We do a quarterly update on how things are going with RunSignUp (2016, Q1/17, Q2/17, Q3/17, 2017, Q1/18, Q2/18, Q3/18, and 2018). The good news is that more races, timing companies, running stores and runners continue to recommend us. And we keep putting out great technology our customers seem to like!
RunSignUp Numbers
Our numbers were great for Q1 with 17% growth of races (on a very large number of races!), 17% growth in # of registrations and 22% growth in total transaction dollars. The growth is coming from more of all size races as well as major race series like Rugged Maniac moving to the market leading RunSignup platform.
Gross Profit is actually the most important since it is how we pay our people and Amazon costs and for the year we are up. Gross profit was up about 21% compared from Q1 of last year due to the above increases in races and registrations.
RunSignup People
We continue to grow the team, as you may have noticed from the various “Help Wanted” and “Welcome” posts over the past few months. Our account management team has grown with the additions of Lewis, Emily and Sean. Our sales team has grown with the addition of Flynn. Our development team has grown with the addition of Alyssa working on nonprofit technology. Val has also gone full time in our support team. We have another new developer starting on Monday as part of the RaceDay Scoring team and another developer joining our UX team in June. We also have 7 interns this summer – providing RunSignup and our customers great value, as well as helping to provide good jobs and introductions into the work world for some talented college students. Hopefully some of them go on to be full time employees when they graduate.
Our goal is to keep investing in our technology and customer support to make sure we continue to earn your trust and stay ahead of our growth.
Education
We continue to invest in helping our community learn from each other. The big events for us in Q1 were the sold out Timer Certifications we held in Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco and Orlando in January where over 240 timers were certified in RaceDay Scoring and RaceJoy. Additionally we held a sold out virtual certification session in March with another 30 timers being certified. The next chance is our Symposium in July.
RaceTrends – our annual compilation of statistics and data-based recommendations for the industry is the largest accumulation of data in the endurance community.
Top 100 – We are now compiling the industry list for the Top 100 road races in the USA.
Race Registration Market Analysis – This is our bi-annual statistical compilation of what is happening with registration vendors.
Viral Social Marketing Webinar and Resource Page have practical suggestions for how to grow your race.
Processing Fee Elasticity – We share thoughts on how to increase your revenue or pay for your timer fees by leveraging the ability to increase processing fees for your race.
Case Studies – We have 9 leading race organizations share their key success factors in extensive case study interviews. You are guaranteed to learn something from these leaders.
Why RunSignup – Ok, this is a bit of self promotion. But it does boil down the reasons we hear from customers on why they are choosing RunSignup.
RunSignUp Technology
Of course the primary thing that our customers use each day is our technology. You can see the graphic representation of what is happening on the RunSignup website by looking at our realtime map and seeing the activity! Here are some highlights of Q1 releases.
Custom Race Dashboards – races can now customize what reports and metrics they are tracking on their dashboard with “Quick Cards” and time series graphs.
With a ton of options:
New Vertical Menu Race Template – We automatically upgraded over 10,000 race websites one morning this past quarter – making them more modern with zero effort on the part of the race directors.
More Multi-race Bundle Features – This has been a real boon to races, and we keep adding features to make it easy and simple to grow your races.
Nonprofits
With the addition of Alyssa and Bret, we keep adding more and more features for nonprofits. RunSignup is becoming the standard way for nonprofits to signup and raise money in one easy to use platform for their walks, runs and rides. We have some creative ideas for donation levels and the ability to add images to donation descriptions. Improvements for fundraising events include the ability to set default fundraising goals for fundraisers who don’t set their own and the option for a race director to grant co-captain access to a fundraising team. And we recently added a feature to randomize charities on checkout.
Here is an overview on why over 7,000 nonprofits use RunSignup today:
What’s Coming in Q2?
BYO Domain Race Websites – We will be extending our free race websites so you can use your own domain name. For example, MyRace.com, rather than runsignup.com/MyRace. We will be doing all of the SSL management and security for you. You will get to take advantage of our data-driven realtime websites as well as our simple content and menu management all for free. No more sending people back and forth between your website and a registration website and results website. No more spending $300 per year on managing your own SSL. No more running to your web hosting company asking why it isn’t working, or how to change information on a page (for a bunch of $$$). Real control for you and real data and information for your participants, fundraisers, donors and volunteers.
Race Website Cover Pages – You will be able to create a highly stylized and custom front page for your race website. If you have high design goals, you will not be stuck with our Race Info default page. In addition, we will be providing mechanisms to select your own customer registration paths. For example, you will be able to create a button on your cover page that helps guide the registrant to create a fundraising page (or not), join a team (or not or maybe even create a team). These custom calls to action will provide more power for you to market your events, and an easier experience for your participants.
Nonprofit Early Adopter Program – We are going to be releasing some very exciting technology for nonprofits at our Symposium in July. We are going to roll out an early adopter program in May that will allow for some nonprofits customers to get early access to the technology. We actually have a couple of customers using some of these new features now, but will allow more and more customers to have access as we build up the robustness of this nonprofit offering. But we aren’t quite ready to tell you yet what those features are – shhhhhh – they are secret!
Thanks again to all of our customers who continue to support us with great ideas, feedback and support.