

In Search of a Good Idea - andrewljohnson
http://www.andrewljohnson.com/article/In%20Search%20of%20a%20Good%20Idea

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dkokelley
Are you familiar with the product life cycle concept?
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_life_cycle_management>)

(Unfortunately the article doesn't include a diagram, so I'll point you to
one: <http://www.ccfplus.com/wp-content/uploads/plc.png>)

The cycle can be applied to products, industries, and even individual
companies. It seems like you're at just about the maturity stage of the cycle,
meaning that growth has slowed and new customers won't be coming as quickly.

I'm not sure I can help specifically, but many product life cycle graphs also
include an 'innovation' stage, which occurs either at maturity or decline, and
essentially restarts the growth stage.
([http://blog.cestudios.ca/images/innovation-product-life-
cyc....](http://blog.cestudios.ca/images/innovation-product-life-cyc.gif))

If you think that this cycle applies in your situation, then it's time to
innovate. I think moving to Europe is a good idea. It's basically the same
product to a new branch of customers. Eventually the new geographic segment
well will dry up, and you'll have to look at other ways to innovate. What new
products does your existing market base want? Do you have a decent grasp of
who your typical customers are? Would they be willing to use a subscription-
based app (good source of recurring revenue)?

Another angle to investigate is sponsorship by certain parks and trails. Would
the local parks and rec office be willing to promote community hikes through
your website and iPhone app? A great thing you have going for you is location-
awareness. You know that users who are searching for trails in a specific area
either are or plan to be there sometime soon. As they are searching, future
events could show up on the maps. Where is most of your web traffic coming
from? You could even promote hiking safety or kids hiking events, depending on
your audience.

I congratulate you on your success so far - In fact, I envy you. You've found
a way to combine two things that you enjoy and turn it in to a business. Keep
up the good work. Good luck!

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ASJS
I 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
platform through the phone and the site you could do well, or at least good.
Maps and location are compelling ways to get disparate related pieces of
information into one view. In this case it would be threats to a given piece
of land, and organizations working to protect that same land. I would imagine
folks might be feeling a bit more charitable after experiencing nature's
majesty first hand.

2) Good country walks, not quite hikes more like a couple hours in the woods
with the dogs, are hard to find without a good deal of local knowledge. This
would mean a lot of research into small land trusts.

3) Based on the massive number of catalogues I get from companies catering to,
uh, "sportsmen" there are a huge number of gadget obsessed hunters and
fishermen out there (or at least aspirational hunters and fishermen) with
money to spend. Find a way to reach them.

Godspeed sir.

~~~
lacker
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.

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bsaunder
Sounds like you already have a great product. Rather than thinking about the
next technical project, focus on revenue and income and let that drive your
technical direction.

Seems like your product might be in a good position to get some local
advertising revenue. There are probably lots of smaller independent businesses
that cater to hikers and would love to boost their traffic. Spend some time
talking with them.

UPDATE: Perhaps collect some information regarding the most frequently
accessed locations on your maps and target businesses in that area.

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hernan7
First 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!

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nl
What 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 each agency)

Anyway, I think that now you have consumer buy-in, you need to look to sell to
businesses to increase your profits to the point you are looking for. The
sales cycle to sell to businesses is a lot longer, but fortunately the fact
that you already have consumer users will help with your sales.

~~~
percept
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).

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nobody_nowhere
_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.

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credo
I have no suggestions on directions or big changes. However, here are a couple
of (smaller ideas) thoughts

You mention that you're selling individual features of Gaia GPS as standalone
less-expensive apps. Have you considered selling just one Gaia GPS app (with
in-app-purchases to support different feature/price configurations). This will
make the app more discoverable to current users as well as new users (current
users who want an upgrade can do an in-app purchase easily from within the
app, new users will find it easier to discover your app because the combined
sales will improve the app's ranking). This will also be convenient to users
(who might need to buy two different Gaia GPS apps today)

Btw you may want to consider enabling blog comments on your website. You may
get more comments from more people that way.

~~~
billswift
Or at least link to this page from the bottom of the post you want people to
comment on.

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kls
It 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?

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edw519
_...it gets about 300-400 visits a day..._

And what do they think you should do?

Current customers are often an excellent resource for your business planning.
Have you found out what sets their hair of fire?

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gojomo
Googling [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.)

