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Comment by joeguilmette | Hacker News Reader

This strategizing was done almost 100% on our end. We consulted with them and asked questions, asked for other skydiving facilities that ran Groupons, looked at them, called them and talked to them, etc.

We modified pretty much everything about our business around running the Groupons.

Still, I feel that our rep did a good job helping us out, much more so than another form of marketing would. Would you expect a billboard company to come to my business and tell me how to run my business more efficiently, make sure I can handle it?

We ran a radio promotion around the same time and they did ZERO insofar as making sure we'd be ok. It also cost us a lot of money.

Restaurants and coffee shops have more to overcome when running a Groupon, but that's their job, right? Pick a good marketing strategy, be successful, make good decisions, etc.

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This is unrelated, but how many accidents have you had since you opened? Or, generally, is it a risky sport?

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/skydiving8.htm

>The big question is always, "How dangerous is skydiving?" Each year, about 30 people die in parachuting accidents in the United States, or roughly one person per 100,000 jumps. Look at the US Skydiving Incident Reports to get an idea of the types of problems that lead to fatalities. If you make one jump in a year, your chance of dying is 1 in 100,000.

http://www.uspa.org/safety/incident.htm

Ah, those odds sound better than driving, thanks.

Isn't that only relevant if you skydive instead of driving? :)

My daily commute is 18k ft - ground, you wouldn't believe how much I spend on gas.

Aren't you skydiving instead of driving when you are skydiving?

There are significant differences based on type of jump too. Most first timers do tandem jumps with an instructor on your back. Those jumps have a fatality rate around 1 in 140,000 where static line jumps are closer 1 in 50,000. And the injury (not fatality) rate for static line jumps is around 1 in 200.

At the rates they do jumps, there appears to be about a 1-2% annual chance of a fatality. Would such an event end the business? If so, this would change the expected value and the true cost of a jump.

And "injury" probably runs the gamut from sprained ankle to "oh look, my femur is poking through my pants"

People say it's safer than driving, etc. In 26 years I know 0 people that have been injured or killed driving.

In 3 years jumping I've seen some pretty gruesome stuff. Don't believe the stats, you're exposing your body to lots of kinetic energy and we're pretty fragile. No nightmares or PTSD, but, let's just say I've seen the helicopter land more than I'd like.

The injury rate for first time jumpers doing tandems is near zero. Its all people hurting themselves, similar to someone buying a fast car and getting in a car accident while pushing 120mph. It happens and you think "Well... At least we all warned him to take it easy a bunch before his accident."

That's very informative, thanks. It sounds like you'll be fine if you're cautious, though.

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