Release Discussion

[finnkuusisto]

@MarathonPaul I'm copying our recent email discussion here to keep track of it and to give us a place to continue the discussion.

[finnkuusisto]

From @finnkuusisto I was talking about our project with one of my runner friends in Medical Physics today. He likes the idea and would like to try it out when we have a first iteration complete to give us feedback. He also had a few good ideas about getting publicity. I just wanted to mention a few thoughts I had after I talked with him, some of which you may have already mentioned.

• I think you're right to suggest that we focus on getting a local user base first. One reason for this is so that we don't end up paying huge fees to run the site for a bajillion users when there are only 3 users each in every city in the world. The second, related, reason is that we need to make sure there are enough users to make the site valuable for every city that we serve. In this case, it would be easier for us to get publicity locally first.
• We will probably want to build a user base before the actual release. This would probably mean having a site where users can sign up to receive an email notification when the site is live. If that is successful, we could have a good number of users sign up on day one, instead of a slow trickle that makes early adopters give up on us.
• We should advertise at local running stores and races. I'm sure running stores would be willing to help us out by posting flyers or spreading the word. In addition, race coordinators would probably be happy to add flyers to race packets for low-cost or free as long as we print them. Can you imagine how helpful it would be for every runner in the Crazylegs to see our flyer?
• We probably won't want to "go live" until the Spring. That's simply due the fact that we won't have as many active runners until the Spring when it's warmer and when people are rebounding on New Year resolutions. If we have a solid product before then and have a sign-up page running well in advance, we could do well.

Of course, we need to focus on the actual app for now, but we should continue talking about this.

[finnkuusisto]

From @MarathonPaul Those are good points. I like the idea of having them sign up before we release the site. That can fix the problem of the initial start up without many users. We shouldn't have the sign up too far before we actually release the full sight so that no one just forgets about it. I had the same ideas about advertising with a flyer in race bags. I think that will get so many users. That is a little disappointing that we won't be releasing this until the spring but I did think that winter may hurt our user base and we want to start out strong. But we can use the extra time to really polish the site and have a lot of people like your runner friend try it out. Also, I have a very good friend who has been working as a ui/ux developer for some time who said he would be happy to look at our site when it's closer to being finished and give is opinion on it. We don't have to do anything that he says but it wouldn't hurt to have another opinion.

Also, I know that this is way in the future but after we have a strong local user base I have plans for how to attract users in other cities. Milwaukee (where I'm originally from) has a lot of runners and I have some connections with the Lakefront marathon and the Badgerland striders running organization which is a good jumping off point for users. I think since most of the runners in Milwaukee over the summer are training for the Lakefront Marathon they will be motivated to be active on the site.

Also, in the Delafield area there is a running store InStep that I have some connections with and they have weekly runs. I can almost guarantee all of them would be interested in the site. That area has a running community where they all know each other and would probably use the site for organizing runs more than meeting runners.

I do realize that is many months down the line but I just thought that I would let you know that we do have other cities besides Madison that we could just as easily jump start with users if/when we wish to expand.

[finnkuusisto]

From @finnkuusisto That's awesome that you have connections in Milwaukee and I think that would be a great next step. I have some connections in Minneapolis that I might be able to use even farther down the road. We should also keep in mind that, if Madison goes well, we may need to look to friends and relatives (or even external angels) for some initial money.

[finnkuusisto]

From @MarathonPaul Yeah if I spend the summer at home in Milwaukee I can go to events and make sure it's up and running over there. Yeah thats one issue and that we dont really have any revenue or cost projections. I think at some point I'm going to do some research on that at some point and see if I can come up with some ballpark figures.