
Just Landed Is Shutting Down - vsbuffalo
https://medium.com/@jongrall/just-landed-is-shutting-down-629765cbe1d7#
======
polpo
From the article:

 _While the app was initially used primarily by individuals who made a few
airport pickups per year, today Just Landed is increasingly used by
professional limousine and taxi drivers, airline professionals, and travel
companies._

So they were seeing increasing use by commercial users. Sounds like a ripe
opportunity to start charging for such access.

~~~
Eridrus
No kidding, this was the weirdest shutdown statement I've read in a while, "we
found users who derive commercial benefit from using us... so we're shutting
down"

~~~
IkmoIkmo
I think he did touch on that though. Essentially he's selling bread, and he's
got to buy scarce flower at high prices in a convoluted system from a small
number of farmers, and be forever at the mercy of the flower selling farmers.
Only it's data instead of flower.

Further, the data sometimes is bad and causes inaccuracy issues for customers
without him knowing, this causes lots of complaints that he has no control
over, something that isn't feasible when charging money to commercial users.
Not just that, but the price of data is ever increasing, free data is becoming
restricted and he needs to restructure as data suppliers go out of business or
restructure their API.

I mean there are obviously solutions, like generate his own data etc. But it
really looks like he's got other opportunities to earn a living and this isn't
the lowest hanging fruit for him.

What I DO find strange is why he's not selling it. I just can't imagine not at
least one of the company's he's buying data from wouldn't buy this at a
discounted price if need be. Some money is better than nothing.

~~~
jgrall
Creator of Just Landed here. Actually, I have been approached by a number of
companies over the years about selling Just Landed, including some household
names. The trouble is, almost none of them wanted the app – they just wanted
me as an employee. These weren't companies I could get super excited about
working for - especially since I love being an entrepreneur and working for
myself. Of the few who did want the app or the tech, their quality bar/taste
wasn't a good fit, and I worried about how they would treat my users. It was
never about the money. Time is my most valuable scarce resource.

~~~
mikecarlton
Thanks for building this, I've been a low-volume user since sometime in 2013.
I'll miss it, but completely understand your reasoning.

------
old-gregg
This sucks for us long-term users of Just Landed. I want to congratulate John
for making something people _clearly_ wanted. Apparently sometimes that's not
enough...

This jumped out at me:

 _"...Just Landed has outlived several of the services that it originally
depended on, and each time a service provider has disappeared..."_

This statement refers to the less than 4 years old app, which speaks volumes
about value proposition of for-subscription-cloud-based APIs. Just Landed is a
relatively simple, focused app built by a small team, yet in this short time
it has suffered several (!) hits from disrupted availability of the API
providers.

How can one expect to build a big business based on considerably more complex
software using such APIs?

Compare that to the pains Microsoft has historically gone through to keep ABI
compatibility with decade-old systems. I even have doubts about long-term
availability of half of AWS services.

Kudos to John for running Just Landed for so long.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
My buddy enjoys rendering weather data. Using just one source- NOAA - he has
to update the app several times a year to respond to their capricious, random
changes to web interfaces, server names, random hosting requirements and so
on. Its a real thing to factor into any data-repackaging app.

~~~
wingerlang
Assuming you mean iOS app which is hard to update instantly. Maybe he would
benefit from creating his own middle-man server-api that the app talks to.
That way he just needs to update the server-code and the app will still get
the right values.

Just some thoughts, maybe it doesn't apply.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Definitely a good idea for walled-garden environments. No, he's on Windows
desktop and mobile. Not a showstopper there.

------
ucaetano
"The first thing that makes running Just Landed difficult in the long-term is
a serious lack of innovation in the flight data industry."

Our company shut down because other people didn't innovate enough, not our
fault.

"An app like Just Landed relies on access to high quality flight data to
function correctly. "

We created an app based on data that doesn't exist. Not our fault, somebody
else failed to create that data.

"Traffic and mapping data in particular, much of which used to be free, has
become quite expensive, and is now tightly controlled by big companies under
oppressive Terms of Service."

Other companies refuse to give us free services, and want to keep their
valuable data restricted under oppressive terms of service. Not our fault, how
could we expect that people wouldn't give us free stuff?

"These power users consume 100–500 times as much flight data per year as
casual users, and so the cost of supporting will soon begin to overwhelm
revenue from new app sales."

We failed to price the app correctly, since we're charging a one-time fee for
a continuous service, but hey, not our fault again, who would have thought
that people who buy our app would use it?

"Essentially, there’s a massive oversupply of apps, and the app markets are
now saturated and suffering from neglect and short-term thinking by the
companies who operate them."

There's too much competition! Seriously, it's all the competitor's fault,
lowering prices as if there's no tomorrow. How can we be expected to make
money with such cutthroat, dog eats dog competition?

Seriously, what a completely lame excuse. [Edit: that was unnecessarily harsh,
my apologies]

Sorry for my rant, I guess I'm in a bad mood today.

~~~
radiorental
"what a completely lame excuse"

A little harsh. 'Not our fault' and 'beyond our control' are not the same.

I read the reasoning to be a more pragmatic appraisal of the predicament they
found themselves in - "Just Landed, ... has been on the wrong side of these
trends"

~~~
ucaetano
Edit including an apology for my harshness.

But on the other hand, the key failure point for the app is pretty obvious:
its revenue is a one time fee, and the costs are a function of how much people
use the app. Based on the post, they clearly mispriced the app, since it
depended on new sales to fund existing customers.

This isn't very different from a pyramid scheme (without the intention to
fraud, naturally): you need to keep growing indefinitely to stay afloat,
clearly impossible. When sales flattened (which they did) the company would go
bust (which it did).

Another way to look at this is treating a sale as an annuity. If I sell an app
for $10, expecting users to use it for 10 years with a 10% WACC, this would be
equivalent to receiving a $0.13 subscription fee from each customer over the
10 years.

Therefore, if your variable cost per customer is higher than $0.13/year,
you're in serious trouble. Even if it's lower, you might still not break even.

~~~
aws_ls
I doubt if users would have paid much for this kind of App. As its use-case
seems to me, a cousin of lot of other free apps like maps (directions), which
are done by giants. So basically its something which people need, but have
mental categorization of it as a near-free thing.

For roughly the same amount of effort, that you put in this app, you could
have a flight search engine. Where you will get something per transaction.

Not taking away from the app. From what I read here, it seems it was nicely
done, and must have been quite useful. But its about how much people can pay
per transaction (if I can call it that.). Freemium ad based model, has been
the dominant Internet culture so far, for information from the web. That is a
big barrier, in my experience for these kinds of apps to do well.

------
BinaryIdiot
I'm always curious why companies like this one choose to charge for their app
as a one time fee when, to support the app, they have to subscribe to data
feeds which cost money per month. I feel like you have to have a subscription
model for that unless the price per month is just so low that, with a small
amount of volume, you can easily make up for it.

Either way always an interesting write-up. I do find it odd that so many in SV
use the term "sunset" when their company is shutting down. Seems like a weird
spin.

~~~
zippergz
From a purely practical standpoint, it's easier to charge for the app and let
Apple do the billing and payment processing, than to set up a system to handle
recurring billing (and then you need to deal with cancelations, chargebacks,
etc.). I've gone through this thought process for a few side projects, and
unless I anticipate really large MRR, it's hard to convince myself to go
through the hassle of setting up subscriptions.

~~~
manarth
Apple supports in-app purchase of subscriptions, so you can still use the
standard App-store tools to handle recurring billing.

~~~
lentil
I think they're restricted to certain types of apps, though? The app review
guidelines[0] say:

> "Apps may only use auto-renewing subscriptions for periodicals (newspapers,
> magazines), business Apps (enterprise, productivity, professional creative,
> cloud storage), and media Apps (video, audio, voice), or the App will be
> rejected"

I assumed that's why so many iOS apps use non-recurring billing instead. You
can still sell access to your service, but users have to manually purchase at
each subscription interval.

[0] - [https://developer.apple.com/app-
store/review/guidelines/#pur...](https://developer.apple.com/app-
store/review/guidelines/#purchasing-currencies)

~~~
intrasight
This app did sound to me like an enterprise business app. So I agree with
other commenters here that the author didn't pivot soon enough to business
users.

------
Xcelerate
I know there's a big push against Not-Invented-Here-Syndrome, but he makes a
good point about how a lot of small apps and websites depend on services that
drastically change or disappear over the course of a few years. I wonder if in
some cases it's better to simply develop an in-house solution for a service —
it may be more expensive and less refined, but at least you know that service
will be there as long as your company is.

~~~
rgbrgb
To me it would make sense to go airline by airline (or datasource by
datasource as long as they're tied to something users will understand), do the
full integration, then advertise which airlines you support. Then you could
guarantee a good experience for every officially supported airline.
Additionally, as you do this you're building tech that is super valuable
(sounds like only 2 other people have done it?).

Real estate data is similarly messy and though we have a small engineering
team (3 full-time programmers), we decided to roll our own data integrations
with each of the MLS systems we connect to. For us, it came down to the fact
that we could provide a better user experience this way (faster, more complete
listing data) and that it fits with our approach to product development.
Rather than using a data middleman to turn on 50% listing coverage across the
entire US, we pick a city or region and piece together all of the listing
sources so that when we go live in that region we have extremely high
coverage. We then only advertise to users in those areas.

~~~
abakker
The sad part is that we really need to completely displace/replace the MLS in
its entirety. The value prop is there, as is the technology, but it would take
a marketing miracle to convert everyone to a new system. Still, it is
genuinely amazing that there isn't a better service for it.

------
jakejake
This is possibly the most interesting fumblebrag that I've read in a while. It
has a few issues which have been hot on HN recently as well as some age-old
problems.

The dependence on third-party services like maps, messaging, flight data, etc.
is an interesting topic. Services that help you to get up and running in a
couple of clicks are awesome at first. But they can become a burden when your
usage goes up beyond a trivial amount. This is a great lesson about thinking
ahead when choosing third-party providers - either by passing the expense
along to your customers or having a roadmap to phase them out when you hit a
certain volume.

Another point is the one-time pricing which, in my mind, is somewhat of a
ponzi scheme for a business model. I always cringe a little when I see a cool
new app with a "one time payment for life!" pricing. You just can't support
customers forever with a single lifetime payment unless you are earning
revenue in some other way (i.e. advertising). It's easy to think that you'll
continue to gain more customers forever, but you're setting yourself up to be
crushed by your own success. Unless you're planning on regularly releasing new
apps and/or in-app purchases for your customers to purchase, it's not a long-
term business model.

Sorry to see the Just Landed go - it looked like a cool app. I think there is
a lot to learn from this post so thanks to the author for posting.

~~~
morgante
In theory, you can charge your average lifetime value upfront.

In practice, for a good app the lifetime benefit to users vastly exceeds what
anyone would reasonably pay upfront. For example, I've paid hundreds of
dollars to Dropbox over the years (and feel like I've gotten well over $1,000
of value)—but I would have totally balked at paying even $200 on signup.

~~~
jakejake
That is true, and to make matters worse it's probably near impossible to
figure the right amount out when you've just started the company. You don't
always know how people will wind up using your app.

------
tomphoolery
The #1 reason why this app failed is because people like me, and especially my
mother, who would have been a power user...did not know it existed until this
Medium post. Your problem has less to do with the app itself and more to do
with how it was promoted and marketed.

~~~
zzleeper
He addressed that. Discovery is broken on most app stores

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Maybe the Medium "we're-shutting-down" post will become the occasional "hey
world we exist" strategy.

~~~
2chen
Ah the good old Closeout Sale con.

------
clickbyclick
Active users = check Value delivered = check Inability to develop profitable
GTM plan = check

I didn't read about funding in the article, but outside of $ a VC or Angel
will provide a network and path to solve GTM challenges AND get you in front
of the right people for an exit.

I'm sure if this app called an Uber/Lyft timed to plane landing it could find
a home...

------
amelius
> With well over 2 million apps by now (oﬃcially 1.5M as of July 2015), the
> iTunes App Store is an incredibly crowded place where it’s almost impossible
> to get noticed. Despite the persistent myth of the app developer
> millionaire, it’s extremely hard to make a proﬁt—let alone a living—as an
> iOS app developer. The Google Play Store is a similar story, except with the
> added bonus of rampant piracy and a zillion devices to support. There really
> isn’t gold in them hills, at least not anymore, and independent app
> development will soon be in sharp decline, if it isn’t already.

Is this true? Is the app store deceiving developers by pretending that
earnings are better?

~~~
jgrall
I wouldn't go as far as saying that Google and Apple are actively deceiving
developers. However, they do have a strong incentive to keep things the way
they are, and to keep the end user ignorant of how the app economy functions.

You might be surprised to know that many customers on the App Store, and even
some members of the press, seem to think that apps being featured by Apple
have been bought by the company. I would get emails like: "how have things
changed for you since Apple bought your app?"

If people knew how bad the app economy has become, there'd be far fewer app
developers than there actually are, and the device makers would have a serious
PR problem on their hands.

In the end though, I do believe that the short-term thinking I alluded to in
my post will soon come home to roost. I do hope that Apple and Google course-
correct before we end up in a situation where indie apps are a distant memory.
It's in their long-term interest to keep the App Store diverse and the app
economy healthy.

~~~
fencepost
I wouldn't be surprised if it was more possible to make money on the Windows
side - not so much with Windows Phone as with Windows Universal apps on both
the Desktop and Mobile Windows Store.

The ending of "Project Astoria" that could have let some Android apps run on
Windows 10 Mobile has undoubtedly hurt Windows Phone because of the dearth of
good apps, but that same lack means that a quality application could still be
a smallish fish in a small pond rather than a minnow in a large lake - even
with the disparity in adoption 1% of the smartphone market is a significant
number of devices. If an app is also something that's viable as a desktop or
tablet app, that may provide enough of a larger market over time to keep some
folks in business.

------
markab21
Sad to see companies like this go. The founder stated in the article above
that the cost of the data being expensive was part of the demise, I wonder if
croud-sourced solutions such as
[https://flightaware.com/commercial/flightxml/](https://flightaware.com/commercial/flightxml/)
(FlightAware) was ever used. That said any time I walk into an FBO or look on
the screens for arriving or departing flights in general aviation, FlightAware
data is the only thing I see people use. It could be because FlightAware owns
the data (which is crowdsourced in a similar fashion to WeatherUnderground
stations) they provide a service that Just Landed simply can't compete with.

As with anything in Travel outside of actual aviation aspects these types of
services such as just landed, to me, feel more like Value Ads than core
products. I personally just use google to track the flight of an arrival and
can do it from my phone's browser by typing the flight number in a google
search box.

~~~
grandsham
Since a screenshot of the Just Landed app shows up in the image carousel on
your link, I am assuming that they used FlightAware for their data.
FlightAware charges people for API access, and also specifically provides a
set of tools for FBOs
([https://flightaware.com/commercial/fbotoolbox](https://flightaware.com/commercial/fbotoolbox)).

~~~
markab21
Oh cool, thanks for sharing that. I was curious why I kept seeing the same
FlightAware page when i land in almost any small airport.

------
Laaw
Question about flight data and the middlemen:

Do these middlemen have to strike deals with the various airlines, or are they
simply accessing public APIs that generally stink? What order of magnitude,
cost wise, do these airlines charge in the deals? Could I, $random_guy, make a
deal with $random_airline, for an amount that is sustainable without any
special kind of funding?

~~~
grandsham
In what is probably the biggest case, FlightAware, a lot of the data comes
from a fleet of users running ADS-B[1] receivers feeding data into their
system. ADS-B data is what Air Traffic Control uses to track planes, and it's
receivable using using a cheap TV tuner and a raspberry pi[2]. It ends up
being probably the best way to track planes very precisely, as long as you can
get enough coverage, which flightaware manages to do pretty well [3]. They
then package this data and sell it via an API/tools for Fixed Base Operators
or apps like Just Landed.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillan...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance_%E2%80%93_broadcast)
[2]
[http://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build](http://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build)
[3]
[http://flightaware.com/adsb/coverage](http://flightaware.com/adsb/coverage)

~~~
jsulak
I'm from FlightAware...

Our network ADS-B ground stations is one of our fastest-growing data sources,
but we also get data from the FAA, other national aviation authorities (UK,
Australia, Eurocontrol, Central America, etc.), directly from airlines,
satellite avionics providers, etc. Live flight tracking is a deceptively
difficult problem - on the surface it seems as if you could simply collect
data and regurgitate it (that's what I thought before I came onboard), but
there is actually an enormous amount of processing and inference based on
sometimes incomplete, inaccurate, and conflicting data, even for mainline
airline flights. That's not even getting into GA or flights in areas of the
globe where we lack complete coverage. It's a really interesting set of
problems!

------
notliketherest
Typing a flight number into Google gives you everything and more this app
offered.

------
therockspush
I can see something like this being able to work without paying for access to
a flightaware api or something similar as ADS-B rolls out fully. A lot of
aviation companies still pay hefty fees to tap into ATC data, that will
essentially be made free. ADS-B Out broadcasts identification, position,
altitude...

With more aviation geeks out there supplying the data, people won't be reliant
on centralized sources of info.

[http://www.aopa.org/Advocacy/Air-Traffic-
Services-,-a-,-Tech...](http://www.aopa.org/Advocacy/Air-Traffic-
Services-,-a-,-Technology/Air-Traffic-Services-Brief-Automatic-Dependent-
Surveillance-Broadcast-ADS-B)

~~~
Veratyr
Interestingly, "aviation geeks out there supplying the data" are how the
FlightAware API you mention gets much of its data:

[https://flightaware.com/adsb/coverage#data-
coverage](https://flightaware.com/adsb/coverage#data-coverage)

[https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/](https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/)

With a bit of promotion your idea could work and in fact... It does!

[http://www.adsbexchange.com/](http://www.adsbexchange.com/)

[http://global.adsbexchange.com/VirtualRadar/desktop.html](http://global.adsbexchange.com/VirtualRadar/desktop.html)

Also, ADS-B rollout isn't entirely necessary. It's possible to triangulate
places with the older Mode-S transponder through MLAT as long as you have
enough receivers in the area.

~~~
yitchelle
Thanks for sharing this. This looks like a really good alternative to
flightaware, if the data is accurate.

------
wehadfun
You may want to try to sell this thing man.

~~~
epoxyhockey
Exactly. The business is worth 5-figures, easily.

------
exelius
Yeah; unfortunately this is not a space that's super profitable. There used to
be a bigger need for it; but airlines have gotten a lot better about
communicating delays to customers, so I'm not sure this kind of app is
necessarily needed anymore.

Even the "leader" in this kind of app -- TripIt -- has basically been reduced
to a free giveaway for users of Concur's (owner of TripIt) corporate travel
booking platform.

------
coldcode
This cries out for Apple to support update pricing. However the likelihood of
that every happening is less than giving the NSA a backdoor. Update pricing
would make Apple money (not that it needs it) and change very little but the
desire is zippo to bupkis to do it. This would allow smaller companies to
survive. Oh well, doubtful it rises to the level of anyone caring.

~~~
nicky0
Paid updates would be a disaster. Can you imagine giving every two-bit
developer the power to say "this update costs $0.99" and all they did is
change the font. Your phone would be a sea of shitty paid updates. Many
customers would not update their apps, and the user base would become
fragmented. Customers would become wary of buying apps for fear of being
ripped off by endless updates.

You may say "ah but the good developers wouldn't do that" but unfortunately
someone's always gonna piss in the pool.

The current buy-once model is better. Subscription/IAP model is better for
something like this.

~~~
kalleboo
> Can you imagine giving every two-bit developer the power to say "this update
> costs $0.99" and all they did is change the font

That's... how it's ALWAYS been. They can even do that now by just launching
the new version as a separate app and removing the old one.

------
foobar1962
So, they went broke because the industry didn't standardise their data so a
third party could scrape it for fun and profit.

Talia, is that you?

\--

"An app like Just Landed relies on access to high quality flight data to
function correctly. However, since the airline industry is extremely
fragmented, and uses antiquated IT systems and many incompatible data formats,
it is not practical for a small independent developer like us to negotiate
data-sharing contracts with each individual airline, and then unscramble their
jumbled data feeds into a usable format at a reasonable cost."

------
sergiotapia
I would have just charged more money for the business users, and make more
revenue. But then again, it's probably one of many little things that
ultimately led to this decision.

------
pbreit
Does something like this have any value to an acquirer even if just to keep
the lights on and no cash is involved?

~~~
jgrall
Lots of people have asked me this, or suggested it. I have been approached by
a number of companies over the years about selling Just Landed, including some
household names. The trouble is, almost none of them wanted the app – they
just wanted me as an employee. These weren't companies I could get super
excited about working for - especially since I love being an entrepreneur and
working for myself. Of the few who did want the app or the tech, their quality
bar/taste wasn't a good fit. It was never about the money.

------
lpsz
Not as nice as having an app, but can Google for the flight to get some of the
same info.

E.g. Google for CX5992:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=cx5992](https://www.google.com/search?q=cx5992)

------
rajacombinator
He brings up some interesting points in the article, but I think the real
reason for failure is 1) creating a niche app rather than a scalable one, and
2) not aligning the business model correctly.

------
funkyy
To bad, app with the best landing page on the web is going away...

------
wehadfun
Do you plan to pivot to become one of these airline data brokers?

~~~
markab21
As much as it might feel like selling out to the founders of this product,
providing the tech in white-label or licensing to travel groups such as Kayak
for example could of been a way to at least keep the doors open.

~~~
_ak
You will typically find things like that in the product portfolio of a GDS.

------
jimkri
I wish I would have known about this before it shut down, but this is a great
idea for Trains as well. Just Arrived.

~~~
jgrall
I actually considered generalizing the app along these lines, for just about
any in-person appointment that you have to keep.

~~~
jimkri
That would be a great idea. I guess you would have to have a buffer to cover
longer than usual appointment times. That type of app could be used for so
much too. Parents dropping their kids off at the movies, it would give them
the travel time for when they need to come back based of the length of the
movie.

------
kin
It was a beautiful app and I'm sad to see it go, good luck on your next big
thing!

------
Serow225
Noooooo! I love Just Landed and my family and I all use it :(

------
Karunamon
Tangential, but the flawed "android rampant piracy" article made an appearance
here again.

It's flawed because as an app developer, you don't have a way to tell if the
app hitting your servers is legitimate or not. Just counting:

    
    
        (sold copies) - (unique hits on our server) = pirated copies
    

..is not even close to accuracy.

What about reinstalls? What about developers/tinkerers who are probably
flattening their devices on a regular basis? What about one person with
multiple devices?

~~~
nemothekid
>What about reinstalls? What about developers/tinkerers who are probably
flattening their devices on a regular basis?

IIRC Google gives you access to all that information in the Google Play
dashboard, and for my apps, "reinstalls"/device upgrades were very rare.

~~~
Karunamon
Presumably that feature can only work if you redownload the app from the Play
store. If you're restoring a backup or using any other method, it won't get
counted.

