How realistic is it to fund grad school with a web start-up?

A little background first: I just got accepted to a one year master's program in chemical engineering at my school, but I need to find a way to come up with roughly $20,000 - $30,000 over the next year to pay for it. The problem is that I will be doing unpaid research and will not have much time for a job, nor would a part-time job pay at a good enough rate to cover the costs (and honestly... I'm not too thrilled about the concept).

I've had this idea in the back of my mind for a while to turn my personal running/cycling/sports workout log into an online start-up. I am currently running the site on a local server for personal use, but I've added so many features to it over the years that I believe it could possibly compete (in functionality and design) with some of the popular workout loggers on the internet already.

But I'm kind of scared to actually put it online, as I have no clue whether this could really work, and I have NO business experience. I really don't want to put ads on the site because I need as much screen real-estate as I can get, but I'm afraid that if I have a "premium" version of the site and something goes wrong, a lot of users will be angry about paying for a one-man operation that didn't work out (I guess I could get sued for that even?)

So I'm looking for feedback on whether I should pursue this and what kind of challenges I could expect to face. What kind of profit model should I set up? And how could I protect myself in the event that something goes wrong?

The simple answer is no.

1. Grad school starts in August. They will want half the tuition then. So you need to build a complete business and generate $10k - $15K by August. That's basically 4 months from today.
2. You have no businesss experience. That means you aren't even aware of all the tasks you must accomplish in the next four months to make your product profitable.
3. There is a large amount of compettion in the market you have chosen. How do you plan to break into this market?
4. Even assuming you work 100 hours a week on this project from now until you start grad school, what happens after you start grad schhol? If you stop working on the product it is going to fail.
5. Just because you have a product that you like does not imply you have a product that will appeal to the general public.
6. Starting a business, especially with no business experience, is not a way to make money quickly.
7. I finished a 2 year Masters program and had virtually no free time. You are doing a 1 year Masters proram- you are going to have no free time to devote to this project.

Start-ups often require investment to get started and take significant time to reach a profit (if ever). So, it's hard to say that this will help you fund grad school. The point is that a start-up is a big risk - if you need money without risk to pay for grad school, this may not be your best option.

It sounds like you have done a lot of the technical work for yourself, which will save that (time) cost, but the biggest problem will be finding customers willing to pay for your product.

You will need to test how people use the product, iterate and improve your product until it starts to generate customers.

If you distinguish yourself in this market very clearly, you may be able to charge customers. (Personally, I would be willing to pay for this service). However, this will require a clear understanding of what your customers need that your competitors are not supplying well.

A "freemium" model may allow you to grow your user base quicker than otherwise. However, it may be difficult to convert these customers into paying customers (customers who don't pay will expect to continue not paying). The success of ads will depend on how many eyes you can get on them.

I would not be overly concerned about angry customers at this stage - if your product is not reliable, customers are unlikely to use it or pay for it anyway!
Being polite and understanding and giving up your personal time to explain the problem will usually be enough to mollify early customers. Your product does not sound like one that has a risk of damages for customer loss.

I don't entirely agree with Gary E. You've stated that you realise earning the amount required for your tuition isn't realistic and have asked if it's feasible to still help pay some (or ideally all) of the loan back alongside your chem job. I don't see why not.

To address points 2 and 5:

The only way to gain business experience is to get stuck in and do it. There are endless resources online (including this forum) for starting your own business and exactly what is required both legally and effort-wise. Granted, you will gain experience of how business works faster in a pre-established business, but there is zero harm in launching your product. If like you say, most of the developer work is there, you don't stand to lose an awful lot.

There are a fair few workout loggers (a lot of people just use threads in forums), so I would have a think about how you could develop your product further. A workout logger I liked the look of integrated a social-network system to give more of a community feel. You could share your goals and achievements, as well as giving/receiving encouragement which is great when it comes to keeping fit.

My $0.02 - go for it.