New dropzone management software - on it's way!

[mdrejhon 8]

I don't know when Rainbow Boogie 2007 is being held -- we'll probably vote on it sometime this fall, or even during Rainbow Boogie 2006 (to be decided). About your software, if I get interested, I think Rainbow Boogie 2008 would be a more realistic choice because of this uncertainity. Also, I would only need a simple "boogie client" -- we don't have the budget for a $2500 software program. That would be the dropzone's responsibility.

An inexpensive simple "boogie" client would be nice; database standardization in the skydiving industry would be excellent, but you need to do some market analysis -- are dropzones interested in partial integration (within privacy limits) to allow boogie organizers to add registrants to their system, and to accept payments from a boogie organizer for registrants, etc? (except for registration fees going directly to the boogie organizer, i.e. $25 registration fee -- it's possible we might decide to charge a registration fee in the future)

Work on succeeding in this marketplace first -- the market is a bit saturated I think; somebody tried to sell jump software on dropzone.com and didn't seem to be doing very well (search the dropzone.com posts). You should also query other boogie organizers for interest too, to determine if it's worth serving the boogie organizer market (a reliable boogie client that can transmit registration information securely to the host dropzone and fill jump balances, etc).

The "boogie client" you make available to organizers could be used for bigways, 400-way records, state records, etc -- to collect prepayments for record attempts, etc. Find out how big the market is.

I would only be willing to pay, say $250, for a boogie organizer client -- which may not be worth it unless it's a very simplistic client. It could even be a Microsoft Excel macro, that has the ability to interface with multiple different brands of common dropzone software to keep dropzone database in sync with the boogie database (limited amount of information -- for privacy reasons). So people can register and prepay for some jumps through the client.

Security and privacy is, of course, a concern -- so that obviously needs to be standardized. When someone fills out a registration form on a website, they need to know who retains the information (the boogie organizer? the dropzone?)

Another idea is to sell a third party boogie registration service. Make it an online client instead. Dropzones do not have an IT staff. And you may not be able to sell IT staffing service. So if you can make it an easy online service that can easily be added to their website, maybe that works better --

It's a tall order... and I don't think I'm your most profitable market anyway. Who knows, Skydive Chicago might be the host of a future Rainbow Boogie some year in the future (they were one of the three dropzones suggested for Rainbow Boogie 2006, and NouvelAir won by default because they expressed interest).

You have a tall order if you want to standardize... You may even have to visit each dropzone and almost give your software away for free, if you want to bring a "JumpPass" standard or something similiar -- and dropzones are reluctant to transfer jump balances from one dropzone to another. So that business model may not work. On the other there's a good need for load organizers, boogie organizers, bigway organizers, etc, to have a simplified and standardized registration system. (But you must contact everyone to find out what they want -- World Team organizers, bigway organizers such as Kate and Guy and TK, boogie organizers such as WFFC and SkyFest along with smaller boogie organizers such as me, etc -- and see if there's demand for a standardized boogie client for a boogie organizer, that interfaces with your more expensive software running at a dropzone (and has the ability to run separately of dropzone software, for dropzones that are not running your software or your software standard)

As a reminder, check the dropzone.com for other failed attempts at bringing standardized software out and make sure to learn from them -- or maybe they later succeeded (But much less than expected). Be careful not to burn yourself, just because I'm interested in paying $250 for improved boogie software. (Might even be willing to pay more, or pay on a per-registrant basis -- if the benefits of software outweighs the simplicity of just writing my own Microsoft Excel macro and simple CGI scripts)

Some software standardization sometimes happens -- For example, Paralogsoftware is now an industry standard for electronic logbooking now and works with both Neptune and ProTrack and compatible GPS devices.

Congratulations on landing Skydive Chicago -- a big dropzone -- that will give you a big boost to your software. Your priority is to make Skydive Chicago happy, and if you can sell your software to other dropzones, even better! Be warned the market is pretty small -- not many dropzones are big like Skydive Chicago.

If you decide to make a separate simplified software program specific to boogie organizers and bigway organizers, definitely keep in contact with me. (I'm not interested in manifest software) I am a software developer too (www.marky.com/resume) and know the complexities of doing a software client as complicated as yours. As a software developer AND an event organizer AND knowledgeable on Murphy's Laws in high tech AND having been a consultant in the past. I don't think I am a big enough market BUT there are more events nowadays: state records, bigways, boogies, etc -- if you can have a cheap flexible client that makes many organizers like me happy, sign me up -- but don't forget I am a programmer too and what you make needs to save my time compared to writing my own cheap internal solution (even as a Microsoft Excel macro). I'd be happy to test out your client to see if it's worth trying for a future Rainbow Boogie (2008). I need to be running the client for a full 12 months (from fall 2007 through summer 2008) because registration for future boogies may open as much as 9 months in advance...

[mdrejhon 8]

Short summary of an organizer's client (boogie organizer, bigway organizer, etc):

- Super user friendly (even grandma can do data entry into it)
- Manual registrant data entry support (for dropzones without IT staff)
- Easy-to-integrate online registration system (names, emails, phone numbers) - safe & secure registration
- Ability to import CSV and XLS for pre-existing registrants from previous years or from other software (programming this can be sped up by using an opensource spreadsheet-reader library)
- Ability to operate with and without database server (sometimes it's overkill for computer-novice organizers who ONLY know how to use Microsoft Excel)
- Easy to view in Excel too (export easily)
- Registration fee support (direct to organizer or direct to dropzone account)
- Jump account support (direct to dropzone) (if boogie organizer wants to hold jump accounts - they will buy your more expensive software)
- Online store integration support (T-Shirts, etc.)
- Merchant account (Visa/MC) support and PayPal support
- Mandatory payment support (i.e. some bigways require upfront payment, i.e. 1000 dollars)
- Newsletter support (automatically email everyone)
- Email confirmation support (sends email with a link to click on)
- Voluntary donation capability
- Basic CRM capabilities such as an email followup tracker system, if possible (automatically tells me when the last time a specific registrant emailed me). It would be great if this POP/IMAP's into the email (gmail compatible) and does this automatically, without needing to build an email client into your software.
Ability to flag whether I've called the person, or add notes
- Optional integration with dropzone software (i.e. your main big software program), so that jump payments can be transferred directly to them. Also needs a good paper trailing system, proof of payments, ability to print receipts (printing envelope labels would be an asset too; even if it's just spawning an automatic mailmerge in Microsoft Word from the software)
- etc.

Not all the above features is necessary for me, even just a simple online script with online store support might be all I need -- but you do need to keep a lot of boogie organizers/bigway organizers/etc happy.

There may already be existing cheap small CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software that does most of the above, and I may be researching this for Rainbow Boogie 2007 -- however, this may be like hammering a square peg into a round hole; and I might need speciallized software. I am not 100% sure yet. There's another consideration there: Will you be competing with somebody else's preexisting CRM software, if you write a boogie/bigway organizer software client that helps with organizing? Also, most CRM software is overkill (I've never really operated CRM software before), and many of us small-time organizers have never heard of "CRM" before.

Another idea is to research which CRM software matches the above features, and attempt to write a plugin for it that integrates it into the skydiving industry... That may be faster and easier to develop.

[StreetScooby 5]

You're doing all this by yourself?

We are all engines of karma

[Mr17Hz 1]

Mark,

What I was suggesting is that if the dropzone that you are hosting the boogie at is running RealDropzone, the dropzone would be able to provide the registration service for you to use at no additional cost to them. They would configure a "Special Event" Titled "Rainbow Boogie 2007", define the date range, when to begin registration, registration cost, preregistration discount, preregistration date, and any jump ticket discount or price override to be applied to registered boogie participants when they manifest. That's it. the whole process takes about 10 minutes to configure the event...

As soon as the event is configured their website automatically gets updated with a new event on the calendar, and participants can go to the dropzone's website, create an account (or login to an existing), and register for the event.

participants can also pay for other participants. As soon as one participant signs up and RSVP's, they become an "unconfirmed participant", in order to become confirmed you must pay (full or deposit, as defined in event settings). You can RSVP and then someone else can pay for you by submitting your name or email.

Your account (you as the event organizer) could be configured with organizer permissions for that event, which would allow you use the dropzones website to view registered participants, as well as add people to the list at no cost or your predefined cost, etc.

When the event was over; the dropzone would run a report to deturmine what revenue the event generated, take out whatever fee they charge you (probably at least their merchant account rates, maybe an additional service fee), and write you a check for the event.

All of this stuff has already been coded for and tested. The idea behind the functionality is that it gives the dropzone more value to offer; with almost no effort they can solve for you a problem that would cost you a lot more time and money to solve.

This feature would also work for smaller events, such as canopy courses, etc... and can obviously be used for local events where the dropzone themselves is the organizer.

Matt Christenson

[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.

[Mr17Hz 1]

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You're doing all this by yourself?

I can't claim to have been writing everything by myself, however I am acting as the senior architect on the project and have paid out of pocket for any work that's been outsourced. At this point in time the initial investment of time and resources is being split between Skydive Chicago, and myself.

Matt Christenson

[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.

[IanHarrop 37]

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Sure on a price per jump basis it looks good, only pennies per jump, but the problem is coming up with the money in the first place when there are so many other priorities competing for attention at a dropzone.

I see the value differently than you do.

How do you see the value differently, please explain

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The biggest issue I've seen has been support when dropzone software focused at the smaller dropzones and costing much less has problems. Those same small dropzones often resist support costs and end up very fustrated.

That is exactly why I am working on a solution that solves all of the needs of a dropzone business, and providing a license model that allows for small and large businesses to both make use of the full featured product and support; there is no reason why everyone can’t equally split the costs and benefits of a solution that saves and makes everyone money that could not otherwise exist.

Maybe I'm a little skeptical, but in may experience anything made by man will break quick access to low cost support will be important and could be difficult to deliver. Especially if the software gets deployed across the continent with different time zones. Remember that most dropzones are most busy on weekends and thats when they will find the problems - when support people might rather be jumping than helping.

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One question - of the big dropzones that might be able to afford a great solution, have you contacted any of them to see how many are willing to change from what they are doing now and what they demand for support?

I have 100% support from Skydive Chicago, which is a substantially large operation. The project was defined after I was hired to provide them with business consulting services that led to me making the decision to make a significant investment in my time and money to provide the industry with a solution that is not already available on the market. This thread is the first public note that I’ve made of the solution and it’s availability; I am not concerned about selling the solution, I am very confident that it will sell itself; and that I will make back the resources I’ve put into it over a 3-5 year period. I’m not trying to get rich fast with this; if I can’t or don’t provide the support necessary to make the product worth it, guess what happens? Customers find other solutions and stop paying license fees; which means I never see a return on my investment.

If you're saying that the cost to implement the software will not involve much up-front costs but be spread over time, you might have come up with a way to interest the smaller dropzones that live on tight budgets. This could very well be a winning idea!

The purpose of this thread was not to be a sales pitch on the product; it was to find interesting dropzone owners and operational managers who already identify the potential value, and would like to be involved in a pilot implementation between the months of November and February of this year.

I’m not trying to convince people to see business the way I see it, I’m trying to find people that already see it the way I see it, and are looking to work together to make it a reality.

"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

[rmsmith 1]

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I went through extensive research...

How are 'ya supposed to hide revenue with all this information in a database?

[mdrejhon 8]

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You're doing all this by yourself?

I don't know if you addressed the question to the RealDropzone writer or the Rainbow Boogie.

But just in case, I'll answer, since your post was addressed to me.

In answer to your question, yes, I am organizing the Rainbow Boogie mostly myself -- I stress the 'organizing' part though. I did a lot of the grunt work, including designing the www.rainbowskydive.com website -- that's my graphics that I designed (I did have a logo designer invent the logo though, though I redid the logo in a high-resolution vector format). I have had two really wonderful and helpful people help me at one point, get me a few sponsorships, co-ordinate with NouvelAir, among other things, but had to concentrate on other duties (job, other events, etc), and I have had wonderful people such as Mario of NouvelAir and Kirsten Johnson of Skydive Spaceland, to help make this event possible. And let's not forget the sponsors who helped make this boogie possible too. There's too many to thank.

While I was between jobs, I put a huge amount of focus in making this boogie possible. I brought fourth the idea. I have spent several hundreds of hours, did nearly 100% of the graphics design (including the [url=www.rainbowskydive.com]website[/url]), spent almost a couple thousand dollars on this "event organizing" exercise as well -- and I am hoping it is a real success. In future years, I will aim to break even at least; but I'm investing a little extra to make sure the first one is as popular as this little guy (me) can possibly make it. It has already surpassed my expectations by a wide margin -- Nine months ago I was hoping for 10 or 20 person small "gettogether" type boogie, we're a major boogie by Canadian standards now - getting 100+ attendees.

And I have spent a bit of pocket money on this already -- I paid for the color Rainbow Boogie advertisements in the june issues of Skydiving Magazine and Parachutist, as well as CanPara and Capital Xtra.

Communicating with 100+ registrants is a daunting challenge. Some don't respond to emails, and some needs to be telephoned, etc. Co-ordinating with volunteers is a daunting challenge. Kirsten Johnson, the load organizer. Sales of T-Shrit. Carpool from airport. A gay DZO is coming, a prominent jumper (15,000 jump) is coming (straight, though), and the RW jumpers will be doing 20-ways leading up to 34-ways (NouvelAir has a lot of experience with this; 6 World Team members - the most of any Canadian dropzone!). The free sponsored BBQ (scheduled for Friday lunch)

Some local newspaper/magazine articles about myself and about me organizing this event:
ToBe Magazine
Capital Xtra

Anyway, I'm getting kinda offtopic. As you can see software that helps me simplify future Rainbow Boogie's would be a definite asset! (Without needing to research too much about all of them)

[mdrejhon 8]

This might be beneficial if Chicago decides to host a future Rainbow Boogie -- since you're deploying this software there.

Anyway, decisions will be made after the boogie about how to approach other dropzones (including Skydive Chicago) to find if they're interested... I am sure, for convenience reasons, a future Rainbow Boogie will be hosted at NouvelAir again if they are interested in hosting it again, just because they are close to me -- however, I do expect Rainbow Boogie will be a annual roaming boogie, at least some of the time. (And there is already at least one interested DZO already -- he's actually coming to our Boogie)

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Mark,

What I was suggesting is that if the dropzone that you are hosting the boogie at is running RealDropzone, the dropzone would be able to provide the registration service for you to use at no additional cost to them. They would configure a "Special Event" Titled "Rainbow Boogie 2007", define the date range, when to begin registration, registration cost, preregistration discount, preregistration date, and any jump ticket discount or price override to be applied to registered boogie participants when they manifest. That's it. the whole process takes about 10 minutes to configure the event...

[Mr17Hz 1]

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Sure on a price per jump basis it looks good, only pennies per jump, but the problem is coming up with the money in the first place when there are so many other priorities competing for attention at a dropzone.

I see the value differently than you do.

How do you see the value differently, please explain

Any good business does not budget its finances on a month by month basis, they're financing for quarters and years, and 'the future'. Any cost that will pay for itself in one year's time while providing the potential for capability and benefit substantially beyond the initial investment is money well spent. Investments like this do not get in the way of "more important priorities", but provide for a means to address those other priorities more effectivly.

Matt Christenson

[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.

[IanHarrop 37]

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Sure on a price per jump basis it looks good, only pennies per jump, but the problem is coming up with the money in the first place when there are so many other priorities competing for attention at a dropzone.

I see the value differently than you do.

How do you see the value differently, please explain

Any good business does not budget its finances on a month by month basis, they're financing for quarters and years, and 'the future'. Any cost that will pay for itself in one year's time while providing the potential for capability and benefit substantially beyond the initial investment is money well spent. Investments like this do not get in the way of "more important priorities", but provide for a means to address those other priorities more effectivly.

Perhaps I've just jumped at a lot of small dropzone where living hand to mouth is pretty common.
The big ones have the critical mass to do just as you say. The small ones don't.

"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

[bob.dino 0]

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Your customer service will need to be tight. In addition, you might consider value added services, such as remote database maintenance, backups, etc. This will help "justify" the continuing payments on the customers part.

Remote DB maintenance & backups is a big selling point, and damn useful too, as long as you can assure them that their data is encrypted and can't be accessed by others.

[PhreeZone 15]

Agreed. Coming from where jumpers are drying up faster then spilled water in these 90+ temps this week... Its hard to know how many jumpers or loads will be flown in any given week let alone in a year from now.

The prices hinted at before might be a bargin for an operation like Perris or Zhills, but for a DZ using pen and paper manifest those prices are out of the market. I've been to many Cessna DZ's that are a write your name on the sheet and settle up at the end of the day operations. Having all the advanced stuff sounds cool but when they are booking 5 SL students and maybe 10 tandems in a day having self-manifest kisoks is pretty low on the list of needs.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Eule 0]

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I am currently in the process of developing an extremely extensive dropzone software package, RealDropzone™, which will address all of the shortcomings with existing dropzone management solutions.

Initial random thoughts:

1) I hope the RealNetworks people don't get annoyed at your trademark
b) I hope the RealDoll people don't get annoyed at your trademark
III) "But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses." -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers"

I've been on both sides of this table. I've been the guy who was writing the code, answering the support calls, fixing the printer, and trying to migrate the CEO from an AOL address to the company's domain. I've also sat in meetings where the salesman was promising us that the software would run, never crash, sing, dance, wipe our asses and make us coffee in the morning. So, coming from that background, here are some more thoughts on your proposed software. This is probably going to sound like I'm slamming you pretty hard and I don't mean it that way. I just think that these are the kinds of questions that you will get asked when you are trying to sell this software, and maybe it will help to think about them now instead of in the sales meeting. You've probably already thought about many of them.

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on it's way!

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the way dropzone’s do business.

Click here.

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This component features an extremely easy to use user interface designed to allow office staff to have complete control over the business.

I think what you're getting at is that it makes it easy for anyone on the staff to do any of the normal daily business activities. But the "complete control" also sort of sounds like the manifest person could delete last year's records, or put $1000 on their buddy's account, or whatever.

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It does not come with the downfalls associated with web based applications,

Such as? (I can think of some, but I wonder which ones you are thinking of.)

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The windows based user interface has been designed [....] to be intuitive

There's only one intuitive user interface. After that, it's all learned.

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A locally hosted web based application for local kiosk or wireless notebook based self check-in, account funding, and manifesting.

Check-in and manifest I understand; I don't quite get "account funding". Are you saying that a jumper will be able to run his/her own credit card (or put in a bank account number, or put in cash) at the kiosk to put funds on account?

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Jumpers could use a dropzone provided kiosk, or bring their own wireless based computers for self manifesting.

How will this interact with the wireless Internet access offered by some dropzones now? Will you need to punch in a different SSID for the manifest system vs. general Internet access, or something else?

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A remotely hosted web site / application that features the most advanced tandem pre-registration module ever created;

Does the Web site require a particular hosting platform in order to work?

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Advanced replication between the remote database and local database has been developed so that if a dropzone looses its internet connection, both the dropzone and their public website will continue to operate; only a small amount of web functionality will be lost.

IMHO, replication is tricky to do right, but is pretty cool when it works. On a related note, what kind of bandwidth is needed between the DZ and the remote database? The size of dropzone I think you'd be selling to is more likely than most to have something better than dialup, but it might only be a not-very-good DSL or similar.

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The system seamlessly handles advanced gift certificates and rain checks that maintain their price for a given period of time, but then eventually expire into a dollar amount, and potentially after that expire completely.

This is printed on the certificate, right? I understand the DZ's desire to not have a lot of "free jumps" floating around out there that they may have to make good on at any time, but this has to be made clear to the customer. Ask ten friends if they know that the gift cards from many retail stores expire after a while - most people don't realize this.

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This software is currently being developed for implementation at Skydive Chicago this fall. After a successful implementation, I will be looking for a small group of dropzones interested in implementing this product before it becomes public.

You can say "beta test". It's not a bad word. :)

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Dropzone must manifest over 8,000 jumps per year

154 jumps a week, every week. That's a lotta Cessna loads.

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Dropzone must have a very technically competent IT person regularly available.

At a random guess, there's probably five or ten DZs in the US that could say "yes" to this. I understand why you would want a resident geek for the first/early installs of the system, but I don't think most DZs will be able to afford one guy that only does computer stuff.

From your second post:

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All of them represent decent products of yesturday's technology.

And remember, newer is _always_ better. Everyone should avoid old technology whenever possible. (How old is recripocating aircraft engine technology? Turbines?)

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Why do I still use this stupid credit card reader machine, it takes more room on my desk, makes me think i'm still living in the 90s, and causes me to enter an "Amount Paid" value into both the credit card machine, AND my computer,

Right! I want to enter my credit cards into the PC, at least when the PC isn't busy going to Windows Update, or being attacked by the virus/worm du jour, etc.

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and possibly into some manual log book because my computer is sometimes buggy?

I agree that having everything on paper is a little bit crazy in these modern times. But trusting the computer to never screw up is also crazy.

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Why can't my software development company be notified immediately when I recieve an unexpected error or something looks wrong with my data?

Because the spammers and marketroids have made many people instinctively averse to software that "phones home". It sucks, too. I've spent a lot of time on the phone trying to get someone on the other end to tell me _exactly_ what's going on, where if I could have just logged into their box, or had their box email me a file, I could have already been working on the solution when my phone rang. On the other hand, if I'm running a business, I'm not sure that I want my computer randomly emailing my P&L statement to my software vendor.

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Why can’t I have locally installed software whose version and security updates are managed by the software developers?

Because the vendor can, at any random time, push through an "update" that breaks my system and stops me from doing business?

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Why can’t all work compensation pay go directly onto their jump accounts, but employees then log online to configure what percentage, or exact amount of their pay will be deducted from their jump account and entered into the payroll process?

Because then the IRS sees it. :)

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Why can’t [fun jumpers and organizers manifest] using their own wireless laptops in the hangar or packing area, to lower my own hardware costs?

I think you still have to provide a human or a kiosk though. Some people don't have laptops, or don't have a wireless card, or whatever. Also, is the manifest-yourself application browser and OS agnostic?

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Why can’t I edit my website content easily without calling in my tech junkie, and without accidentally breaking anything important and racking up support fees?
Why can’t I edit my website content so that changes will take place in the future, so that I can spend my free time on Thursday preparing Monday’s look and feel?

I understand that you want to provide "one stop shopping" with your software, but I sort of wonder if tying the accounting/manifesting side of things and the website side of things together is really a good idea. I know that there are places where it's really a good idea to tie those things together (let tandems sign up on the public Web site, etc), but they are somewhat different concepts.

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Why can’t all tandem customers who have provided an email address be spammed [....] In fact, there are a ton of ways that automatic spamming and responses could both help me from the advertisement angle and also customer appreciation. [....] Why can’t all customers be spammed automatically with Birthday special! advertisement 2 weeks before their birthday?

I fixed your post. :)

If you don't want to give these details, it's cool, but: what kind of infrastructure is this built on? What's the database - Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, Access, or ? Is the Web-broswer stuff done in Javascript, Java, ActiveX, or ? Can a "modest" PC run the user-level applications well? I don't think dropzones will be too interested in hitching themselves to a 2 or 3 year upgrade cycle on their PCs. I think you can reasonably demand something better than Win9x/Me, but requiring a 3 GHz Pentium HT on every desktop is also somewhat of a hard sell.

It seems like the "entry level" DZ for this software will be running at least one turbine aircraft, and it seems to me like there aren't that many DZs like that around. I'd say the average is one or less per state in the continental US - 48 or less. If you can develop a less expensive application, maybe something in the few-hundred-dollar range, there's maybe 100-150 additional dropzones you could sell to. You might lose money on every one but you can make it up in volume, right? :)

Again, I don't want you to think I'm dumping on you. I just want to ask the kinds of questions your prospective customers are probably going to ask. Like I said, you've probably already thought about many of them. You don't have to answer _me_ if you don't want to -- I'm not a DZ who might be giving you money for your software -- but you will probably get some of these questions from people that _do_ have the money.

Eule
(amateur skydiver for 1+ years, professional geek for 10+ years)

PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

[Mr17Hz 1]

Eule,

First off, thank you for your feedback. I have removed most of your quotes and will instead answer your questions in complete sentences.

In regards to your concerns about the ability to support a product like this effectively, I have 7 years experience in enterprise application support, and 4 in full lifecycle development. I completely understand what I am up against. Because the idea of licensing the product out instead of charging a large initial investment, my success will depend completely on the ability to not only gain customers, but keep them for a minimum of 3-5 years so that I might see a return on my initial investment. I have also been on both sides of this fence, and I feel quite confident with my ability to provide a long-term solution that will financially benefit all parties involved, the drop zone, their customers, and RealDropzone. The dropzone and their customers will need to see a return before I will.

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This component features an extremely easy to use user interface designed to allow office staff to have complete control over the business.

By “complete control”, I do mean that staff will be able to do all of their normal daily business activities. The reason I pointed out the obvious here, was to distinguish it as different from the web based organizer user interface, and other kiosk style components of the solution. There will be staff based security that could prohibit certain staff from making account credits of type “compensation” or “complementary”, allowing them only to produce cash or credit card account credits. Any discrepancies between the cash drawer count at the end of the day would red flag any misuse of a cash credit, and credit card credit is self managing in that it cannot be applied until an authorization code is returned from the payment gateway. In addition to this, any account credits of type ‘compensation’ or ‘complementary’ will be summarized individually in the end of day report that is automatically emailed each night to the business owner and operation managers themselves, so that employees can be closely audited. The difference between credit types “compensation” and “complementary” is that compensation can be converted into payroll, complementary cannot. Both account credit types will not be refundable. For the purpose of flexibility, it will be possible to create a paid credit (refundable) in a situation where cash is not physically accepted; however this option will also be restricted and flagged in the end of day report. When I say refundable – this is strictly at the credit/debit layer, there are additional business rules that can be defined that further restrict in which situations a refund can be given, and these situations can also be restricted on a per-staff member basis.

While these security features will exist, I expect that smaller dropzones will want to give their employees the ability to have full control over accounts, and audit end of day reports closely at the end of the day to identify discrepancy problems; which is why a great deal of effort is going init creating very useful and easy to glance through reports; in addition to verbose reports that identify every single action that happened throughout the day/week.

The downfalls that are associated with web based applications include, but are not limited to; the inability to do business as normal in the event of an internet failure, slower response time to requests, most of the time user interfaces are ‘wizard’ based and not as flexible or intuitive as OS based user interfaces. Performance itself can also sometimes be an issue. As a whole, web based user interfaces take longer to do every day tasks.

Fun jumpers will be capable of making credit card or check payments at terminals that will provide card readers. These readers will also function to allow tandem reservations to “log in” using a credit card that has been issued to their name; similar to how self check-in terminals at airports work. The dropzone can decide whether or not to allow funding on their public website, or on their intranet website accessible by users with their own computer with wireless capability. A dropzone may not wish to enable this feature because these transactions would be considered “Card not present” transactions and will cost around 0.7% more in bank fees.

The wireless based service for people with their own laptops will work with any existing wireless internet access. Access will be restricted by IP addresses, so that only requests from local IPs will be allowed “on-site” functionality. No additional access points or SSID will be nessisary. The purpose of this feature is to allow dropzones that cannot afford or justify the cost of kiosk terminals to still allow customers to help themselves. It will be particularly useful for load organizers; who the dropzone might decide to provide cheaper laptops to for use on-site. The idea is to be flexible with start-up costs. Many dropzones already have wireless internet access and this would be available to them at no additional infrastructure cost.

Both public and local hosting will need to be hosting using the windows platform, however clients using any browser or operating system will be able to access the sites. The local site will be hosted on the local windows server, required for the system to work; and the public internet site will be hosted by us. The cost for hosting will be included in licensing, and will not cost any more to the dropzone.

My goal for bandwidth requirements of the dropzone is to allow functionality on a 128k ISDN line. Messages going back and forth between the web hosting environment and the dropzone will be small requests like “my event registration availability has changed, this is the new info”, or “This is a new tandem reservation”. Each night the full database will be compressed, encrypted and transferred. This allows us to resync completely; as well as offer offsite-backup services included in the price of licensing. At this time I can not make solid bandwidth claims, however I would be very surprised if a 256k DSL line would not support the software. A static IP will not be necessary at the dropzone, 2 way communication will keep the web hosting environment up to date with which IP to use to contact the dropzone.

The gift certificates may be printed; however record of each one will be in the system, customers may also purchase certificates online and print them out. They will be identified on the system by a unique number that can be pulled up to redeem the certificate. Certificates can be per item, or dollar amount. The can also be configured to expire. They may expire from a “Tandem Skydive” into a dollar amount first, and then later expire completely. This allows for you to guarantee a price for a certain period of time (1 year?) and after that point a customer would have to pay the difference between what the value is and what the new price would be. They can eventually (after 2 years?) expire completely and no longer be valid. Gift certificates can be configured to be tied to a specific user, or be available for any user to use.

The 8000 jump/yr limitation is for beta (happy?) implementations only. These dropzones will be receiving the product at a significant discount for the first year of operation, and the purpose is for me to make sure that the product is running optimal before I officially make it public.

The ‘resident geek’ requirement is also for beta implementations only, and if I find it to be difficult to find participants who meet this requirement I will lower my requirements, however I have already have had a very good response, and don’t feel that I will need to do this.

While old technology isn’t always bad, new technology can further improve systems. All currently existing products (in my opinion) have a common weak point, which online integration. The internet is a very powerful marketing tool that is being underused in our industry because nobody has been willing to make a heavy initial investment. Those who have made the most powerful investment have done so in a way that has hurt the industry by lowering its credibility amongst non-skydivers by using what I consider to be unscrupulous business practices. I feel that there is room for competition in this area launched by the dropzones themselves; and without taking advantage of unknowledgeable customers, or outright theft. RealDropzone is the first step in a process that will enable businesses to step up in the online marketing world.

Entering a Credit Card into a computer is something that you can choose or choose not to do. I find myself among the tens of millions of people who are not concerned; Credit Card companies themselves have taken the burden of dealing with the costs of fraud, and this makes me comfortable with making online payments, however offering this feature allows millions of customers to help themselves. As far as using a dropzone computer to replace a stand alone CC machine; everything gets encrypted in the same way it does on the machine itself. The encryption happens in protected threads that do not allow worms or other malicious software to see the values until after they have been encrypted.

All communication between the dropzone and RealDropzone’s servers will be encrypted and not sent over insecure means such as email. As for the trust you put into RealDropzone to keep your information confidential; it is the same trust you would have to put into any company that will provide you with IT solutions. The idea of pro-active system monitoring is a key factor in what is going to allow me to provide this solution and support it at a price that makes it feasible. When it comes down to it any time you’re working with a custom software provider they have a full view of your business and your data whether you think they do or not. VERY few companies ever spend the time and resources necessary to really lock down access for people internal to the companies network, a lot of places just avoid the topic and issue. The risk is there one way or another; I feel that taking advantage of it in order to lower prices makes more sense than beating around the bush.

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***Why can’t all work compensation pay go directly onto their jump accounts, but employees then log online to configure what percentage, or exact amount of their pay will be deducted from their jump account and entered into the payroll process?

Because then the IRS sees it. :)


The IRS sees what you report to them, and reports can be generated on what you want to report to them, however in the event of a full audit, if a company is cheating on what they’re reporting the IRS is going to be able to identify it quickly and any estimate they come up with you can bet will be rounded up if you can’t prove they’re wrong. Paying an employee internal benefits instead of pay is not a crime; do you think that cell phone providers get penalized over giving out discounted or free cell-phone plans to employees? allowing the employee a lot of power (on a per paycheck basis) over what his/her pay agreement will be between benefits and cash may be a newer concept made possible only by the ease of doing it with computers; but I’m not the first to suggest it, large companies like Motorola and Microsoft all take advantage of this capability. Allowing a professional skydiver to skydive is a completely legitimate business expense that goes under the category of professional training. If you kept better numbers about how much of your jet fuel goes to professional training; you’d find that a tax accountant could consider that to be a business expense that would lower your taxable income for the year… Up until now coming up with the paperwork to claim how much has been spent on this type of continued professional training has not been easy enough to risk having to prove yourself in the event of an audit, however this system will allows you to produce those solid numbers.

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***Why can’t [fun jumpers and organizers manifest] using their own wireless laptops in the hangar or packing area, to lower my own hardware costs?

I think you still have to provide a human or a kiosk though. Some people don't have laptops, or don't have a wireless card, or whatever. Also, is the manifest-yourself application browser and OS agnostic?

The idea behind the wireless based intranet website is to allow some functionality to dropzones who don’t want to incur the infrastructure costs of adding a kiosk. Adding a kiosk is a business decision the dropzone would need to make. They will always have the option to do so at no additional software cost to them. This application will be web based and be browser and OS agnostic.

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I understand that you want to provide "one stop shopping" with your software, but I sort of wonder if tying the accounting/manifesting side of things and the website side of things together is really a good idea. I know that there are places where it's really a good idea to tie those things together (let tandems sign up on the public Web site, etc), but they are somewhat different concepts.

These concepts are extremely similar as they both have a big impact on how you do business, and individually have costs associated with them. One of the things I justify the license costs required to make this all possible, is by saving in overall business expenses. Why pay for two places to host your website?

All emails sent will be opt-in and users will be able to unsubscribe at any time. Plenty of users don’t care if they’re sent this kind of emails and opt-in to anyplace the sign up for an account. RealDropzone will respect those who wish not to receive specials or updates in their email box.

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If you don't want to give these details, it's cool, but: what kind of infrastructure is this built on? What's the database - Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, Access, or ? Is the Web-broswer stuff done in Javascript, Java, ActiveX, or ? Can a "modest" PC run the user-level applications well? I don't think dropzones will be too interested in hitching themselves to a 2 or 3 year upgrade cycle on their PCs. I think you can reasonably demand something better than Win9x/Me, but requiring a 3 GHz Pentium HT on every desktop is also somewhat of a hard sell.

All software is being developed in Microsoft Visual Studios 2005, MSSQL Server 2k5 will be used for the backend in larger operations on-site, MSSQL Server 2K5 Express will be used for smaller dropzones to avoid license fees. MSSQL Server 2K5 Standard will be used on the hosted website; and the hosting server will host with IIS 6.0. Each dropzone will need a dedicated server, smaller dropzones will be able to get away with an older machine, 1.0GHz with 1GB of ram should be adequate; larger ones will want to consider 2GB of ram and a faster processor. Windows client software will run on anything around a 1GHz machine with 512MB of ram… probably even 256mb of ram. It will only support any operating system that Microsoft still offers support for (currently 2K or higher)

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It seems like the "entry level" DZ for this software will be running at least one turbine aircraft, and it seems to me like there aren't that many DZs like that around. I'd say the average is one or less per state in the continental US - 48 or less. If you can develop a less expensive application, maybe something in the few-hundred-dollar range, there's maybe 100-150 additional dropzones you could sell to. You might lose money on every one but you can make it up in volume, right? :)

After I am able to lower startup costs by providing video tutorials for training, full manuals, and cover at least some of the equipment and hosting costs of start-up, I will be able to provide the software at a lower initial startup cost; however the cost per jump will remain the same, possibly a few extra cents per jump to reward those dropzones who invested in a package with a larger start-up amount.

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Again, I don't want you to think I'm dumping on you. I just want to ask the kinds of questions your prospective customers are probably going to ask. Like I said, you've probably already thought about many of them. You don't have to answer _me_ if you don't want to -- I'm not a DZ who might be giving you money for your software -- but you will probably get some of these questions from people that _do_ have the money.

I appreciate your response and the time you put into it, you made a lot of good points.

Matt Christenson

[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.

[Mr17Hz 1]

I have put up a site for RealDropzone at www.RealDropzone.com, It will be updated with product information by October 1st.

Thanks for the overwhelming response I have received from dropzone owners and managers.

At this point I have a full list of interested customers to participate in beta implementations. I need to get Skydive Chicago up and operational so that I can demo the product before I ask for any commitments.

I apologize to everyone I will not be able to include for beta implementations, however it is important that I don't over schedule myself. If anybody else has an interest in the product, please email me at [email protected] and I will be sure to keep you up to date with status and documentation as it because available.

As of September 15th I will be leaving my current employer to start up a software development firm of my own, RealDropzone will be my primary focus, however I am also available for part-time contract jobs. My resume has been posted at the site above.

Thanks!
Matt Christenson

Matt Christenson

[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.

[AndrewKarnowski 0]

Just curious... how's this coming along?

[Mr17Hz 1]

Slower than I had anticipated, but it's still coming along. The project has grown significantly in scope to accomidate localization (multiple languages, date formats, currency) as well as integrate with www.SkydiveSecure.org, a single sign-on service that provides skydivers with portable profiles - and also serves as a BBB for dropzones, with the minor difference that in addition to accepting complaints, it will proactively survey all participating dropzone customers asking about the service and collecting positive testimonials.

Also, all of the web components have been redesigned to be DotNetNuke ( an advanced content management system ) modules, so that dropzones can benefit from easy web content management.

I'm currently working out some of the bugs in the event registration component (it needed to be extended to allow for multiple sub events in order to handle registration for the 2007 USPA Nationals). It The event registration system should be live on Skydive Chicago's website in the next couple of weeks. The manifest component is "finished" but has yet to be tested - I ancicipate a month worth of touch up after it goes live in March.

If anybody else wants to jump on as a beta implementation, now would be a great time to contact me. I'll also be at the PIA Symposium. I won't have a booth, but I'll be in town all week.

[email protected]

Matt Christenson

[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.

[tdog 0]

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DotNetNuke

Good luck....

I had tried DotNetNuke on a very beefy webserver... I ran into bugs left and right. The worst was that, the first page, if no longer in the cache of the server, would take upwards of a minute to load.

I found some aftermarket plugins to "fix this problem" by basically running the homepage every timer click - so the site would never leave the cache, or if it did, the daemon, not the user, would have to wait forever... I could never get the daemon to work.

If you have solved this problem or know anything about it, please let me know. I would have liked to use dotnetnuke for the skydiving league, but instead opted for good-olde HTML/Dreamweaver because I ran out of testing time and the ROI became cheaper just to abandon dotnetnuke...

[Mr17Hz 1]

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DotNetNuke

Good luck....

I had tried DotNetNuke on a very beefy webserver... I ran into bugs left and right. The worst was that, the first page, if no longer in the cache of the server, would take upwards of a minute to load.

I found some aftermarket plugins to "fix this problem" by basically running the homepage every timer click - so the site would never leave the cache, or if it did, the daemon, not the user, would have to wait forever... I could never get the daemon to work.

If you have solved this problem or know anything about it, please let me know. I would have liked to use dotnetnuke for the skydiving league, but instead opted for good-olde HTML/Dreamweaver because I ran out of testing time and the ROI became cheaper just to abandon dotnetnuke...

I'm sure that something was not configured or working properly. I have seen a server host over a hundred individual websites - durring peak times serving 50,000+ pages an hour.

Over the past 4 months I've reviewed close to 70% of the source code of the core product in great detail; which was necessary for me to create the modules that I have, it is one of the better organized and well written products that I've worked with.

Part of using the product sucessfully is identifying what modules have matured enough to rely on them; and only using those modules. Being cautious of 3rd party modules that claim to do things that sound "too good to be true". A few of the core modules are lacking in functionality, but the framework is solid and well written 3rd party modules are available. Writing my own modules, I know I can trust them.

The learning curve for understanding how to use DotNetNuke is high, higher than most people would think - too many people dive into a product and feel that they should be able to 'get it' with a few days of fiddling around. The key is in not fiddling, but asking people who know. It took me months of my life to get to the productivity level that I am now - but I can now do things that I would never be able to do with dreamweaver - like not only being able to sit down with someone and walk them through setting up a website very effeciently, but also providing them with a whole suite of event registration, tandem reservation, and account management tools... as easy as adding modules to a content pane.

How long ago was it that you looked at DotNetNuke? There was an issue on 2000 servers running IIS5 and the 1.0 framework that cause the application to stop prematurely; perhaps that is the senario that caused your wait times.

If you're still interested in using a content management system for www.coloradoskydivingleage.com, email me at [email protected] and I can get a portal set up for you to use.

Matt Christenson

[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.

[Digitalmafia 0]

DotNetNuke sucks for all the obvious reasons - bloat...code and db. Ya, you can make it work...But I do see why you would choose it and I would like to compliment you on this effort you are undertaking to create something useful and (hopefully) profitable for the skydiving community. Cheers and good luck!

ps: Your website (www.realskydiving.com) needs mucho love and the Nav dosent render correctly in Firefox (it hops on roll over...BAD Js Script Bad...u must be a VB'er! :)

[Mr17Hz 1]

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ps: Your website (www.realskydiving.com) needs mucho love and the Nav dosent render correctly in Firefox (it hops on roll over...BAD Js Script Bad...u must be a VB'er! :)

I spent less than an hour putting that site together, I have been concentrating my efforts on the product and will update the site after I have more to talk about. Thanks for your comments.

Matt Christenson

[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.

[Digitalmafia 0]

Ah no offence man - I was just giving you some friendly coder sh*t ;). I wonder - are you building your model in a way that you can 'drop' different facades onto it for vertical markets? There are a lot of industries like skydiving that have heavy mom and pop support, but also have a group of whales. The Martial Arts community as well as several others genres come to mind-lots of small businesses, but a bunch of chains as well all using win98 pre .net software. Could benefit from monthly billing as well as one time (in the case of martial arts) belt test billing etc. I know, first hand, how difficult it is to build an app that can support multiple vertical markets but it would allow you to continue growing your company and leverage additional markets to benefit all of the individual verticals. Any thoughts? Cheers,
DM.

[Mr17Hz 1]

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I wonder - are you building your model in a way that you can 'drop' different facades onto it for vertical markets?

No, I have no intention of targeting any vertical markets other than the skydiving industry; I may however indent on taking small parts of what I’ve done and making DotNetNuke modules for the general public that could be applied to various industries; but I won’t be targeting any one group. I may also make the source for those components available to another company for them to “shrink wrap”, support, and update it. At this time none of this is scheduled; as its profitability is low and my passion exists only in the skydiving component of the work.

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There are a lot of industries like skydiving that have heavy mom and pop support, but also have a group of whales. The Martial Arts community as well as several others genres come to mind-lots of small businesses, but a bunch of chains as well all using win98 pre .net software. Could benefit from monthly billing as well as one time (in the case of martial arts) belt test billing etc.

Breaking into a vertical industry is a very expensive thing to do, unless you know and gain the trust of people in that industry, which is something that can only happen over time. My ability to work in the Skydiving industry has been made possible by various small jobs that I’ve done for a handful of companies over the last few years while I was working full time with another company. All of these jobs are things that I put my heart into because of my passion for the industry. I have no interest in Martial Arts – and so I couldn’t put my heart into the work.

RealDropzone represents a very significant investment on my part; I walked away from a salary that was more than three times what I expect to see over the next few years, this is a long term investment for me. After RealDropzone is completed and tested, I have plans to bring the Skydiving Industry into a new marketing era with commission based Pay-Per-Lead online advertising capabilities, and B2B order services.

Commission based Pay-Per-Lead advertising pays advertisers only when a user actually signs up for an account and makes a purchase. Purchases will be made directly on the dropzones website, however advertisers who are proven (by RealSkydiving’s B2B hub) to have drawn that user to the site then make a percentage of all purchases that user makes at that dropzone for a set period of time, usually 12-18 months.

This type of advertising is attractive for a few reasons:

• Dropzones only pay for advertising that has absolutely made them money.

• Advertisers are paid based on success, not exposures, and so they are more likely to place ads in places where demographics show them more success. Dropzone’s can pay significantly more than the average site because purchases are usually in excess of $180, dwarfing the commissions made on things like books (if advertised correctly).

This is the type of advertising that’s used in many big businesses like the hotel and travel industries, as well as big ecommerce sites.

The reason it is not widely spread is because the software necessary to track purchases all the way from the users original entry point to the website is advanced, and not available to most small businesses or companies.

Advertisers are vulnerable in that service and retail shops could lie about sales and never pay Advertisers.

To further complicate this, there is no perfect science to tracking users, advertisers need to assume that a certain percentage of the leads they made will not be reliably tracked. This is due to privacy settings that some people use on their browsers. Using default settings – if you follow a link and then leave, but then go back to the site 5 weeks later and sign up and make a purchase, a cookie is able to provide that advertiser with the lead, however if a different computer is used, or persistent cookies are cleared – there is no way to track it.

The way this issue of trust is usually handled is by a 3rd party (In this case, RealSkydiving, Inc.) who gains the trust of advertisers by showing them results from an entire user group that is in the same vertical industry (requiring similar demographic studies)

This kind of advertising tied into a product like RealDropzone is what will allow even small dropzones to have companies like Travelocity or Ticketmaster or Myspace or YouTube or Google selling goods at $15 commission per sale, using their demographics to present ads to regional users who are the most likely to make the purchase.

In the future, dropzone’s won’t have to try to think of new innovative ways to bring in clients through online means because they will have marketing giants doing it for them to make the commission. And guess what – no unethical business practices need to take place for this to work. Customers won’t show up and find out they’ve paid ridiculously inflated prices because they’re paying the prices the dropzone charges everyone.

Advertisers will be working as brokers but will never actually see the customer’s money, because the customer purchases directly from the business – instead the Advertiser just gets the commission check. This means dropzones are responsible for their own customer support and so brokers don’t have the possibility of passing on a negative customer experience.

See where I’m going here? This stuff is way more interesting than targeting multiple vertical industries, but the first step to making it happen is getting a user group together who run a software product capable of this kind of account tracking: A system that completely integrates web based reservations and event registration with user accounts and manifesting. If I can show *this* to the big dogs in online marketing, the entire skydiving industry will benefit greatly by a fresh stream of new blood, who will all walk away with positive experiences. I’m betting every penny I have on it.

Matt Christenson

[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.