Feedback from a customer who just started using the Coxmate GPS software.
The software is amazing!
In my humble opinion (as a professional marketer) I think you maybe missing a trick here as to how you are selling your products.
At the moment you seem to be focusing on the hardware – nobody actually wants to buy hardware.
Rowers want to go faster and analysis of stroke efficiency is a huge step in going faster.
I think you should be pushing the benefits of the software as a primary message and only then adding “and by the way, you need our product to get this information”. Let the benefits of the software drive Coxmate hardware sales.
“Sell the sizzle, not the sausage” as the old adage goes.
My price for this invaluable advice is analysis of the enclosed screen shots which are snapshots of two races we did recently in a Masters 2x. Each one zooms in to show more detail and I have changed the vertical zoom for emphasis.
Why everyone needs to try Coxmate software
I too thought that I only wanted the hardware – primarily for rate, 500m speed and acceleration. I thought I would only use these as I was actually sculling and this was what was promoted to me by your advertising.
I bought the unit without even knowing about the software and thought I might get around to using it one day but unlikely.
If I had seen what the software can do in terms terms of improving technique, measurable training and boat speed I would have bought the software and then bought the Coxmate GPS.
Why rowers need to measure their training
Think about it – An average rower trains 3 times a week on the water and 3 times on the land. Each time is about 2hrs including warm etc. Thats 12hrs a week – the equivalent of 1 day a week! plus the cost of boat, blades, club membership etc. For all that investment, and, trust me, I have made that investment year in and year out, there was no way of measuring what was working and what was not.
Who knows how many days I wasted either not doing the correct training or not moving the boat properly?
If someone had come to me at the beginning of the season back in 90s and said “GB lightweight trials are in 6 months, let’s measure how you are moving your scull now and compare it to how you need to move by trials” I would have bitten their arm off.
Instead of which I blindly trained my ass off all over the winter and did reasonably well when I could have trained smarter, probably less and done better.
I think you have a great product but you are selling the features not the the benefits.
Cheers, David.
The rowing race data analysis by Coxmate
I had a quick look at the records. There is obvious scope to see how they went against race plan, how the different races compare, how they faded etc. I can also see what looks like a bridge at ~4.2Km on the earlier record!
If you select acceleration and/or speed ratio, it will give a little more insight.
The speed ratio gives a good relative indication of the quality of row. The acceleration gives some indication of the stroke form – especially how it changes when you get tired. You can overlay any two (or more) strokes from any record to see the form.
To overlay strokes from same record, click twice in the yellow area when you select the variable to put on the graph, and it will show ‘2x’ instead of ‘graph’. The same record is shown twice. If you select multiple charts, you can then zoom/scroll to two strokes, then go back to same chart and they can be overlaid.
The benefits of an impeller are a much better responsiveness to speed change and a more meaningful picture of the stroke profile – the speed is sampled every 20mS. It offers more scope for what I refer to as micro analysis – more qualitative. But GPS chips are faster to update now then they used to be and so you still get a good data output.
The other variable which would be useful over these longer distances is Heart Rate.
Watch Coxmate GPS software tutorials including how to use the software.
