Augmentra?s CEO on the Wainwright Guidebooks inspired app ViewRanger

Craig Wareham on Augmentra's mobile navigation app ViewRanger and the BBC Children in Need Rickshaw Challenge

Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your name and what do you do there at Augmentra?

CW: I?m Craig Wareham, co-founder and CEO.

SMP: When was the company (Augmentra) founded, how many people work there and how is the company funded?

CW: Augmentra, based in Cambridge UK, was an early pioneer in the mobile app market, having delivered its first apps shortly after being established in early 2006.  

There are currently eight people in the team, all passionate about the outdoors. The company is expanding and actively hiring. The business is privately funded including the support of several business angels.

SMP: Why did you and the cofounders start the company and what were your goals (and are you achieving them)?

CW: Mike Brocklehurst (co-founder and CTO) and I had worked for a number of visual computing technology companies and were looking for a new challenge. We were inspired by the classic Wainwright Guidebooks to the Lakeland Fells, which include hand drawn pictures and descriptions of each walk.  We wanted to create a digital equivalent that would provide navigation and a trail guide.

Mike was a keen and experienced hill walker and I was more of a guidebook-using gentle walker. We could see an opportunity to create a product that would appeal to both these types of users and had spotted early on the possibilities that mobile phones could have.

SMP: Briefly, tell us about the Augmentra product ViewRanger (for those that don?t know), what is it and what does ViewRanger do?

CW: ViewRanger is the app for adventure. We are building the leading digital app platform for outdoor activities worldwide.  

ViewRanger helps outdoor enthusiasts to plan, navigate, record and share their hikes, cycle rides, and other outdoor activity trips.

Our ViewRanger app combines sophisticated outdoor GPS navigation with a high quality guidebook that includes recommended walking and cycling routes.

The content for the guidebook is supplied by about 400 organisations including travel and guidebook publishers such as the AA, membership organisations like Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and tourist boards. Many routes are also created and shared by our passionate user community. All the content can be downloaded within the ViewRanger app.



SMP: Who are your target audience and why for ViewRanger?

CW: ViewRanger is aimed at anyone who wants to enjoy the outdoors.

The ViewRanger community is active worldwide and includes serious outdoor fanatics such as mountain climbers and explorers through to families and individuals who want to explore the countryside more leisurely.

We are also proud to say that many outdoor professionals including search and rescue teams, park rangers and other emergency response teams also use and trust ViewRanger.

SMP: What were the greatest challenges in creating and delivering the product (and sustaining it)?

CW: With more than 800,00 apps to choose from, consumers expect the best.  Achieving this level of quality involves a considerable investment both initially and in the longer term to keep up with enhancements in mobile software and hardware.

A further complication is that there is more than one app store. In addition to the Apple App Store there is also Blackberry, GooglePlay, Nokia, Samsung and several Windows stores.   For each, a different version of the app is required and then it needs updating at regular intervals to keep ahead of version changes and to add new features.  It is rare for a developer to have skills across all these platforms so you need different teams for each platform.

A key focus for us is maintaining a top-ranking position within the app stores. ViewRanger has achieved #1 status in over 20 territories, and is seeing its app download volumes rise by 50% month on month at the moment.  This top ranking position is critical to drive user download.

SMP: How did Augmentra get involved with the Children in Need Rickshaw challenge and how was the ViewRanger product useful?

The Rickshaw Challenge 2013 for BBC Children in Need was the most grueling yet and involved a team of young people pedaling through all four countries of the United Kingdom. It was the third time that ViewRanger had supported the challenge.

Team Rickshaw was provided with smartphones preloaded with the ViewRanger app so they could see where they were at all times, how fast they are going and how they had to pedal to the next rest break.

ViewRanger also supplied a dynamically updated map for the charity website which used location information taken from the app?s BuddyBeacon facility. The map allowed supporters at home to follow Team Rickshaw?s progress in real time. Local supporters could also see when the Rickshaw was arriving at the next location, so they could meet up and cheer them on in person.


SMP: What sort of data and journey did it share (and how can you improve in it next year)?

CW: The map showing Team Rickshaw?s location was continuously updated and linked to Twitter so that tweets and pictures appeared geo-tagged to the route. It was also possible to see the speed and distance travelled ? they cycled the equivalent of scaling Mount Everest.  

Next year it would be good to make more of the information available on the map in real time. We have a TripStory feature on ViewRanger that creates a pictorial record of the trip and it would be good to incorporate this.

SMP: How do you make sure that the journey of individuals and/or groups remain safe (from a privacy standpoint) and why is this important?

CW: ViewRanger includes a BuddyBeacon feature to give the user location ? it can be used when someone is walking by themselves in rough terrain or perhaps cycling in a group and there is a danger the group might get split up. This is an opt-in feature and the user sharing their location is in full control. They choose whether their journey is public or private. A user can also choose a ?PIN? to provide restricted access to their journey maps. This is all easily controllable within the app itself.

SMP: What are the low moments of what you have been doing so far?

CW: Gaining funding can be frustrating especially when you want to concentrate on building the business but need to take time out to focus on gaining finance, but it has however been worth the effort.

SMP: What are the high moments of what you have been doing so far?

CW: Winning awards is always gratifying, as it provides an independent endorsement of ViewRanger.  Just last month, we were chosen as a winner in the best communications product in the ISPO awards. ISPO are organisers of the outdoor industry?s biggest event. This was against international competition from hundreds of well-known brands.

Google Play has also selected ViewRanger as one of the best Apps of 2013 alongside BBC News, The Guardian and Trainline, so that was a good way to end the year.

On a more personal note, I get a real buzz from hearing from our users about their outdoor experiences and how ViewRanger helped them to enjoy their adventure even more.  

SMP: 12.What are the main social channels are you using, why and which are the most effective for Augmentra and ViewRanger?

CW: Facebook and Twitter @viewranger are the two social channels our community uses most to engage with us. It is a mix of general community interaction, user support, and keeping our community abreast of software updates, new trail guide content, etc.

We are planning to extend our engagement in 2014 with our community through these social channels, particularly developing communications in different languages.

We also have an active blog and we use this to tell our user?s adventure stories and share these with the wider ViewRanger community.

We are also continually improving the integration between ViewRanger app and other social platforms to make it easier for users to share maps of their adventures and trail guides to their social pages on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and more.
 
SMP: What sort of activity / engagement are you receiving across the social channels that you use and how do you create / sustain this?

CW: We provide regular email newsletters targeted to particular groups of users by their interest and also post regular updates on Facebook and Twitter. These activities have a good following and users are quick to provide feedback on new features and suggestions for improvements. This crowd sourced product input is extremely useful when priortising upgrades.

Our Facebook has about 7,000 likes and Twitter 3,000, but many users prefer to interact with us directly.   

SMP: What do you see as your biggest challenges and opportunities for the ViewRanger product and any others you build in this space?

CW: Upselling is both a challenge and a major opportunity. Users of ViewRanger appreciate the benefit of having quality topographical mapping on their phone, i.e. Ordnance Survey or SwissTopo depending on the country. They are the sort of people that probably would otherwise buy a paper map or guidebook and are prepared to make purchases via the app.

SMP: What is the most challenging part of building upon the Augmentra and ViewRanger brands presence in digital environments (including social media)?

CW: Building an online brand requires continual effort to keep everything current and updated. You also have to maintain a profile against the latest ?big thing?.


SMP: What?s going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media, social networks and/or technology for the next 12 to 18-months?

CW: There is increasing interest in the use of data to improve the user experience and we will also be focusing on this to personalise content. A retired couple in the Lake District is not going to share the same interest as 24-year-old mountain biker in Spain. Some of the data is explicit - they tick a box to indicate they have a particular interest such as kayaking or skiing ? other information is implicit. For example, if someone always chooses walks that take about two hours to complete they are unlikely to be interested in nine-hour hikes. We can use this type of information to improve their experience both within the app and also on the ViewRanger community, which is where people often manage their downloads.  The type of content that is most likely to be relevant will be at the top.
 
SMP: What are your top five predictions for social media for the next 12 to 18-months?

CW replies with:

1. Emergence of apps that use data collected for one purpose in a new way
2. More localised information. What is on in my town, last minute availability in a restaurant within walking distance
3. Improved interfaces.  Less key strokes to access information
4. Camera and scanning functions will be more integrated making QR codes more popular
5. There will be a new ?big thing?  

SMP: What are your top five tips on building a killer app?

CW replies with:

1. It should address a genuine need
2. It should exploit the features of mobile
3. Consider how you will monetarise it
4. Be prepared to continually invest in maintaining and upgrading it
5. Partner with organisations that have complementary interests

SMP: Is there anything else we should know, or is there anything that you?d like to share?

CW: We are hiring and growing our mobile and web software engineering teams.

SMP: Best way to contact you, Augmentra and ViewRanger?

CW: The ViewRanger website.

Now some questions for fun

SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?

CW: Muesli whilst checking email that comes in overnight.

SMP: If you weren?t running or working on ViewRanger what would you be doing?

CW: Restoring a cottage in the Peak District.

SMP: If you were tracking a journey by a group and/or individual who would it be and why (and not in a creepy way)?

CW: We get to follow such a wide variety of journeys already, so picking one is difficult. But there are two types of journey that probably inspire the ViewRanger team most:

• Following trips that are big treks, such as explorations in Antarctica or teams climbing mountains in the Himalayas
  
  
• Trips that are more personal challenges but represent huge achievements for the individual.

SMP: When and where did you go on your last holiday (and why)?

CW: The Maldives, a couple of years ago, on honeymoon. It was a location where my wife knew there would be limited connectivity back to the office!

SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?

CW: Coffee while reviewing the previous days KPIs, including app downloads, new routes published, etc.

SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?

CW: To duplicate so I could run the business and still have time to have one of the ?ViewRanger adventures? that I keep reading about.

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