u/wilderadventures

EDIT: I made a google form if you want to playtest, and I can contact you when a build is ready. Fill this out instead of DMing me, please

My son and I build games for fun in the evenings. I've got about 20 years software engineering experience, mostly in geospatial / public data backgrounds, and have built a few games in the past that are on various app stores. What started as a project to build a drivable map of our hometown has gotten a bit out of control...

Here's Hollywood boulevard and downtown LA at night. It's just as cool in a town of 50k population or a mountain road in Colorado. Sao Paulo is a trip.

If this post gets enough attention I'll put up a steam wishlist page and go all in.

Album of screenshots from various stages of development: https://imgur.com/a/TegkaMF

Went public with the app on New Year's Day and hit a big rush with some pricing model changes right as the summer camping season kicked off in May. New trials are starting to slow down with summer vacations coming to an end in the US, so I don't think our $7k/mo in ARR growth will continue but we'll see what it settles into.

The app currently only has US data, but I'm actively working on getting Canada ready for launch in the off season, and we may also take a swing at Europe before next Summer.

Still not running paid ads, ASO and SEO only, though arguably I have a budget to do so--I just don't want to light money on fire. At current growth rate, accounting for what I think the seasonality looks like heading into winter, this could probably start sustaining me full time next within a year or two if I can hang on to my market.

https://verified.revenuecat.com/dispersed

Needed to haul cargo for an expo we are exhibiting at so we said screw it and brought our inflatable kayaks and any other comforts we could fit in the trailer.

I dropped our monthly plans after seeing users cancel after a month only to resubscribe the next time they went camping. Had almost no effect on conversion rates, which confirmed my thought that even for a single trip the app delivers on its $29 annual price tag.

I also updated the app to push all new installs through an onboarding process that terminates in a paywall with a 7 day trial offer. Trial conversion rates are nearly 50%.

Almost all traffic is organic ASO and SEO through a marketing website which is structured as a directory of campground data in the app. I might try paid social again now that onboarding is fixed and LTV is much less complicated without all the monthly churn and resub.

The app is inherently seasonal, so we’ll see if it keeps pushing $6k+/month after the summer, but I’m stoked.

Day 7 of the first video, sitting at 588 subscribers and no sign of slowing down. My "main" channel took about 18 months to get that far. I'm just here to complain about how fickle the algorithm is. 1 hour of work vs probably 1,000 hours on the other. They are both good content, but damn.