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You can now easily add RaceJoy capabilities to your race. RaceJoy is now a first level menu option in your Race Director Dashboard, with a wizard that allows you to do a number of things including creating a map, selecting a buy-out option, and uploading logos and sponsor information. Map Building This is now in […]
We have had a number of races move to RunSignUp from other systems. To ease the move, we provide a way of importing past runners. This allows you to do year over year comparisons. It also allows you to move races in the middle of registration – so some runners were entered in another system […]
We have added some big refinements to allow race directors to customize how runners can manage their add-ons. This let’s a runner remove an item (note there is not a refund for these), and buy additional add-ons (if they remove items and buy other items in the same transaction they do get credit for the […]
We lowered the Reserve Holdbacks to 0% effective today. This is a very happy day and another sign of recovery in our endurance community. As you may recall we always had a normal 0% holdback (meaning we pay out when people signup), but instituted a 20% holdback at the beginning of the Pandemic. We have […]
We have made a major upgrade to Reserved Entries. These are useful for many use cases: Invite specific participants to register for your race even after it is closed or full. Set a special price for a certain person – for example an elite athlete. An alternative to the Loyalty Program to invite past participants […]
It is that time of year! We encourage events to renew their races as soon as they are able to so that they can give maximum time to grow registrations through marketing and pricing campaigns and through participants’ word-of-mouth – the most powerful form of marketing available for races. This webinar covers the specific steps event organizers need to take to successfully renew events on RunSignup and walks through some of the typical situations events face with participant management. By using RunSignup’s backend setup capabilities, events can automatically have the system manage refunds, deferrals and race postponements and empower participants to self serve certain changes. The session is capped off with highlighting some of the most effective ways events can use RunSignup’s features to help increase registration and participation levels.
Part of Bob’s continued ramblings. There have been tons of layoffs recently in the technology sector. The major factor driving this is a shift from investor perspectives of value on growth vs. profitability. And that was driven by very low interest rates. That is not the point of this blog, but just to follow that […]
This week is our first live RunSignup Symposium since the pandemic (the last one was January, 2020 in Orlando). We started these in 2014 when we were much smaller (way before most companies would think about having a conference). I thought it might be useful to write a Founder’s Corner blog about why we put […]
Q2 2022 saw several trends: Races are down about 20% from their 2019 numbers, and 25% of races over 500 participants in 2019 are not back and likely not returning RunSignup has seen continued market share growth Registration vendors are getting very aggressive given the shrinkage in the market RunSignup / GiveSignup Peer to Peer […]
As has been the case for the past 2 years, Q1 was impacted by Covid. We saw drops in the number of new and renewed event creation in December and January, with recoveries in February and March as case counts dropped. We also saw some hesitancy by participants and attendees to sign up too early […]
TLDR; January – February – Customers are happy, our business is up 29% and life is good! March – OMG-OMG-OMG! We have paid over $75 Million to races that have not happened! Will we survive? Employees take a 50% cut in pay. Everyone stays and works twice as hard. April – PPP! Virtual Races! Employees […]
We usually do our Year in Review in a single blog post. This year has been much too big to put it all in one place, so we are breaking it up a bit. We already published our 2020 Development Recap. This one will cover our product roadmap for 2021. First, we will continue our investment in […]
We had been doing weekly updates on the numbers we are seeing since the pandemic began. We ended that in Week 18, and are shifting to monthly updates. The monthly update is meant to give stats that are useful to the endurance and nonprofit communities we serve, but also to bridge the gap between our […]
Like many this past holiday weekend we watched Hamilton (yes, it is worth much more than a month’s cost of Disney+). The third song is Hamilton singing “My Shot”, and the lyrics had a bit of a familiar ring for little RunSignup and what we are embarking on with GiveSignup. “I’m young, scrappy and hungry.” […]
Wow! Eventbrite said yesterday that transaction volume in March was down 90% and was still down 85% in early May, 2020. Before we get into the analysis, here are the links: Q1 Earnings Press Release Q1 Letter to Shareholders Earnings Call Transcript The news they shared was simply extraordinary, and made us feel good about […]
Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the Internet, announced the Contract for the Web today. RunSignup has endorsed the contract and pledges to live up to the ideals of a better web. Much of the founding principles of RunSignup came from Open Source principles that are essentially the same as what Tim outlines. We felt […]
EventBrite had a sparkling (pun intended!) IPO debut this week. They sold over $230M of stock and their fully diluted valuation now hovers around $3.4 Billion. Their S1 filing with the SEC provides a treasure trove of information that is very interesting to registration companies like RunSignUp. This will have implications that will impact the […]
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is technology that lets you manage your interactions with customers and potential customers. In the endurance market, CRM is evolving from a buzzword to a tangible technology that race directors need. Your participants are your customers, and you need to promote your race(s) and deliver customer service to your current, past, […]
See more on CRM: RunSignUp CRM Vision RunSignUp CRM Offering Why a Race CRM? CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is a term that has been around since the 1990’s when Siebel used it to position their software for sales organizations. Today, CRM has become a hot topic for races who are looking to maximize their […]
RunSignUp has become the largest endurance registration company in the US with over 15,000 races using us to register over 4.2 Million participants. Our growth continues to build as more races use us, and our technology platform grows to help races across their race lifecycle from Promotion to Registration to Fundraising to Race Day, all […]
A race’s website is their primary means of branding a race, the promotional tool to draw runners, and communicate with participants about important information. Many race website suffer from one or more of the following problems: Old, insecure Not mobile ready Costly to update No one to update Disjointed, inconsistent user experience when jumping between […]
I (Bob) have taken a bunch of vacation time and had minor surgery that required time off, so I’ve had time to do a lot of reading (Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton (great play!) and Ben Bernanke’s Courage to Act and a bunch of web stuff). I tend toward tech, business and economics reading and the collection of […]
We are heading to the RunningUSA The Next Evolution Conference in Chicago June 28-29. RunSignUp has a number of customers who manage next generation event series – mud runs, obstacle course races, color runs, glow runs, night runs, etc. These are typically themed multi-city events that have a mixture of emphasis on either challenge or […]
We are trying to win a race event management company and I was writing up a summary email on why they should use RunSignUp, and thought I would share it. The pricing is pretty competitive and allows you set your own fees You should be able to drive more revenue with easier and more complete […]
Warning: This is for developers. We have extended our OpenAPI to allow for Race and User Creation and editing. This API is being used by a couple of advanced users who have their own applications that have a need for creating races and users outside of the RunSignUp user interface. This is a powerful capability […]
We have added the capability for a club member to manage their membership better. Now you can: Renew Membership Add Members to a Family type of membership that allows multiple members Remove Members from a Family type of membership Cancel a Membership (no refunds) Cancel and then Change to a New Membership level. This is […]
Multi-Day Races with Super and Sub Events Large races have moved to multi-day events that span a whole weekend with numerous events to serve a wide variety of their communities. Â Registration can be complicated to manage for these huge events. Â There are a variety of races, times, waves for people to sign up for – […]
One of our Year End Wrap-up Blogs. Others include 2022 Availability Report, RunSignup 2022 Product Recap, TicketSignup 2022 Product Recap, RunSignup 2023 Product Roadmap, and TicketSignup Product Roadmap. Also, here is our 2023 Roadmap Webinar. RunSignup helped our customers process $400 Million for their events in 2022. We have continued our growth in our core RunSignup endurance […]
As with other Founders Corner blogs, I like to write these blogs to help myself make sure I am thinking about things clearly, as well as communicate important information that I want available to all employees and customers so we can get feedback and we all understand the path forward. I’ve written about pieces of […]
Following up on our recent introduction of Deduplication Options for Email v2, we wanted to go behind the scenes to explain how our email delivery system is being further optimized. Enterprise level email delivery is much harder than it may appear. Like many things with an internet based product, we have to spend a lot […]
The 2022 RunSignup Summer Symposium is coming up July 26-27 in Philadelphia, and we’ve started fielding some questions from race directors and timers wondering if the event is for them. So here’s a little snapshot at who attends the Symposium – and what you can expect if you join us! By the numbers… Due to […]
We are excited to announce our newest team member, Anne Mitchell. Anne is joining us as an Account Manager, working with the sales team to provide support to current and prospective customers. She will be responsible for reviewing events created on our platform to find ways to improve their experience. To welcome Anne to our […]
We are very excited to release a major update to the RaceDay Checkin App. This version includes an overhaul to the Preset & Configuration Editor, making it easier to understand and use, a variety of QR/Barcode scanning updates to make your Checkin workflow more efficient, and a whole lot more! Feature Updates Improvements to Presets […]
Branching out into new types of events? If you’re an expert on RaceDay but new to ticket events, this webinar is here to help. The basics will sound familiar: communicate your processes in advance, provide self-serve event management options when possible, and take advantage of a CheckIn App. Join us to learn about our purpose-built […]
Peer to peer fundraising events can now import historical fundraiser and donor data to peer-to-peer fundraising events. We’ve always offered a robust participant import to bring over historical registration data. This update enables the same capabilities for importing historical fundraiser and donor data. There are two main reasons we’ve added this functionality: Easy for peer-to-peer […]
We have released a set of enhancements to our Voucher System. Vouchers are a powerful alternative to coupons, and helpful for customers transitioning to our platform that need to give monetary credit to participants to use on future events. This release adds features around being able to use the full credit across multiple events, and […]
Last week on Founder’s Corner, I talked about our 3 sets of virtuous cycles that make up our Guiding Principles. Today let’s talk about $Money. A subject a lot of people shy away from. I’m not good at analogies, but let’s call money equivalent to the water in a river. So it is worth talking […]
This is the initial post for the Founder’s Corner Series. It is fitting, because this is what we use as our core set of principles. Almost every decision we make can come back to this as a root set of principles to guide what the decision should be. We have had these in place since […]
With the introduction of TicketSignup earlier this month, we’ve had an influx of questions from customers, including the most basic one: what type of events use TicketSignup’s Ticket Events instead of RunSignup’s Registration Events? The answer is: many! Ticket events include everything from corn mazes and holiday light shows to luncheons and free events. This […]
Start 2022 off right. Join us to review the renewal process (and any cleanup that may be needed from the last two years), then get a refresh on participant management options and best practices. This webinar with Larry and Herman covers: Renewing your events Self-serve participant management options Refund, deferrals, and transfers Bulk participant management […]
With spring race season on the horizon, Q1 is the time to learn and prepare. From the January through March we have a series of webinars and certifications for race directors and timers, all focused on technology updates and what you need to know as you head into your season. If you cannot make a […]
Our 2022 (In-Person!) Winter Symposium is coming up in January, and we wanted to give you a little taste of what to expect before the price increases on 11/1/2021 (at 11:59pm). Education, Education, Education. Our primary goal is for every attendee to head home with new, actionable knowledge regardless of whether you are a first-time […]
We have been following Eventbrite since they are a similar company serving events and having a similar business model of charging for their services only with processing fees since they went public. We are also beginning to overlap with them more as nonprofits discover the GiveSignup Ticket Platform that is purpose built for nonprofits. We […]
Timer Training with Aaron Crosby RFID timers are invited to watch this informative webinar on how to use RaceDay Scoring with RFID Race Timing Systems timing equipment. GiveSignup l RunSignup’s Matt Avery along with special guest Aaron Crosby, with The Race Time, provide an overview of how to integrate the two technologies. The focus of […]
If you want catch up on all the sessions from last week’s Virtual Symposium, it’s not too late to do that. But we also wanted to take a minute to dive a little deeper into the key takeaways from a few of our favorite sessions focused on endurance events. The main message: it’s time to […]
There’s a holiday for everything…and this one is for us! Whether you are a runner yourself or stick only to the logistics of running events, take a moment to celebrate the sport with a little more than just a social media post. Register for a race! With in-person events coming back through the summer and […]
The First Purpose-Built Event and Donation Platform for Nonprofits Launches Into $50B+ U.S. Market for Online Giving as Virtual Events Heat Up and Live Events Return CloudBees founder and former Eventbrite CFO invest 100+ new nonprofits onboarding weekly to base of 9,000+ nonprofits Highly vertical technology stack delivers 2,000+ annual updates with zero downtime MOORESTOWN, […]
In November 2019 we wrote about the abrupt brand and platform shut-down of Crowdrise following their acquisition by GoFundMe. While Crowdrise was designed for nonprofits, GoFundMe has been designed from the start as a platform for individual fundraising for many purposes. The change caused some concerns for nonprofits; however, GoFundMe mitigated some of these concerns by […]
It’s been a few years since we’ve posted a Festivus blog…but we have to admit, we have a lot of grievances this year. So, in celebration of 2020 Festivus… Runners…We have a problem with constant desire for a race to be fun. Because of you, and the limitations on things like parties this year, we had to […]
GiveSignup has steadily built a ticket platform that’s purpose-built for nonprofits and serves as a modern alternative to Eventbrite, Crowdrise, Classy, and Blackbaud. GiveSignup Tickets is built on the core RunSignup platform, with the same payment processing integrity and cutting edge features that continuously improve. There are a number of reasons to move to GiveSignup for your […]
