This is absolutely the right answer. You've mentioned you are an F1 student, and that unfortunately has a lot of limitations on your work. Getting your professo

This is absolutely the right answer. You've mentioned you are an F1 student, and that unfortunately has a lot of limitations on your work. Getting your professor to fund your work as an Research Appointment could work. My understanding is that you can't get paid in any manner unless it is through your university and even then there's only a limited number of options. If you decide to go ahead with it and charge people through other means (stripe / paypal / donations) you could get into serious trouble when you report your taxes. Even on a H1B (work visa) you are very restricted in how you can get paid. I'm not a lawyer but my recommendation is to make it open source and free, and hope that it pads your resume. That may be more lucrative in the long run.