Bonfire - Campground Reservation Software
In 2016, the campground market was using ancient and bloated reservation software that really only catered to the large networked campground organizations. Mom and Pop campgrounds were still using paper and whiteboard for their reservation management needs. Additionally, reservations were still being booked using phone and email. So, Bonfire was born to create a very simple to use reservation management system that combined online reservations and payment processing to give these smaller campgrounds a digital footprint and a streamlined system. In 2020, Bonfire grew further to incorporate a full-blown Point-Of-Sale system with connected hardware. Bonfire now covers multiple revenue outlets for all campground operations. Let’s Bonfire!
Acquired by Parkhub in August 2020
Project Details
Jerry took over Bonfire after the original founding team parted ways and the investor group, still seeing opportunity, recruited Jerry to come onboard and get Bonfire to market.
Jerry’s 2 mission objectives:
Find Product-Market-Fit with the Bonfire software and small campgrounds within USA (about 15,000 of them)
Build Bonfire to a successful exit (recoup initial investments)
Bonfire’s original value proposition was to use an aggregate online marketplace to increase reservations for each campground.
This focus failed for one very important reason; Getting more reservations only made managing their campground harder.
The real problem for small campgrounds was that their operations did not have software to manage their reservations. Other value propositions came from direct customer feedback. 3 very important discoveries came to light:
Most campgrounds had older staff, so the software had to be so simple that your grandmother could use it.
If there was any questions or problems, support had to be direct and from a real person.
Small campgrounds were on strict about their spending, they did no want to pay a per reservation fee. A flat subscription was easier to say yes to.
So those three points became our sales pitch.
“Bonfire was so simple that your grandmother could use it. Day or night, you can call Jerry, The Head Honcho, for support. And, all you will every pay for Bonfire is a simple, monthly subscription.”
Initial Product Status
Constraints:
Limited funding - The initial investors recapitalized the original company with $250,000.
Limited team - The only other team member was a software developer from the original team who was refactoring the code. Jerry’s responsibilities encompassed everything besides coding. (sales, marketing, product mgmt, investor relations, finance)
Initial Product
3 months of refactoring to Clojure codebase
Reservation Management Calendar Grid with reservation details
Online booking page with list of available spots (Broken, did not connect with front-end reservation grid
Reports - Daily Dashboard, Reconciliation, Transaction List
Payment Processor Integration (No hardware) - Rate comparison sales process (Merchant to provide statements for rate offering)
Product Changes
Get the online booking page connected to the reservations grid
Add items to reservations - Add Charges
Payment types - Cash, credit, check
Everything was focused on revenue generation for the campground
Digital Footprint and get them all online
Point-Of-Sale Product Features:
Amenity Item Registration
Category Choices
Item Image Buttons vs Text Buttons
Receipt Item Counts and Controls
Low Inventory/86’d Alerts
Taxes/Discounts
Pricing Variables and Tax Exemptions
Non-Inventory/Miscellaneous Merchandise
Payment Options
Credit Cards
Site Charge
Hardware Integrations - Cash Drawer, Zebra UPC Scanner, CC Swiper
Supplementary Products
Website
Campground Map
Bonfire Point-Of-Sale
Bonfire’s POS was a supplementary product created after the acquisition by Parkhub in 2020. With just under 100 campgrounds using Bonfire reservation management system, the opportunity to increase profit per customer made this product a top priority. Through continued customer interaction and feedback, we knew that our average campground had around 65 sites and had small stores. The POS could be used by those that had stores. A few RV parks were upgrading to multi-entertainment venues and had dining and bar amenities available. One of the major decision I had to make was to limit the scope of the POS system to be useful for store operations only. Bar and dining operations require significant workflow features for altering dining options, upcharges, etc. Again given limited tech dev resources, the first version of Bonfire POS would have to stay within the realm of campground store operations.
Pivot Product Scope
One of the customer pain points within the campground industry was how hard it was to have someone to call when whatever technology failed. Right away, Bonfire presented an option for contact with someone who could actually make things happen. Campground owners and managers could call Jerry directly for help. This earned him the nickname, The Head Honcho. We decided to keep it and use it in our marketing and videos.