Can I make a business out of this?
Hi,
For about a year, I've been working on a side project: https://www.trail.care/
It's a service that makes it easy for trail users to donate to the organizations that maintain the trails they use.
Despite basically 0 marketing, the service as attracted 375 users that in tota
Trending on Indie Hackers
Hey that looks pretty cool. And the money results for the number of users seems really good too!
Ideas off the top of my head:
I like Rosie's idea of a community aspect. Is there a solid social network for trail riders? Something like Untappd (for beer drinkers) for trail riders. A way to share, message, etc and give back. Might be a ton more work though... Untappd's early monetization was sponsored badges so it wasn't obnoxious adverts...
There is, yes. It's called Strava, and it's actually the service that powers Trail Care (users sign in to Trail Care with their Strava account).
I've asked Strava if they'd be interesting in offering something similar to Trail Care themselves and they said while it's a great idea they don't have any plans currently.
Interesting... do you think that there's a smaller niche in there for the "indie trailriders" or the like? Who knows? I love your idea and you've got traction so best of luck!
Hi Rosie,
Thanks for the positive feedback!
Sponsors in emails seems like an obvious direction, but with a small number of users I'm not sure who would be willing to make a deal with me. But it might be worth pursuing.
Since I already have user's payment info, I guess I could put a donation form up. Couldn't hurt, thanks!
The service doesn't really provide any features to begin with.
I haven't thought about the social aspect, good point. I can give this a think and see what comes up...
Thanks!
Could you build a separate commercial product for this audience, and use the emails users get/the website to promote this?
What comes to mind for me would be to help the government agencies that maintain trails and public spaces to more easily accept donations. I don't know their model, but I am sure they could be interested in a SaaS type way to collect donations. Would probably really increase the amount they get. And they could pay some base monthly/yearly subscription.
This comment was deleted 5 years ago.