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goHUNT-Randy-onX

Big Fin

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Many of you here on Hunt Talk have sent me PMs asking what happened with the banner ads for onX. Some have even noticed that onX is no longer sponsoring the podcasts or Elk Talk Live.

Over the last couple years, goHUNT’s expansion of tools for western hunters and onX providing draw odds and other information has ended up with goHUNT and onX somewhat competing in each other’s space. That puts me in a tough spot where I have two valued companies with whom I have great long-term relationships. Promoting one of them might seem I am promoting against the other.

This winter I was approached by both of them, explaining to me how the competitive landscape between the two would be getting even more direct over the coming year(s). I realized it was not practical to promote two companies who are entering spaces that have more and more overlap. All parties knew that a decision was necessary.

So, after four months of consideration and discussions I had to make the final decision that I thought was best for our brand, our audience, and the plans we have in the next ten years. Both sides were extremely professional and considerate of the situation I was in. They both provided me with opportunities that were compelling and required a lot of thought and consideration.

After assessing the benefits of each proposal and assessing what I see for the future of our brand, our audience, and our future ideas, I decided our best option was with goHUNT.

It was not an easy decision to make. Eric, Matt, and Zach, the high-quality guys I deal with at onX, are dear friends. I’ve worked with them for a long time, sharing ideas and developing new applications like the burn layers and roadless layers.

onX is a top notch company with a great product and a great business strategy. You will never hear a bad word of them come from my mouth. I wish them all the best.

The thread of “ask you onX questions” here will continue to exist on this forum. They will have a person come to that thread and continue answering your questions.

These are hard decisions that business owners end up faced with. The difficulty of telling onX of my decision in early June was offset by my excitement of all the great things that we will work on with goHUNT as a strategic partner whose sole focus is finding the best solutions for the western hunter.

Hopefully that explains why you don’t see onX banners here or in our other content. With that decision behind me, we and goHUNT have a lot of really cool plans for future ideas that focus on the western hunter, public lands, and the core of our WHY; “creating advocates for that cause” – the same WHY that has driven these platforms since we started in 2008.

In the next month you will learn of some of the goHUNT resources that will make their suite of products even more interesting to western hunters. To onX, thanks for the great support and all the best as you execute the next phases of your business plan.
 
Poor Onx. I've been a supporter of Onx since they had a beta version and use their app more than any other on my phone. 100s of hours spent playing around with their product and I gladly give them my 100 bucks a year. I've never used goHunt before so I can't speak to their products but I have never felt their product provides myself any value as I enjoy digging deep myself and doing all the work on my own. I'm not mad about the decision made, I'll still support Randy's platforms but just feel bad for Onx getting the curb here especially since the "Newberg" brand is "public land hunter" and nothing helps the "public land hunter" more than Onx does!
 
it is a bummer for onx

but good for gohunt.

but i will say this, just for some user base context for the guys at gohunt and perhaps onx that may read this: of course onx will still get my money, and unfortunately gohunt has yet to get my money; at this point, i can't hunt without onx, but i can definitely hunt every year without gohunt.

maybe their plans in the pipeline will change that for me
 
Did you negotiate terms that allow those of us renewing with GoHunt vs. new customers to have a shot at that WY Commissioner’s tag? 🤷‍♂️
 
Did you negotiate terms that allow those of us renewing with GoHunt vs. new customers to have a shot at that WY Commissioner’s tag? 🤷‍♂️
If you emailed them you could have them apply the “randy” promo code to your automatic renewal.
 
Tough decision to have to make. I think OnX will be fine on the marketing front, though, from their other partnerships and I'll continue to use them. Glad they'll still have someone with a forum presence here.

I'm pretty interested to see what you, GoHunt and OnX have in store.
 
Good on ya Big Fin for being transparent and sharing a little bit of the secret sauce of how your platforms intertwine. As an OnX customer and one who plans on continuing with them, I'm thankful for someone still dealing with questions asked, as it has helped me on several occasions to see someone else ask a question about an issue I was dealing with as well.
 
OnX is everywhere and most of us are already clients so they just saved some ad cash. They sponsor so much stuff anyway that you can't miss em if you go anywhere online. Hopefully there was some competitive bidding before the decision was made. ;)
 
Tough decision to have to make. I think OnX will be fine on the marketing front, though, from their other partnerships and I'll continue to use them. Glad they'll still have someone with a forum presence here.

I'm pretty interested to see what you, GoHunt and OnX have in store.
I’m curious too. There must be some big plans in the works, especially around mapping functions as Gohunt is lacking there.
 
I dig OnX. I have no interest in GoHunt. Maybe something down the pipe changes that for me w/ Randy's endorsement - who knows. For now, I don't plan to fix what works and I enjoy...

Thanks for sharing some business background. Adjustments are par for the course. One reason my other thread posed the query about current Sponsors.
 
I use both and have wondered when they would become adversaries. I believe there are legitimate competitors for OnX. The competition for GoHunt is inadequate at best. I find myself with one screen open to GoHunt and one open to OnX while looking for new units.
 
Also an OnX fan. I haven’t used Gohunt for any applications yet, but they do have some interesting stuff especially for someone new getting into the game. Also used Randy’s code a couple of times in the gear shop, they have some high end stuff and run good sales on occasion. I did miss that they were in direct competition, it seemed like they were complimentary in the same space. Looking forward to see what these future plans are tho!
 
I know GoHunt has hinted at new product launches coming this year. I’d expect more advance mapping to go hand and hand with filtering 2.0, trying to eliminate the need to have GoHunt and OnX open at the same time. No concrete information just a guess.
 
I think that goHunt is really geared towards people hunting multiple states consistently, maybe even each year. For someone like me that's only going to get out west to one state, on one trip, each year, I don't really need it. Maybe when I go to cash in CO points? In MT and WY I'm only ever going to put in for general tags anyway.
 
Good transparency, and hope both companies continue making a good product. Have both. One gets used heavily, the other, not so much. Not a rip or endorsement for one over the other, just a fact. One needs to pick it's marketing a little more carefully and has a smaller, more niche market than the other. If the one went away, could still get by. If the other ceased to exist, I'd go weep in the corner for a while with my blanket. Both have held a monopoly on their markets. But both do have issues and if those aren't resolved, it'll leave doors open for competitors. Which the market probably needs. Some good old fashion American capitalism competition would be good for the consumer, pushing each other to make better products.
 
I think that goHunt is really geared towards people hunting multiple states consistently, maybe even each year. For someone like me that's only going to get out west to one state, on one trip, each year, I don't really need it. Maybe when I go to cash in CO points? In MT and WY I'm only ever going to put in for general tags anyway.

that's exactly it

markus at gohunt asked me why i made sure to cancel my free trial and not get charged. i told him simply enough i only hunt colorado and wyoming and i really don't need it for just two states that i understand rather well.

i said maybe when i'm finally putting in for 4 or more states i might be coming back. and even then i'd likely just use it for the learning curve of the states draw systems and familiarize myself with some general draw trends for a year or two.

i find it interesting that they both do the same thing, aggregate and disseminate public data, and yet, the one of those two that actually seems way way harder is the one i don't wanna pay for....
 
I hope goHUNT doesn’t go to arcgis online like epic did. You have the perfect platform in google earth; it works with and without internet. Just create overlays like onx used to do and don’t try to reinvent the wheel.
 
Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

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