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I created: http://skitrails.info/ http://skitrails.info/ I'm an avid cross-country skier, and traditionally daily trail reports are done by hand by the mainte

by danpat 13y ago

I created: http://skitrails.info/ http://skitrails.info/ I'm an avid cross-country skier, and traditionally daily trail reports are done by hand by the maintenance staff after they're out all night working on the trails. I had the bright idea of putting GPS tracking devices in grooming equipment and creating the "what's been groomed" report automatically, in real-time. It took about 4 seasons to really get it right, and there was no appreciable income for that period. Lots of lessons learned about equipment (antennas, good wiring practices in vehicles, power cleanliness in big equipment, etc), good ways to present the data, map projections, how to deal with messy data, dealing with non-technical users, cross-border shipping tarrifs, mobile-network provisioning rules, the list goes on. I did it alongside my full-time job for the first 4 years. It's a tiny niche, and one I never expect to get all that big, but it looks like I'll be able to make it my sole income source next season. Which is great, because it'll let me go skiing more.

pokoleo 13y ago
Hey - you should add a "how to setup" link to your site.
peterjancelis 13y ago
I looked at your website and don't really understand how customers start using your site and how they pay you. Do you sell them a GPS tracker and show them their GPS logs in an online map maybe? If so, I'd make the selling of the GPS tracker more obvious. You can also do customer testimonials.
- danpat 13y ago
  The site is focussed mainly on the consumer, the skiers, for whom the service is free (they just look at the maps). The "customers" are ski area managers, they pay me to publish their maps and generate their trail reports. The sign-up process is slightly obtuse on purpose. Because I'm still busy developing the site, only the really motivated customers actually contact me (via the "Contact" page), so I don't have to spend too much time doing a sales pitch that goes nowhere. I'm fortunate that I have a decent runway to play with. I'll change that a bit this summer once I'm no longer frantically building out features. There is effort required on my part for each sign-up, mostly around cleaning up GIS data that new customers supply, although I do supply a backend with tools for map management. The ski area managers are often extremely non-technical, and like the personal touch. I charge a modest premium for that.
kyleblarson 13y ago
This is cool. I live in the Methow Valley and the MVSTA should use this!
- dublinben 13y ago
  Or they could use a service that doesn't charge the public for the information.
  - danpat 13y ago
    I don't charge the public. Ski areas pay me a yearly fee to publish their reports. I handle all the data processing, generating maps, keeping servers up and running, mobile device provisioning, equipment testing, warranty, tech support, etc, etc. There are a couple of areas that have tried to DIY, with limited success, they usually simply don't have the technical knowledge on staff. I've been surprised myself at the breadth of technical turf I've had to cover to create something that works reliably and simply. For a reasonably technical software engineer with a bit of hardware experience, it's not a big deal, but for everyone else, it's too complex a problem. One of the really interesting problems I had to solve was reliably figuring out which trail the grooming equipment was traversing. Unlike roadways, the GPS data for the trails is typically either non-existent, inaccurate or just plain wrong. Cleaning that up is a bit of effort for each ski area. In addition, ski trails are often in much closer proximity than roadways, which combined with GPS error margins, means that I had to do some fairly gnarly stuff to avoid jumping between nearby trails constantly. It looks simple enough on the surface, but it required some real hair-pulling to get working reliably. Contract negotiations with cell-network providers weren't much fun either. Many ski areas are in pretty marginal cell-network coverage regions, so finding devices that behaved well in that environment was critical (in addition to handling very cold weather, i.e. -40F for 8 hour stretches). The grooming staff are typically completely non-technical, working weird shift hours, etc, so the system has to be completely hands-off after installation. Finding a device that would do that, handle the harsh environment and be properly certified to operate on the north american mobile networks was no easy task.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
sixQuarks 13y ago
OP asked for businesses that provide a majority of your income. With a site that has an alexa ranking of over 3 million, there is no way this is your primary source of income.
- eropple 13y ago
  > it looks like I'll be able to make it my sole income source next season Chill, man.
  - sixQuarks 13y ago
    Sorry, but if everyone replies with their side project, this page will be full of non-relevant sites. Like the OP, I'm interested in seeing fully self-sufficient one-man startups.
- danpat 13y ago
  The income from this website isn't strongly correlated to it's global web ranking. Ski areas pay me to generate trail reports, and either link to the "default" report I publish for each area, or they publish the reports on their own websites. Reports are also printed and pinned up in lodges, or emailed by marketing departments to subscribed skiers. I'm not depending on people visiting my site for revenue. What you have to realize is that people aren't out there searching for "gps grooming reports" (although I think I do pretty well in the search results for that phrase now). A this stage, they don't even know it exists. The sales channels that have worked so far are: word-of-mouth (it's a tiny industry where everyone knows everyone), personal introductions and a few cold-calls when I can summon the courage, and I don't expect that to change significantly. This is the first "season" that I've worked on it full time and I've almost hit minimum wage. I expect to do better than that next winter. I have a decent runway, live very cheaply and don't have billion-dollar ambitions. I've supplemented the revenue with a little bit of side-consulting, but not a lot.

by danpat 13y ago

pokoleo 13y ago

Hey - you should add a "how to setup" link to your site.

peterjancelis 13y ago

I looked at your website and don't really understand how customers start using your site and how they pay you. Do you sell them a GPS tracker and show them their GPS logs in an online map maybe? If so, I'd make the selling of the GPS tracker more obvious. You can also do customer testimonials.

danpat 13y ago
The site is focussed mainly on the consumer, the skiers, for whom the service is free (they just look at the maps). The "customers" are ski area managers, they pay me to publish their maps and generate their trail reports. The sign-up process is slightly obtuse on purpose. Because I'm still busy developing the site, only the really motivated customers actually contact me (via the "Contact" page), so I don't have to spend too much time doing a sales pitch that goes nowhere. I'm fortunate that I have a decent runway to play with. I'll change that a bit this summer once I'm no longer frantically building out features. There is effort required on my part for each sign-up, mostly around cleaning up GIS data that new customers supply, although I do supply a backend with tools for map management. The ski area managers are often extremely non-technical, and like the personal touch. I charge a modest premium for that.

kyleblarson 13y ago

This is cool. I live in the Methow Valley and the MVSTA should use this!

dublinben 13y ago
Or they could use a service that doesn't charge the public for the information.
- danpat 13y ago
  I don't charge the public. Ski areas pay me a yearly fee to publish their reports. I handle all the data processing, generating maps, keeping servers up and running, mobile device provisioning, equipment testing, warranty, tech support, etc, etc. There are a couple of areas that have tried to DIY, with limited success, they usually simply don't have the technical knowledge on staff. I've been surprised myself at the breadth of technical turf I've had to cover to create something that works reliably and simply. For a reasonably technical software engineer with a bit of hardware experience, it's not a big deal, but for everyone else, it's too complex a problem. One of the really interesting problems I had to solve was reliably figuring out which trail the grooming equipment was traversing. Unlike roadways, the GPS data for the trails is typically either non-existent, inaccurate or just plain wrong. Cleaning that up is a bit of effort for each ski area. In addition, ski trails are often in much closer proximity than roadways, which combined with GPS error margins, means that I had to do some fairly gnarly stuff to avoid jumping between nearby trails constantly. It looks simple enough on the surface, but it required some real hair-pulling to get working reliably. Contract negotiations with cell-network providers weren't much fun either. Many ski areas are in pretty marginal cell-network coverage regions, so finding devices that behaved well in that environment was critical (in addition to handling very cold weather, i.e. -40F for 8 hour stretches). The grooming staff are typically completely non-technical, working weird shift hours, etc, so the system has to be completely hands-off after installation. Finding a device that would do that, handle the harsh environment and be properly certified to operate on the north american mobile networks was no easy task.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago

sixQuarks 13y ago

OP asked for businesses that provide a majority of your income. With a site that has an alexa ranking of over 3 million, there is no way this is your primary source of income.

eropple 13y ago
> it looks like I'll be able to make it my sole income source next season Chill, man.
- sixQuarks 13y ago
  Sorry, but if everyone replies with their side project, this page will be full of non-relevant sites. Like the OP, I'm interested in seeing fully self-sufficient one-man startups.
danpat 13y ago
The income from this website isn't strongly correlated to it's global web ranking. Ski areas pay me to generate trail reports, and either link to the "default" report I publish for each area, or they publish the reports on their own websites. Reports are also printed and pinned up in lodges, or emailed by marketing departments to subscribed skiers. I'm not depending on people visiting my site for revenue. What you have to realize is that people aren't out there searching for "gps grooming reports" (although I think I do pretty well in the search results for that phrase now). A this stage, they don't even know it exists. The sales channels that have worked so far are: word-of-mouth (it's a tiny industry where everyone knows everyone), personal introductions and a few cold-calls when I can summon the courage, and I don't expect that to change significantly. This is the first "season" that I've worked on it full time and I've almost hit minimum wage. I expect to do better than that next winter. I have a decent runway, live very cheaply and don't have billion-dollar ambitions. I've supplemented the revenue with a little bit of side-consulting, but not a lot.