I have discussed this heavily with my board and co-founders, but I'm still not sure what to do.
Start with some fresh blood on your board.
In Search of a Good Idea
11–16 of 16 posts
Re: In Search of a Good Idea
#12What about selling mapping to trail management agencies (National Parks etc)? They probably already pay to have paper maps produced - you could provide a web based interface for them to update & maintain their maps. Town, state & regional tourism authorities are other markets. You might need a Lite version of your app which only includes the info they pay to include (and you could offer branded versions specific to e…
Yeah, I read the thread about these guys and it reminded me of this other post:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881224
So there's a wave out there, it's just a matter of figuring out how to catch it (even if it's "free and open," as in the above case).
Re: In Search of a Good Idea
#13Googling [iphone hiking] turns up a number of threads talking about desirable hiking apps, but no app ads. (There may be lots of room for positive-ROI marketing of the apps you already offer, online and off.)
Re: In Search of a Good Idea
#14First of all, congratulations on reaching ramen profitability. That's
not an easy task on the web and mobile markets.
Now about going beyond ramen... I agree with dkokelley, you may already have squeezed all the money there is to be squeezed from hiking Internet and mobile applications.
Some ideas:
1) Do you have a "Everything Else" section in your hiking forum? What non-hiking activities do people talk about most often in the forum? There may be some leads there.
2) You are located in Truckee, near Lake Tahoe (lucky!). Can you branch out with some app/forum/whatever for skiers or snowboarders?
Finally, I have to say that the "making money from the thing I love" bit set off some alarms. My gut feeling is that there may not be enough "muck" in the hiking market. It looks a lot like the music-making apps market.
I used to read the Kvraudio website and there were always these horror stories of developers crashing and burning -- guys that start out with a love of music and computers and get the idea of "turning their hobby into a business." Then they spend untold hours creating their programs, but the buying market is just not there. So, they get almost no sales, get their software cracked, etc etc.
So, my recomendation number 3 would be:
3) Try to make money from something you hate.
Obligatory PG reference: http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html
Hope this helps... Best of luck!
Re: In Search of a Good Idea
#15I am about to make a series of assertions without doing any research to back them up. I know that's frowned upon around here. However, this seems like a request for brainstorming rather than a request for well researched business advice. So, apologies in advance. 1) The psychographics for hikers and environmentalists have a bit of overlap. I think if you could provide some kind of geographically aware donation platfo…
I like the "hunters and fishermen" approach. It's easy for me to totally forget about that market living in San Francisco but a lot of people do that stuff. And they're probably underserved by iPhone apps.
Re: In Search of a Good Idea
#16It seems to me (and I am a laymen to the whole hiking thing) that hiking and camping has to have some intersect. If it does and your interest is in generating more revenue then maybe a camping booking engine as well as planner may be a good way to generate additional revenue. As well maybe a guide referral service. Park admittance ticket sales?