About this idea
The idea of Ryders was born after my wife - an avid rider and horse lover - and I went to several horse shows across the USA (the majority in Michigan) when I realized that the process was very unpredictable, confusing, time-consuming, and stressful. How?
Imagine you are going to college for the weekend, you need to sign up for classes for the semester but there is no reliable way of doing it online so you have to go on-site, except that in our case you are traveling many miles and bringing your 2000 pound furry friend with you along with dozens of other items needed for its care. Once on-site you realize you can’t always pay with a credit card and can only pay during certain times so you have to make sure you bring cash or a check, in addition, you have a class coming up that same day so you are running around trying to get it all done before even prepping you and your horse for the first class which includes dressing and practicing. Once you are ready, you find out you don’t really know where you need to go and at what time you need to be there because your teacher decided to change the location and time at the last minute but you asked around and you are able to figure it out. You go to class which includes a test and after you take it you don’t know what your scores are until later even though your teacher already has the results so you have to wait until the end of the day to know how you did. Now, imagine this process happens 5-10 times a day for 3-5 days a week and if you are a committed Ryder, many many times a year in different states with the goal to accumulate enough points to graduate your horse as a champion but you don’t easily know after years of effort how many points you have achieved, tiring right? That's why Ryder's vision is to provide the equine industry with high-quality and easy-to-use technological tools to smooth out the process of owning, training, tracking, and enjoying your horse for the lung run.
Impact
The Equine industry is an industry that lacks the benefits of modern technology, Ryders believes that by providing the right tools and absolute focus on user experience and quality we can contribute to reducing the burden of event/class organization, progress and learning tracking, horse health and value reporting, Ryder learning and improvement and overall happiness in this very demanding industry so that Ryders can focus on what they love most… ride. There are 1.25 million show horses in the USA that are being shown by amateurs and professionals of any age including k-12 programs that can benefit from a new modern and technologically advanced educational approach to this industry.
What I'll do with $5,000
The first step in this journey (validated through field research and interviews) is to focus on event management as an entry point so Ryders have a secure way to select, pay and organize their classes during any horse shows nationwide. The $5,000 will help me hire a contractor developer to focus on secure payments and finalize the MVP that will be used during upcoming events. The plan is to have tester Ryders submit small payments to a real event and validate the user experience as well as the payment processing with an event organizer that is also an advocate of this project.
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