Great idea, kudos. Here are some random thoughts, as I'm totally part of your target audience:
• There are people/couples/friends who avidly hike on their own, on a regular basis, and then there are people who want to hike, but are novices and/or seldom get around to it. The latter group is something like 10x the size of the former. I'd encourage you to reach out to them.
• Meetup is AFAIK the only game in town when it comes to finding other hikers/groups and it totally sucks. Meetup is about 'joining' and 'persistent groups' and mailing lists and discussion boards and...a lot of crap. People just want to hook up with other hikers, easily see who they're dealing with in terms of experience and potential flakiness (big issue in my experience) and plan a trip.
• For people looking for information to use in planning their own trip, the ability to download GPS data shared by previous hikers could be great.
Comments
Great idea, kudos. Here are some random thoughts, as I'm totally part of your target audience:
• There are people/couples/friends who avidly hike on their own, on a regular basis, and then there are people who want to hike, but are novices and/or seldom get around to it. The latter group is something like 10x the size of the former. I'd encourage you to reach out to them.
• Meetup is AFAIK the only game in town when it comes to finding other hikers/groups and it totally sucks. Meetup is about 'joining' and 'persistent groups' and mailing lists and discussion boards and...a lot of crap. People just want to hook up with other hikers, easily see who they're dealing with in terms of experience and potential flakiness (big issue in my experience) and plan a trip.
• For people looking for information to use in planning their own trip, the ability to download GPS data shared by previous hikers could be great.
Best of luck!
I agree completely with the GPS data. I love backpacking/hiking and the ability to grab GPS data from previous hikers is pretty crucial for me.
Adding a level of credibility to a Meetup-esque trip planning site is brilliant!
Look for this soon :)