In spite of requests, Let’s Do This (LDT) insists on scraping our list of races and publishing them on their website.
They are a competitive registration platform to RunSignup, and seem to have several strategies that are likely not leading to success, and we have deep concerns about anyone having any sense there is any association between our organizations.
Stated simply, we have absolutely no connection with LDT and bear no responsibility for any publications LDT puts out, and want no involvement in races who use LDT.
Here are our primary concerns:
LDT Financial Stability
LDT has to report financials and other company events in the UK. Here are screenshots of recent filings showing yearly losses of £ 9 Million in 2023 after a loss of £ 15 Million in 2022. Their own auditors came to this conclusion:
We want to make clear we have nothing to do with them since we have seen many train wrecks in the past where companies like Race partner went out of business suddenly and race directors were left with many unpaid transactions (ask Lee Corrigan).
Here are the other key financials:
Said another way, we have 50% market share in the US (which is equal to the rest of the world market, so we have about 25% of worldwide race participants signing up on RunSignup) and if we racked up losses like this, we would never be able to pay the investors back. LDT has losses that we have no idea how a registration vendor could ever pay off without getting 100% market share and having huge price increases.
Trying to Be a Marketplace
They have a similar strategy to Eventbrite – to be a Marketplace. Where they sell advertising and lists from one race to another. They lead with their brand rather than the race brand. They put their logo (and ugly yellow) at the top. They list other races on their platform at the bottom (often populated with RunSignup lists, which is one of the things that upsets us that customers think we are involved).
The reality is that the race should be the center of attention and the race’s data should be the race’s data that they choose to share when and how they want. Race Marketing is better than a Marketplace – there is no free lunch of participants.
Eventbrite’s Marketplace strategy is proving the failure of this strategy as witnessed by their latest quarter.
Data Issues
Over the years when timers try to get data out of LDT to score races, they have reported many issues. This creates a lot of overhead for the race and participants. Timers are put in stressful situations. We see this because many timers use our tools to provide a great race day experience. In many ways, we would ask a race to not use RunSignup tools on Race Day because of these issues.
Summary
First, hopefully this blog makes perfectly clear we have no affiliation with LDT. We can not get your races delisted as we have tried.
Yes, LDT is paying big money up front to win races. But make sure you know the real costs over the long run.