In Search of a Good Idea

(Unfortunately the article doesn't include a diagram, so I'll point you to one: http://www.ccfplus.com/wp-content/uploads/plc.png)

The cycle can be applied to products, industries, and even individual companies. It seems like you're at just about the maturity stage of the cycle, meaning that growth has slowed and new customers won't be coming as quickly.

I'm not sure I can help specifically, but many product life cycle graphs also include an 'innovation' stage, which occurs either at maturity or decline, and essentially restarts the growth stage. (http://blog.cestudios.ca/images/innovation-product-life-cyc....)

If you think that this cycle applies in your situation, then it's time to innovate. I think moving to Europe is a good idea. It's basically the same product to a new branch of customers. Eventually the new geographic segment well will dry up, and you'll have to look at other ways to innovate. What new products does your existing market base want? Do you have a decent grasp of who your typical customers are? Would they be willing to use a subscription-based app (good source of recurring revenue)?

Another angle to investigate is sponsorship by certain parks and trails. Would the local parks and rec office be willing to promote community hikes through your website and iPhone app? A great thing you have going for you is location-awareness. You know that users who are searching for trails in a specific area either are or plan to be there sometime soon. As they are searching, future events could show up on the maps. Where is most of your web traffic coming from? You could even promote hiking safety or kids hiking events, depending on your audience.

I congratulate you on your success so far - In fact, I envy you. You've found a way to combine two things that you enjoy and turn it in to a business. Keep up the good work. Good luck!

1) The psychographics for hikers and environmentalists have a bit of overlap. I think if you could provide some kind of geographically aware donation platform through the phone and the site you could do well, or at least good. Maps and location are compelling ways to get disparate related pieces of information into one view. In this case it would be threats to a given piece of land, and organizations working to protect that same land. I would imagine folks might be feeling a bit more charitable after experiencing nature's majesty first hand.

2) Good country walks, not quite hikes more like a couple hours in the woods with the dogs, are hard to find without a good deal of local knowledge. This would mean a lot of research into small land trusts.

3) Based on the massive number of catalogues I get from companies catering to, uh, "sportsmen" there are a huge number of gadget obsessed hunters and fishermen out there (or at least aspirational hunters and fishermen) with money to spend. Find a way to reach them.

Godspeed sir.

Seems like your product might be in a good position to get some local advertising revenue. There are probably lots of smaller independent businesses that cater to hikers and would love to boost their traffic. Spend some time talking with them.

UPDATE: Perhaps collect some information regarding the most frequently accessed locations on your maps and target businesses in that area.

Now about going beyond ramen... I agree with dkokelley, you may already have squeezed all the money there is to be squeezed from hiking Internet and mobile applications.

Some ideas:

1) Do you have a "Everything Else" section in your hiking forum? What non-hiking activities do people talk about most often in the forum? There may be some leads there.

2) You are located in Truckee, near Lake Tahoe (lucky!). Can you branch out with some app/forum/whatever for skiers or snowboarders?

Finally, I have to say that the "making money from the thing I love" bit set off some alarms. My gut feeling is that there may not be enough "muck" in the hiking market. It looks a lot like the music-making apps market.

I used to read the Kvraudio website and there were always these horror stories of developers crashing and burning -- guys that start out with a love of music and computers and get the idea of "turning their hobby into a business." Then they spend untold hours creating their programs, but the buying market is just not there. So, they get almost no sales, get their software cracked, etc etc.

So, my recomendation number 3 would be:

3) Try to make money from something you hate.

Obligatory PG reference: http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html

Hope this helps... Best of luck!

They probably already pay to have paper maps produced - you could provide a web based interface for them to update & maintain their maps. Town, state & regional tourism authorities are other markets.

You might need a Lite version of your app which only includes the info they pay to include (and you could offer branded versions specific to each agency)

Anyway, I think that now you have consumer buy-in, you need to look to sell to businesses to increase your profits to the point you are looking for. The sales cycle to sell to businesses is a lot longer, but fortunately the fact that you already have consumer users will help with your sales.

Start with some fresh blood on your board.

You mention that you're selling individual features of Gaia GPS as standalone less-expensive apps. Have you considered selling just one Gaia GPS app (with in-app-purchases to support different feature/price configurations). This will make the app more discoverable to current users as well as new users (current users who want an upgrade can do an in-app purchase easily from within the app, new users will find it easier to discover your app because the combined sales will improve the app's ranking). This will also be convenient to users (who might need to buy two different Gaia GPS apps today)

Btw you may want to consider enabling blog comments on your website. You may get more comments from more people that way.

And what do they think you should do?

Current customers are often an excellent resource for your business planning. Have you found out what sets their hair of fire?