Marketing Research for Educational Software

I am in the process of starting a home based personal business dealing
in software sales and web revenues. Before investing large sums of
money, I would like to research the market, in order to gain
comprehensive information, of the various factors involved.

My initial questions are however, regard legal issues setting up a
private business.
What are the reporting and tax issues involved in opening a business like this?
Is it necessary to open a corporation or may I operate as an individual?
How do I decide whether I need to pay local state sales taxes or not?
Do I need to pay Social Security taxes?

The two areas of interest are:
1.	Educational & Personal hobby software; and
2.	Setting up a web site, which will produce its own revenues as well
as a base for advertising and facilitation of my developed  software.

These topics will be discussed in depth.

The goal of my question is not necessarily the answers to my
questions, but to who will be the best provider(s)/source(s) at the
lowest cost for the information.

The educational software I?m interested in developing will mostly be
written in the Delphi programming language, please see my previous
technical question http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=293801

1.	Market Size ? How much software is being purchased in the areas I?m
interested in according to the following parameters:					a)
population,									b) software language,								c) educational
topics,								d) sales type ? e.g., commercial (store soled),
shareware, etc.,;		e) platforms ? e.g., Windows, Linux, Mac OS,
Macros, etc.,			f) other pertinent areas.
2.	Software Quality - 									a)  who rates software aside from CNET,
ZDNET, Tucows;			b) how does software get rated,						c) how does
software ratings affect sales,					d) what other factors are
important?
3.	Cost -											a) how should I determine the cost of the
software,				b) how will the cost affect sales?
4.	Advertising & Sales Promotion -							a) what methods are
available,						b) what are the costs & effectiveness of the various
methods,		c) what else is important in this issue?
5.	Goal Planning & Management -							a) How,									b) Why?
6.	Legal Aspects -									a) What legal issues are involved?,						b)
how will become aware of any legal problems?
7.	Web Services -									a) what web services are available,						b)
which forums & discussion groups may be helpful?
8.	Research of Future Ideas -								a) how should I research future
products?,					b) how will I be able to stay on top of the market for
future investment ideas?
9.	Other Important Questions & Ideas -							a) What general material
should be read?,					b) what other topics should be researched?
10.	My personal Web Page ?								a) How do I market my site,
determine what is necessary, and generate revenues with my
site?								b) What are the differences between discount Web servers
and more expensive web servers, and how do I determine which server to
use?		C) Which web servers would you recommend?

I would like to get a basic marketing plan based upon my questions
which may be rephrased, mapped  and reorganized; with all the
necessary aspects included phrased in marketing language, translated
to lay-mans language, with graphs, flow diagrams & whatever necessary.

Dear mdf-ga:

I would like to suggest that you consider creating two separate
questions out of this one question, to raise the likelihood that a
Researcher will be able to provide a complete and useful Answer. The
first question would deal with the legal/business questions in your
second paragraph, while the second question would deal with your
business plan request. In fact, you may find that you will get even
greater utility from the Answers if you split the marketing questions
into two parts as well (ie. a total of three questions):

Q#1: Legal aspects of starting a home-based software business

Q#2: Current market size and rating services/systems

Q#3: Business plan request (pricing, advertising, goal setting,
intellectual property, web-based services, R&D plan, online marketing,
website hosting plan)

Google Answer Researchers each have their areas of strength, so
breaking your question up in this way will allow experts in each field
to respond specifically. In your current Question, only a generalist
will be able to respond to all three aspects, and therefore you lose
out on the opportunity to have the best possible Answer(s).

I would also humbly suggest that you price your questions according to
their value to you, and the amount of effort that a Researcher will
need to put into providing a useful Answer. In particular, the third
question regarding your business plan is the type of advice and
service that a business consultant would provide for a much higher
price than the maximum amount available through the Google Answers
system ($200). Therefore, in phrasing the third question, you may
instead wish to ask for online references and links to
business-planning resources that you can use to train yourself on how
to write an effective business plan, rather than ask for the business
or marketing plan itself.

Best regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher