81–90 of 108 posts
In my view, ability to connect with your customers post-experience was a home run!
From what I have read most small businesses do not have the necessary infrastructure to do that. Curious to know what technologies did you use to capture that?
Also, did you have cases where customers tried to reuse their groupons?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious - why does the weight of the student have a bearing on the amount paid to the instructor? Is it harder to work with super light (or super heavy?) people?
For people over 200lbs its a big PITA, to the point that a lot of places won't take you if you're over 225. At that point it's hard on the instructor and hard on the gear. At around 250lbs, depending on the weight of the instructor, you come up on the max recommended exit weight. Most everything will still work fine, you just expose yourself to situations where the reserve might, say, explode if you do too many wrong…
I wanted to send an email to thank you instead of cluttering this thread but it was not in your profile.
Thanks again. :)
(why I reply to this comment is entirely random)
That said, I feel that all of the Groupon horror stories floating around are from businesses that would be in trouble regardless. I would love to find out that your experience is more typical for Groupon customers, but it strikes me that there is a bit of selection bias at play here. The fact that you are posting this on HN, with 3 years/700+ karma here, suggests you might take a more analytical approach to assessing…
My karma was around 550 before this post :) I went into this management position with zero management experience. If I am at the top end of small business management then we're all doomed. I honestly feel that every single one of these Groupon horror stories are from careless, dare I say stupid, business owners. You see them all the time. How many buildings have you seen cycle through restaurants every 8 months? One…
I think you might be conflating experience with ability. There are people with a lifetime of management experience whose ability remains modest at best.
It seems like you worked out a lot of the positives and negatives that Groupon brings and strategized around them. How much of this planning was done from inside your business and how much was done/consulting on by Groupon reps? Was the 30% breakage specific to your business, or was that quoted by Groupon reps as an average? I'd have to think that a Groupon for something that requires specific scheduling and booking…
This strategizing was done almost 100% on our end. We consulted with them and asked questions, asked for other skydiving facilities that ran Groupons, looked at them, called them and talked to them, etc. We modified pretty much everything about our business around running the Groupons. Still, I feel that our rep did a good job helping us out, much more so than another form of marketing would. Would you expect a billb…
It seems like you worked out a lot of the positives and negatives that Groupon brings and strategized around them. How much of this planning was done from inside your business and how much was done/consulting on by Groupon reps? Was the 30% breakage specific to your business, or was that quoted by Groupon reps as an average? I'd have to think that a Groupon for something that requires specific scheduling and booking…
I guess there's a market for them, but I wonder why those types of products are so prominent in the offerings here in the Netherlands.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For people over 200lbs its a big PITA, to the point that a lot of places won't take you if you're over 225. At that point it's hard on the instructor and hard on the gear. At around 250lbs, depending on the weight of the instructor, you come up on the max recommended exit weight. Most everything will still work fine, you just expose yourself to situations where the reserve might, say, explode if you do too many wrong…
I just wanted to thank you for posting all of this, and more importantly all your comments in the thread. It was incredibly generous of you to share so much details about your business. Packaged up it really makes me feel like I get a better idea on how Groupon works for businesses like yours (and hey, I also learned a thing or three about skydiving!). I wanted to send an email to thank you instead of cluttering this…
Sorry for another OT, but I think it would be great and would reduce clutter on HN if there was a check box on each post that would make that post only show up for the person that is being replied to. Would be a perfect 'thank you' post system, and I wouldn't feel bad about voting down 'thank you' posts (which by themselves are meant well but impose a tax on others).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This strategizing was done almost 100% on our end. We consulted with them and asked questions, asked for other skydiving facilities that ran Groupons, looked at them, called them and talked to them, etc. We modified pretty much everything about our business around running the Groupons. Still, I feel that our rep did a good job helping us out, much more so than another form of marketing would. Would you expect a billb…
This is unrelated, but how many accidents have you had since you opened? Or, generally, is it a risky sport?
>The big question is always, "How dangerous is skydiving?" Each year, about 30 people die in parachuting accidents in the United States, or roughly one person per 100,000 jumps. Look at the US Skydiving Incident Reports to get an idea of the types of problems that lead to fatalities. If you make one jump in a year, your chance of dying is 1 in 100,000.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is unrelated, but how many accidents have you had since you opened? Or, generally, is it a risky sport?
http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/skydiving8.htm >The big question is always, "How dangerous is skydiving?" Each year, about 30 people die in parachuting accidents in the United States, or roughly one person per 100,000 jumps. Look at the US Skydiving Incident Reports to get an idea of the types of problems that lead to fatalities. If you make one jump in a year, your chance of dying is 1 in 100,000. http://www.uspa…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is unrelated, but how many accidents have you had since you opened? Or, generally, is it a risky sport?
http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/skydiving8.htm >The big question is always, "How dangerous is skydiving?" Each year, about 30 people die in parachuting accidents in the United States, or roughly one person per 100,000 jumps. Look at the US Skydiving Incident Reports to get an idea of the types of problems that lead to fatalities. If you make one jump in a year, your chance of dying is 1 in 100,000. http://www.uspa…