Discussion: Cancelled

With at least some sadness, Get Lost!! will not put on events in the foreseeable future, for the sole reason that they are not financially sustainable and there is not a way that we know to make them so.

Could you publish your expense/earnings summaries? For future entrepreneurs.

I'm not sure I want them public, for the sole reason that I haven't been great at keeping records and nobody else would do that, and I wouldn't want conclusions to be generated based on incorrect data.

But the summary is that Street Scramble breaks even with about 150 attendees, and a rogaine with about 100 (regardless of duration) with the fees that we charged. This is because Street Scramble (practically) requires an indoor event center for a quality participant experience.

These numbers assume that you don't pay for making the map. No events for which we had to pay for mapping were positive, and I don't know how to make one positive. The only way we had positive events was if we made the maps ourselves.

I never thought I'd say it, but maybe there is value in an MBA...

Actually, still not so sure.

Geez...you don't need an MBA or high finance to set up a realistic budget, and then have the discipline to stick to it.

I assume T/D has done so with planned GetLost! events, and found they only break-even at best, with no compensation for his personal expenses and time. I join him in his feelings of sadness.

Things were OK in the beginning, and downhill from there. Some of that was our mistakes, most of that was the general turn of the public towards heavily marketed artificial formats, to compete with which we didn't have the financial firepower.

We set out to serve the public, after all, not the diehards. When we started to spend the most of our time on regular orienteering events, I knew it was time to pull the plug. The diehards should be well served by the orienteering clubs. Or not. Regardless, they don't need us.

However I might remind folks that making GetLost! a viable reality has been T/D's dream for at least twenty years. When he was awarded USOF's prestigious Silva Award in 2006 the Citation read in part:

...the thing that makes Vlad's initiative so exceptional and worthy of recognition is the personal time and expense he puts into this. Vlad lives in the Bay Area, but in these instances (which have been far from California), he flies to the meet site beforehand on his own time and money, camps near the map to do and facilitate technical work for the meet, etc. Vlad is very quality oriented with these meets; for example -- taking more time than most to make sure of the map print quality, etc. He has the technical skill to do things right, the quality orientation to want to do things right, and the personal dedication to the sport to make sure these things happen.

Vlad has often said he favors professionalism over volunteerism, but he certainly puts out more as a volunteer on this than most, while providing a model of how professionalism might work. While one may disagree with Vlad's opinions on this, one cannot disagree with the quality orienteering opportunities he has created....

heavily marketed artificial formats

you talking about these city scavenger hunts where one takes photos posing next to a dinosaur statue, or answers riddles that one finds on a the internet using a smartphone? They all start and end at a large bar/restaurant venue, btw...

Sorry to read of this, Vladimir. Still hope to see you around occasionally.

:-(

I was guessing he meant obstacle course racing. Permit fees are a rounding error for them.

There are many ways this thread could go......
A couple of observations from a North American that has been orienteering since 1976. These are general thoughts not necessarily applicable across the whole continent. I know there are pockets with great things happening - the Vancouver sprint camp for example, as I write. I think the two biggest hurdles we (and I am primarily talking about Canada and USA) face are 1) that 'technically', orienteering is a lot harder to explain and do than we admit. No you can't just 'pick it up' by attending a 1/2 day session, and this is a major hurdle we face in trying to attract people to our obscure sport; and 2) a large proportion of our clientele sees it as a recreational activity rather than a competitive sport. I believe that the combined result of both these things is that people are not willing to pay 'industry standard' entry fees. It's amazing the amount of money some amateur athletes will spend on equipment and entry fees for bike racing, downhill skiing, cross country skiing etc, yet we do not attract an equivalent clientele, willing to hand over these amounts. I also think to a certain degree we are our own worst enemy in that while we are great at (and love) things like course setting and mapping (check out the length of some of the threads here when the topic is how thick a certain line should be), we don't seem to have the interest or expertise in either the 'care and comfort' side of putting on meets (I mean races...); or the entrepreneurial skills around promoting the sport. How many times have you been to 'big' race in a relatively small NA city or town, and the locals have absolutely no clue it is even on. In contrast, I am presently in Portugal at the Portugal O Meeting - with about 2200 participants. Big Facebook presence leading up to the event; videos, results and pics posted almost immediately, Night sprint in the local village, sprint relay in a local resort area, one of the races is a WRE, articles in the local papers, local hotels know all about it, directional signs at every intersection. We face the above hurdles, without even touching on geography, land access and liability issues......

No, city scavenger hunts are on the way out, too. Mudders covered up the "tough" niche, it's all about paint, chocolate, and balloons now, at least around here. The scavenger hunts were at least partly a labor of love, but no labor of love can take on a venture capital-funded machine.

Again, our for-the-diehards events (aka "A-meets") were doing fine. Or mostly fine. I haven't pulled the permit applications for the Sprints in December, and may well put these on (with help from Rex and others), because it's fun for me, I don't have to take two unpaid weeks off work just to place the CPs, and there's not going to be a large hole in the family budget afterwards, if any. Run Black Diamond is a lot more effort, that's why I thought I should get it off the schedule.

Our failure was not being able to create events that would cross over from the diehards to the general public. The main reasons for that, in addition to the mudders and chocolates, were lack of close-by venues for rogaines and a boycott by the diehards. So, the experiment might do better in an area with different politics. It's been going well in Seattle for over a decade, but I hear it's not that stellar any longer, so the mudders and the chocolates must be the most significant reason, not the politics.

@Wonderful, no, permit fees wouldn't be a rounding error for a mudder in this area, they have MBAs in park offices, too. (Most mudders in this area take place on private property, but the few that are in parks certainly don't pay the minimum $250.) That's part of the reason we have to work hard with at least some of the parks (feds and state); we aren't particularly interesting to them with low numbers. As proof, the Coe permit was hinging on our ability to bring in more people.

...Our failure was not being able to create events that would cross over... to the general public...

I can't think of an area of the US where the "general public" has as high a concentration of tech-heads and smart Europeans as the San Francisco Bay Area. This is our typical O "audience." Do these intelligent people really turn their backs on map and compass events, to get smeared with mud or dusted with paint colors?

Perhaps as j-man's MBAs might say, we need to start thinking outside the box.

Tech-heads and smart Europeans have been tried for 40 years, hopefully at least the not-so-smart ones can see the brick wall ahead now. Need different people. Some not smart enough to expect their recreation to be served (by lessers) for the cost of ingredients.

@Ross Finishing a mudder may be thought of as a competitive accomplishment, but most don't even publish times. Paint and chocolate are obviously recreational ventures. Marketing something as a competitive race is clearly not the only way to make it financially sustainable.

Glad to hear that Sprint the Golden Gate may still be a possibility! It's a great event and I for one will do my best to attend as long as it continues.

This is very sad news. The 2013 Adventure Trex remains one of my favorite outdoor experiences. What would the entry fee have needed to be for the planned Henry Coe and Jackson DSF events to break even (assuming similar participation as 2013)? Paying 2 or 3x what you had charged in the past would still be a better deal for many local racers than traveling to distant venues. Thank you for all of your efforts!

T/D I suspect (and sincerely hope) that you were/are simply ahead of your time. In Canada we now have several clubs with paid coaches / managers running junior and other programs and I know both Orienteering Canada and OUSA have paid EDs. Orienteering Canada certainly pays for other professional tasks and I'm assuming OUSA does to. The orienteering community is moving more and more towards professionalism and we're seeing some events put on at a very high level now raising the bar for all to near-professional caliber levels.

I hope the time will come T/D when you can get back to putting on these kids of events and actually make some money at it!

The goal was never to make money; Get Lost!! is a nonprofit. While a small fraction of our participants can afford to pay significantly higher entry fees, most either can't or won't, and raising fees while we are already ridiculed for what we charge, sometimes publicly and aggressively so, is not going to work.

I have long been perplexed by how cheap our meet fees are compared to virtually any other kind of recreational activity, particularly when the meets require so much dedicated effort. Ours is an expensive sport to participate in, but all the cost is for travel and lodging. Equipment and entry fees are pretty trivial.

Is no one getting paid for their time? I understand that Get Lost!! is a nonprofit but that doesn't mean it needs to have unpaid staff. I would hope that the people putting in the professional hours could at least make some money for their time even if the organization itself can't.

If GetLost is a non-profit, how is it different from the incumbents?

...perplexed by how cheap our meet fees are...

I'm sure every A-meet Director has had the experience of being lectured by his local club members after asking them to pay $25-$30/day per person....to run in an event on the same map that they normally get for $5. And I've always struggled to justify the extra cost when confronted with this question.

They don't care about OUSA ranking points, awards, or that "rock stars" are coming from all over the US. They only see it on an "incremental cost" basis....25¢ for an offset map. Why pay more?

And supporting the club, or building the club's treasury beyond $1000 - $2000 is a hard sell too. That's the way it has been in Chicago. I suppose BAOC and the other northern California clubs experience the same resistance.

So in that environment I can see why GetLost! has struggled to make ends meet.

And yet the local club members will pay 2x an A meet fee to run a race on trails or roads they could do at any time for free!

I think there are a few factors at play that explain the various costs of events but I don't want to go into that here - it's all been done before.

I will say however that if people are complaining about the difference in cost perhaps we don't need to justify the high cost of A-events but should instead be justifying the low cost of local events.

There are lots of goods/services that sell for huge multiples of marginal cost, and many products that allow a similar bundle of attributes to be sold to different segments at widely divergent price points.

...building the club's treasury beyond $1000 - $2000 is a hard sell...

I am aware of at least two O-clubs with $10,000 in their bank accounts. Is that unusual?

...local club members ... pay $25-$30/day per person....to run in an event on the same map that they normally get for $5.

That is what recreational courses are for...

...and that is why O meets continue to be so cheap.

Our club philosophy when we put on an A-meet, is to use it as a training experience for everyone in the club; try to get everyone involved in some fashion. Develop some enthusiasm and synergy for those two days. We do not present recreational courses.

Instead we rope dozens of people into some volunteer activity: Start, Finish, Baby-sitting, parking, water jugs, making awards, PR, etc. So if a local shows up and doesn't want to volunteer, they must pay A-meet rates. Which gives them a taste of big-time orienteering.

Way to build good will, there, chi...

Ha ha! True...some folks that show up balk at the expense, and the A-meet remote starts, and....etc. And they choose to leave, perhaps never to come back.

Is that a real loss? I don't think so. It is a "club" after all. And shouldn't we work to develop that "club spirit?" Group participation and co-operation for instance? So you know you're a member of the club? That to me is the greatest payback of orienteering: the feeling of inclusion. And I don't think we promote that aspect of the sport very well.

I wish Randy would share some thoughts about this. I almost feel that I should channel him, but I will just grimace.

I wish Randy would share some thoughts about this. I almost feel that I should channel him, but I will just grimace.


I don't to the O thing anymore, but I'll try to oblige. I gladly pay $120 for a trail race, but eschew the $30 O experience, and if you don't understand why, you should do the same. How hard a request is that? There's nothing like actual market research, and it don't take no MBA to figure that one out, does it? (Isn't someone (not me, of course), paying six figures for this sort of intel?)

Instead, we outsource to people unqualified, and hope for the best. I could quote some perfectly appropriate Bad Religion lyrics, but what would be the point?


If GetLost is a non-profit, how is it different from the incumbents?


It failed. The incumbents didn't.

IMHO, It didn't understand the market, nor did it think like an economist. I don't think the incumbent did the latter either, but it certainly understands the former.

Well, there's more to write, but its all been written before, by me and others (get rid of interval starts, and improve the social experience (oh, btw, trail running has already done this, so why bother?). Call me stupid in the USOF board room. Call me stupid at the start line at USOF insured races, but in the end, to quote Forrest Gump, stupid is as stupid does.

Good luck to all of you.

You forgot to close your bracket.

If GetLost is a non-profit, how is it different from the incumbents?

We targeted the non-regulars. They are used to a higher standard of events. If you don't understand what I am talking about, visit your local trail run, a mudder, a chocolate thing, whatever.

So, we incur significantly larger costs to put on events, and materially higher fees than $10 to break even. The principals were never paid for anything, but some outside contractors were. The breakdown of the higher costs is safety, shirts, permits for prime areas, food, and promotion.

We were able to maintain the pace for a while; at least some degree of participation by the regulars would have been helpful, instead of a boycott, but not required if things were like they were in the 2000s before the mudders and the paint things. I think we understood the market pretty well, but with a lag; we were targeting the 2005 market in 2010, which worked OK, but shift both by three years and it no longer does.

Aside, I am perplexed by the persistent disinformation. We are a California nonprofit, have been for 7 years, the website never said anything to the contrary, and I never failed to stress that. Our goal is to spread the thing to the non-converts. Yet even now, the bulk of the regulars seem intent on thinking I am doing this to buy myself a house, or something. This sport is *ed, as someone said in private conversation.

The incumbents didn't

I'd wait until 2015 is over, or take a cursory scan of the incumbents' schedules.

Sorry, my question was rhetorical, as most of mine are.

FWIW, if we were doing a word association exercise, rather than "non-profit," the message I took away from GetLost's communication, to at least a subset of the marketplace, was "professional".

I'd rather be identified as "professional" than "non-profit." Not all would agree, and maybe I misheard the message...

All nonprofits that I deal with, outside this particular sphere, are professional. They have both professional paid staff and sometimes, quite professional unpaid volunteers (sometimes have volunteers, not that volunteers are sometimes professional and sometimes not). I am talking about universities, museums, Chambers of Commerce and visitors bureaus, and supragovernmental entities, to name a few. Right now in my other life I'm closely working with, among all things, a nonprofit business startup incubator.

And with little exception, nonprofits that are successful watch their bottom line very closely. This requires professional management, professional business administration, and professional promotion to expand the customer base and to keep the current base engaged.

I hate to do this, but the MBA thing, different skill sets, you know... Anyway, what is this "boycott"?

Should probably not touch this, but I did.

Right, and so if GetLost could deliver a professional non-profit, it would be a unique animal in this sphere.

We delivered 41 events as a professional nonprofit.

It is a "club" after all. And shouldn't we work to develop that "club spirit?"

In order to maintain a functional organization, yes; but...

When CAOC applied for tax exempt status under Section 501(c)(3), did their Form 1023 Part IV - Narrative Description of Your Activities include developing club spirit and/or feelings of inclusion?

Didn't think so.