thousand dollars for the work you create and helpdesk for them, when they can easily see it is a Smartsheet solution. A college or university IT department could easily pay for someone to learn the software and re-create the products, thus cutting me out of the equation.

If there is a different tag I should have put this under or if this is a conversation better held outside of the forums, please let me know.

Thanks for the help.

Paul Newcome

@M. David, There probably will not be a lot of discussion regarding consulting here in the Community as the Community is intended to be a free knowledge sharing space, and consulting discussions can quickly cross that line into spam. Even your post could potentially be borderline spam as you are not presenting a solution or asking a question but instead could come across as a potential fishing expedition.

If you are genuinely interested in becoming a Smartsheet consultant or reselling a solution, I would suggest starting here:

https://www.smartsheet.com/channel-partners

Smartsheet's legal documentation also specifically notes that you cannot "commercially sell, resell, license, sublicense, distribute, or frame" Smartsheet "to a third party unless authorized by Smartsheet in writing...", so I definitely suggest starting with the above link if you are going to try to sell a Smartsheet solution.

https://www.smartsheet.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy

Once you become a partner, you will gain access to a lot of resources including pricing charts, marketing material, and a number of other resources that will help you make decisions as to delivery (workapps vs core product), pricing, and whatnot.