RV App Market Research

[MapNerd]

Neal’s story about getting in a bind while driving in unfamiliar territory spurred me to seriously look into doing something that is frankly a good bit of work, but something I have been hemming and hawing about doing since I started looking for a good RV navigation app - creating one. The first step to any good project is a little market research. Last night I started putting together the capabilities and features I thought no single app or solution did a great job of providing in a single place. Then, based on what it would cost me to deliver those capabilities, I split the capabilities across three account tiers; Basic, Standard and Premium.

Basic (Free, possibly Ad Supported)

• Point A to Point B routing with basic user configurable routing constraints by vehicle height, width, and weight, as well as settings to avoid tolls and avoid ferries (Limited to 3 routes per day)
• Campground locator - to include parks from @turbopilot’s Premium Parks Map
• Fuelstop locator - possibly with a TSDLogistics integration if that can be done
• Rest Area locator
• Return to Home
• 2 Basemaps (Streets and Satellite)
• Distress Beacon - Users can issue a distress beacon within the app which will send an push notification to all other app users within a 200 mile range of the user that sent the signal.

Standard ($/month, or $$/year no ads)
Includes everything in Basic, plus:

• Multistop routing (up to 10 stops) with standard user configurable routing constrains by vehicle height, weight, width, length, number of axles and axle weight. No limit to number of routes per day.
• Nearby attractions locator
• Service and Dealer locator
• Submit and read place reviews
• Save locations to favorites
• Additional basemaps (Topographic, Night Streets, Night Satellite, OpenStreetMap, USGS)
• Dark Theme with support for Automatic Theme switching based on time of day
• Harvest Hosts locator - if possible

Premium ($$/month or $$$/year, no ads)
Includes everything in Basic and Standard, plus:

• Multi-stop routing with standard, basic and below advanced routing constraints
  • Set a time window to be used for routing by which you need to arrive at each stop​
  • Restrict or permit U-Turns​
  • Optimize Route by Time or Distance​
  • Multi-language directions​
  • Specify which side of the vehicle should be adjacent to the curb on approach for each stop​
  • Specify whether or not to prefer major highways and roads over arterial and residential streets​
  • Prohibit routing on Hazmat Prohibited Roads​
  • Avoid Carpool Roads​
  • Avoid Express Lanes​
  • Avoid Limited Access Roads​
  • Avoid Private Roads​
  • Avoid Toll Roads​
  • Avoid Truck Toll Roads​
  • Avoid Truck Restricted Roads​
  • Use preferred Truck Routes​
• Route optimization - Reorder stops to achieve fastest total route or shortest total distance
• Scheduled Routes with Time to Depart Reminders
• Create, Share and consume custom application themes
• Additional Basemaps (Colored Pencil, Antique, Nova, National Geographic, etc.)
• Live Traffic
• Change vehicle icon
• Detailed campground maps with site numbers where possible
• Add and save private locations
• Track route and export to GPS or Shapefile
• Support for high accuracy external GPS receivers
• Logbook for tracking service, maintenance and repairs
• Desktop trip planning app (MacOS & Windows)

Now, all of the above is spitballing. If I were to take this on, I’d start with just the barebones app which would default everyone to a ‘Basic’ user for free. Capabilities for Standard and Premium features would be added in future releases and one would just need to upgrade their account to unlock those features in the app. i would not handle any payment data directly. We’d probably use PayPal, Square or another well known payment solutions provider for that.
The application would be supported on iOS and Android and would be a native application, not a web or hybrid application. I would not support CarPlay or Android Auto initially but I would consider putting it on the product roadmap.

My question to this group is, what kind of user would you be (Basic, Standard or Premium) and are there features or capabilities that you would like to see, or some that you wouldn’t use or care for? What would need to be added to get your support?

I can’t make any promises at this time as to what would be included or even whether or not I will create the app as I need to hear the feedback first and look into feasibility of whatever comes back at me.

 

[TJ&LadyDi]

It would depend on the ease of use once I got my hands on the app. Everyone has a different idea regarding "easy to use." It would have to be "dinosaur friendly" for me.

What would be a non-starter for me is a monthly fee. I don't mind paying for a good product, but I'd rather pay a lump sum rather than having a monthly credit card deduction. We've had some bad experiences with "automatic bill payments" and would not be interested in going there again.

TJ

 

[MapNerd]

It would depend on the ease of use once I got my hands on the app. Everyone has a different idea regarding "easy to use." It would have to be "dinosaur friendly" for me.

What would be a non-starter for me is a monthly fee. I don't mind paying for a good product, but I'd rather pay a lump sum rather than having a monthly credit card deduction. We've had some bad experiences with "automatic bill payments" and would not be interested in going there again.

TJ

User interface design and experience are things I focus extremely heavily on when building a product. No crap leaves the shop. I will certainly put some mock-ups up here and get feedback on the design and flow if I decide to take it on.

I can appreciate the distaste for a subscription model as well. If there was a way to avoid it, I would. It just costs a lot to license the data, pay for the servers and bandwidth and storage and all of those costs are recurring. A flat fee model would mean that eventually, any profit would be lost and ultimately I would lose money on a venture.

Do the free features sound enticing enough though? Ads would never be obnoxious, blocking or to as best I could control them, distasteful.

 

[TJ&LadyDi]

Yes, the proposed "free features" do sound enticing and I appreciate the commitment to turning out an excellent product. And, I do understand the "recurring costs" issue. A moderate level of tasteful ads would not concern me.

My larger concern would be that I would want to financially support a good product, but monthly subscription fees would make that difficult. A renewable annual subscription might work for us.

Just remember, we are probably not the "normal" target audience. In fact, I don't think anyone has ever referred to me as "normal."

TJ

 

[MapNerd]

@TJ&LadyDi, a renewable annual subscription could certainly be done and offer a decent discount for that as well.

 

[jmltech]

I like the features described for each tier, but the price point on the premium level would be too high for me. I wouldn’t be on the road that much to justify the monthly cost.

the Distress beacon is intriguing. I can just picture being swatted by 10 class A’s surrounding me trying to help. “Sir, step away from that sewer hose!”

but in seriousness, it does sound like an interesting endeavor.

 

[J&JD]

I wouldn’t mind paying a monthly fee for a really solid Ap. And using PayPal would allow me to stop/start payments without the fear @TJ&LadyDi has for automatic payment as it is easy to do in PayPal. Sounds interesting if the program was primarily driven as Rv based.

 

[Neal]

I wouldn't set out out price points at this time nor should anyone worry about it. Build your dream, see how the app turns out. It needs traction up front then you can worry about pricing later. You can cover yourself stating "introductory pricing" but again, I wouldn't advertise any pricing, right now it's time to build your app first.

 

[MapNerd]

I wouldn't set out out price points at this time nor should anyone worry about it. Build your dream, see how the app turns out. It needs traction up front then you can worry about pricing later. You can cover yourself stating "introductory pricing" but again, I wouldn't advertise any pricing, right now it's time to build your app first.

This is a good point. Standard and Premium tiers will certainly cost *something* but the number is completel undetermined and will be based on costs incurred to deliver the capabilities. I’ve revised it a bit to remove exact numbers.

 

[MapNerd]

I like the features described for each tier, but the price point on the premium level would be too high for me. I wouldn’t be on the road that much to justify the monthly cost.

the Distress beacon is intriguing. I can just picture being swatted by 10 class A’s surrounding me trying to help. “Sir, step away from that sewer hose!”

but in seriousness, it does sound like an interesting endeavor.

The distress beacon idea for me was that it’s better to have 10 RVs around than none. There would be no emergency service notification for the exact reason you mention - swatting. It’s more for an “I broke down can someone swing by and lend a hand” type situation,
It would be a multi step process to trigger a distress beacon, they would automatically expire after a user specified amount of time, your location would be shared with other users along with a message you defined and a receiving user could indicate they are ‘responding’ so that 10 RVs don’t go out of their way to lend assistance.