Chipero now has a free wood chip app/map tool

C

Craig

Hey folks -- one thing we heard from lots of you at TCIA was "let me know when you have dump sites in my area". We know that that's most important thing for tree services, and are working on it.

But in the mean time, we have a lot of software infrastructure for helping people manage their chip deliveries, and we're offering it today for free.

Even if you don't want to use our pay service, we talked to lots of companies that are still using paper lists or disorganized word/excel/pdf docs, and we think we have something better.

What we're making available is an easy way to manage your chip list: easily map it out, add/remove dump sites from the list and quickly find the closest dump to your job site, and have convenient access to it from the web or from your phone (where our app will find your location and show you the closest dump).

Some of you are probably already mapping things out using something like google maps -- we offer extra features and conveniences for arborists, like focusing on the nearest dump sites, prominent in-app buttons for driving directions and calling the landowner.

You retain sole ownership of your chip list, no one else can see it, and if you decide to stop using our service, you can always export all of your data.

So we'd love it if you gave it a whirl. You can sign up at http://www.chipero.com -- please let me know about any issues you encounter.

Cheers
Craig
 
Sounds good, we'll take a look.

Minor point though, properly proofread your content.

Finding Dump Sites
Wood Chip Request Form
Helping you manage your wood chip deliveries includes helping you attrcat wood chip requests.

I see this all over and have been guilty of it myself. But that's what your webmaster is paid the big bucks to do!
 
Wow... Guys, how weird is that? Craig came out swinging claiming I was going to start charging you, and now he is offering his for free!

Weird huh?

Well, FreeMulch.AboutTrees.com is a very similar app, and it is 100% free. That's right. It wont cost you a single penny.

Also, we don't offer the "protect" your requests feature. I thought about building it, but it goes against why we built it.

See, we built our product because we are tree guys just like you. We've sat in those non-air-conditioned trucks sweating it out in the middle of the summer watching the needle on our fuel gauge dive dive dive....

So we built our app and give it away FREE because we care about the environment and we felt like it was the right thing to do.

Here's why: If you are on one side of town, and your list does not have a dumpsite, and your competitor is on the other side of town, and their list ALSO does not have a site either, wouldn't it make more sense to to access each other's dumpsite rather than waste 100$ +++ driving that load across the city? (not to mention the wasted fuel!)

We have thousands of requests nation wide and as always, they are FREE for you to access them.

So feel free to sign up at FreeMulch.AboutTrees.com.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

We built Freemulch.abouttrees.com to serve you guys. And spread the word!

Thanks

Mark Russell
I.S.A Certified Arborist SO#6098-A
 
What's weird about claiming you were going to start charging and us offering a free version of our service? I don't get the relation.

You yourself said that you might start charging for your service. I just repeated it.

We still offer the pay version of our service, and now provide free mapping tools to those that just want to manage their own list. Lots of tree services still work with lists that are basically long Word documents, so we have some tools to improve upon that (and they seem to be working well, given recent signups).
 
Craig,

I feel that this idea should be a community idea, just like your site http://www.concrete-jungle.org/about

I believe that almost every tree guy could benefit from the free wood chip app idea.

It will save fuel for our planet.

I feel that the idea should be given freely, in its entirety, to the community of arborists so that everyone benefits.

The problem with charging is that you start segmenting the pool.

That does not save fuel.

Cmon Craig? Where's the community spirit behind http://www.concrete-jungle.org?

HERE IS THE BIGGEST ISSUE THAT TREE GUYS NEED TO PAY ATTENTION TO.

IF CRAIG MAKE LOTS OF MONEY, THEN MORE GUYS LIKE CRAIG WILL FOLLOW.

THIS WILL SPLIT UP AND SEGMENT A LIMITED NUMBER OF MULCH REQUESTS,
NO LONGER WITH THERE BE ONE DATABASE WITH LOTS OF REQUESTS, BUT MANY DATABASES WITH FEW REQUESTS.

!!!!!!!!THAT IS THE EXACT PROBLEM THE IDEA IS TRYING TO SOLVE!!!!!!!!!!


BY CHARGING, IT WILL MAKE YOU DRIVE FARTHER TO DUMP, AND RUINING THE WHOLE POINT OF THE APP TO BEGIN WITH....

ACT NOW TREE GUYS!!!!!

I WILL EXPLAIN THIS FURTHER IN ANOTHER POST SOON.
 
I understand how you could charge for this service--but you should not expect tree services to dump for free to the customer. There is time in fuel and transportation, in chipping, in wages paid, etc., so it is certainly not "free" to the tree service looking to dump chips. Sure, free chips are standard in the business (as we really do want to get rid of them), but if we are going to pay for an app service that doesn't have any advantage back for the tree service, then it really is pretty silly. Could you design it so that the tree service could recoup some costs--say $50 per load from the customer. That might be something worth the while. When do you expect to get things for free? You certainly don't expect that...why should the customer?
 
Hey Ward -- that's something we've thought a lot about doing, and I'm delighted to hear your input on it. Here are some of the issues we've seen so far:

* Tree services we've talked to so far haven't been excited about making $20, $50 here or there. They care about not losing the $200+/hr they're not making by not being on the job. Sounds like we just haven't talked to enough tree services.

* When you pay for things, it sets certain expectations about what you're getting. All these other tree services give them away for free, so why should I pay to get them? We can do priority delivery for people that are willing to pay, but I worry that it might setup issues with chip quality/quantity.

* Handling payment -- it makes most sense for chip payments to flow through us, since we're arbitrating the connection between you and people wanting chips, and lots of companies deliver when the folks aren't present to pay. So how do we ensure that you don't get ripped off (you delivered chips, but the customer says they never received them), and vice versa?

If we get the software written so that people can pay you for chips, would you be willing to test it out for us?

Or anyone else -- we're happy to try this in your area if you want to be a guinea pig for people paying you for chip dumps.


Craig
 
Craig,

Its not the chips they are paying for--that is free--its the delivery (and that is not). Any landscape supply company always charges a fee for delivery of material (e.g. bark dust, soil, etc.). I think that this is where the cost could be located--not in the chips. They should be "free".

:)
 
Absolutely -- we'd be making it very clear to people when signing up: "You're paying for priority delivery. You're still receiving arborist wood chips from a variety of trees ... "

But still: if we could get it set up, would you try it out?
 
And, there should some constraints on what arborists who use the service are offering as chips. It would be bad form to dump a load of english laurel clippings and call these "wood chips". There should be some minimal attempt to control the quality--i.e. if you dump chips they have to be mostly wood chips, can't be ivy, invasives, etc. I pretty much do this anyway and won't drop chips unless they are reasonable quality. If you don't restrict it this way, you might get some blowback...

As for the question whether I would use the service, I would say probably not (as it is currently set up without the possiblity of recouping a delivery charge). I work out where to dump chips ahead of time--usually some people nearby who want a whole bunch of them. We have this worked out in advance. But if I was in a pinch, I might use the service. Rather than subscription, it should be a per-use fee. That might make sense.
 
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