MBlog

MotionBased Welcomes Brad Culberson

Our first big purchase after getting funded by the Garmin acquisition was not really a purchase at all, but definitely money well spent.  We welcome Brad Culberson to the MotionBased/Garmin family. 

Brad is a power user of MotionBased.  He has been actively using MotionBased since the day we publicly launched our site.  Brad's digest is ranked 15th on the TrailNetwork based on the number of activities logged, but being an Ironman triathlete his distance is ranked 9th compared to all runners and 29th compared to all cyclists.  Not too shabby since many of those ahead of him are dedicated to only a single sport.  Brad is #6 for overall time logged into MotionBased.com (existing employees excluded). 

Brad was also the designer and developer contracted to build MB Gravity, our elevation correction system for the United States.  This project was a thing of passion for Brad since he has been living near St. Louis, Missouri wondering how so many hills were showing up in his Forerunner elevation profile.  This is a good example of how being a power user of MB is so important to making it better and we are happy to share the hills of Marin County with our flat-lander friend to help inspire him further. Brad's first assignment is to bring the power of MB Gravity beyond the United States to the entire world.

Brad has also been helping the Garmin Forerunner community use their device to the fullest extent.  My favorite is Brad's prototype implementation of advanced Dot Racing using Google Maps.  He has also built a utility to retrieve activities from the Forerunner 301. He has been extremely active on the MB Forum with 108 posts and remains active on the popular Yahoo GarminF group as well.   

Brad's credentials show that he is a capable developer, but it is his desire to take MotionBased's fitness technology to the next level that makes him our first strategic hire as a division of Garmin.   You should be seeing many enhancements to MotionBased during the next year that will be making it the training system that you have all been asking for.

There is even more good things to say about Brad, but you will start to see for yourself his commitment to making MotionBased and the Garmin series of training devices the best they can be.  After all that he has done I am amazed that we are only now just starting to pay him...and a good thing too because Brad makes a better employee than he would a competitor.

If you share Brad's commitment and passion to making the best GPS-based training system on the Internet then we are hiring for a User Interface Developer.  Clearly we are interested in hiring the best so only the most dedicated developers/athletes need apply.

Brad, welcome to the MB family...you'll fit right in!

Aaron
The Digital Trailblazer

 

 

Garmin Acquires MotionBased

Yep. It's true. Garmin just bought MotionBased. The official press release dropped this morning announcing that MotionBased will immediately become a division of Garmin International.

Phew. What a relief to say that in public.

So... before we address the inevitable questions, we wanted to first thank all of our customers who helped MotionBased get to where it is today. We launched our public beta last summer with 100 customers and 900 activities. And in 15 months, we've watch MotionBased grow to over 11,000 customers and 150,000 activities. During that time, you've amazed us with your support, feedback and participation. Truly inspirational -- thank you!!!

Okay... let's talk more details:

What does this mean for MotionBased?
A paycheck. A much needed visit to the dentist. Sleep at night. A pat on the back for our hard work.

But most importantly... the ability to focus our efforts in making MotionBased the best outdoor training and adventure application on the internet. No more worries about keeping the dream alive -- we now have the backing to take MotionBased to a higher level.

Did the MotionBased crew go corporate on us?
Nope. We're not the type. MotionBased will be run by the same crew that created it. We live, breathe and dream MotionBased. There is no better group of individuals to take it to the next level. We know what our customers want because you've told us. And now... we get to honor those requests.

Will MotionBased roll-up into the Garmin Training Center?
Nope. The MotionBased web application will remain independent of the Garmin Training Center client application. That said, we will work closely with the Training Center team to share ideas and, perhaps, resources from time to time.

Will MotionBased relocate?
That's a big NO. We will remain in the San Francisco Bay Area -- the perfect playground for combining our interests in technology and the outdoors. We can't think of a better place to test and use MotionBased.

Will MotionBased become entirely FREE?
Ahhhhhhh... no. MotionBased will maintain our two core account types: MotionBased Lite (free) and MotionBased Standard (paid). The business model has not changed. We will always maintain a free aspect of MotionBased giving anyone access to core features of the web application. We believe customers will eventually find enough value in the premium features to sign up for the paid subscription.

Don't worry... not all of the new features will go to the paid service. We will upgrade both levels of service throughout the life of MotionBased -- although some of the goodies will be in the paid version.

Will MotionBased support non-Garmin devices going forward?
Good question. We don't have a solid answer on this one yet. A lot of it will depend on the other GPS manufacturers. The spirit of MotionBased is to create the largest repository of outdoor activities on the Internet -- the MotionBased TrailNetwork -- regardless of what GPS device was used. However, we realize that Garmin competitors may not want their customers to send us their data. We hope that's not the case -- but only time will tell.

Why did MotionBased sell to Garmin?
We thought about lots of ways to keep MotionBased going, growing, and getting better. We considered continuing to bootstrap the operation, taking venture capital/angel money, or selling the business.

It sure sounded nice to keep it to ourselves. Grow a sound business and maintain control. Be your own boss -- yada yada yada. But the reality of keeping this in-house while meeting the expectations of our customers and, mostly, ourselves was too much. We needed a vehicle to make our ideas and vision a reality. And after looking around, it became fairly obvious that Garmin was the perfect fit.  Fortunately for us, Garmin felt the same.

We believe that Garmin makes the best consumer GPS devices. We also believe that MotionBased makes the best web-based GPS tracking application. Why not take the best of both worlds to create a better solution -- your classic 1+1=3 scenario.

So now what?
Not much. Keep using MotionBased as you always have. If you're new to MotionBased, check out our demo and see what you're missing. It's pretty cool stuff.

We'll continue to post updates on MBlog. Be sure to subscribe to our feed so you don't miss a step.

We've come a long way in the last two years and the best part is... we're just beginning.

Thanks for your support.