I am trying to do a little market research to see if an app idea is viable. I want to create an app that would allow guides to book clients, track revenue, take payments on there phone, keep track of trips, see when they have people booked, and pretty much track their guide business through. The point of the app would be it being DEAD simple to use. It would be part of another app that would connect fisherman with other guides. The other app will drive a lot of traffic to the guides. It would be a monthly subscription service for $10-$20 a month. Sort of like fishbooker.com but we wouldn't take money out of your guide fee if you do book through us. Plus you could even use it for booking people in person. It would also give your clients the added confidence of having a deposit in escrow. They don't show, you get the money. You don't show, it gets refunded to them.

Would this be an app that guides would like to use? What features in the app would make or break if you would use it?

I just happen to be a guy that loves fishing and programming. So I was hoping I could combine the two.

I just use fishingbooker. It's alot of money for what you get out of it but they have it down pretty well.

There is always room for competition ... one of the draw backs is competition from other guides in a big place like that, that has a lot of guides. I like your ap idea though, anything you can do to make a guides life easier is always welcomed. There are currently other options for them like using paypal and venmo. bringing it all together with a calendar is great.. maybe make it where they can quickly export 2-3 months of openings in a table format that they could post on facebook or social media where a prospect could click on the date and book it and put down the deposit. Many guides already take deposits, if they don't they should. Andy is right though, you will be going up against fishing booker, but like I said, there is always room for competition, there are still a lot of guys out there that aren't using fishing booker that still need a way to simplify things... go for it.

Thanks guys. We definitely have some things that will set us apart from fish booker. I don�t want to spill all the beans just yet. But, one of the big ones is helping guides run there business and giving them easy and simple means to do it. We want to give all the tools of fishbooker plus a lot more and not force you to pay when you book through us or force to book customers through our website. Simply press a button on the app and it sends a deposit request and date confirmation text/email to your client. The client doesn�t need to use our app. Things like that.

I am all about technology, entrepreneurial spirit and of course fishing!

You really need to map out your processes, operationally and most importantly financially. If you are looking to hold the deposits, then you are taking on risk. There is also a need for a gateway to handle the merchant services which costs money. You take in a deposit say, $100, the merchant services is taking approximately 3.5% or $3.50 per deposit. Who eats this? Then you still have to move the money to the guide upon settlement of the trip. This isn't free either. What's the trigger mechanism for the deposit to move to the guide? As a customer, perhaps the idea of having an independent party hold the deposit is marketable but, as a guide, why would one want a third party in the middle of their business? Any guide that doesn't refund a deposit based on their own refund policy will get a bad reputation for not refunding. It seems self policing unless a guide wants to go out of business.

I am only bringing up one point and there are many more.

Thank you for your input! I am not uneducated in the ins and outs of everything that needs to happen. I didn�t post my business plan on here because that seems very unnecessary. It�s not my first business. Costs have been accounted for and processes have been mapped. I just really was hoping to talk to some guides about things they would think could make there life easier. Thanks again for your input!

Good input above though.. maybe you can make it like Venmo does it where it syncs their account wheather its paypal or whatever and the clients can just send the guide money, most the guides I know would be fine with 2-3% fees.. it's the clients that no show because there wasn't a deposit, those are the ones that sting. 3$ and a client shows up, i'd give you a five dollar bill. Don't sweat the small stuff, just communicate the cost if thats what it takes to get it to work right.

Hard to believe this post was from 2018. We launched our iPhone app and still waiting on android approval. So, I'll answer some of the questions from before. In order to compete with Fishing Booker, we took a drastic angle. Everything is free for the guides. I'll give you a quick run-through of the app.

• You can book one of your clients by taking down their name, email, and phone number.
• Input the relevant trip information. Meeting location, trip date, deposit amount, trip amount, etc.
• A text message is sent to your client with an invoice for them to pay on their phone.
• Money is routed directly to your bank account.

Now we took kind of the Airbnb model here. We make money through a service fee that will be paid for by your client. That's about $25 on a $500 trip or $40 on a $1,000 trip. This amount is attached as a line item on the invoice. Most people we tested were fine with this fee and we got very little negative feedback. In the future, we intend to add a button that lets you choose if you want to eat the fee or pass it along to your customer. Our fee is $10 per trip. The rest is the credit card processer.

You also have the ability to accept cash for the bulk of a trip instead. But the deposit is paid for through the app with a credit/debit card.

So instead of charging an arm and a leg in booking fees because we book a few of your trips a month, we intend to help book all your trips for a much smaller fee. Free.

That's the mobile app. We also have a website Anglerr.com that lets people come and book trips while you are out working. It's tied into the mobile app so it helps automate more of the process and requires less time from you. Automatically give your clients meeting locations, what they need to bring, meeting time, etc.

We literally just launched so we don't have any guides yet aside from the ones we knew personally. I would love to get a few signed up so we can start getting more feedback. Let me know if anyone is interested.

This short animation explains the features as well.