Camp Notes Won a OneSignal Boost Award at Shipaton

I entered Camp Notes into RevenueCat's Shipaton hackathon and placed 5th in the OneSignal Boost Award category, winning $5,000 and recognition in their blog post. I'm really excited about this result and glad I decided to participate.

For context, Camp Notes is a camping app that lets you record details about individual campsites within campgrounds. You can track GPS coordinates, amenities, add photos, and rate your experiences. The idea came from getting into camping this year and wanting something more structured than a shared Apple Note.

What is Shipaton

Shipaton is RevenueCat's hackathon for indie developers. The goal is simple: ship a brand-new app to the iOS, Android, or Mac App Store using the RevenueCat SDK.

There were multiple award categories including Best Overall App, Build in Public, and category-specific awards for integrations like OneSignal, Adapty, and others. Over 800 entries were submitted, which made the competition pretty intense.

The Submission

Once I proved Camp Notes was feasible, the entire plan became submitting it to Shipaton. I started development around when the hackathon kicked off, and everything was aimed at having something ready to enter.

I highlighted the core features in my submission: site-level tracking with GPS coordinates, the 1-5 star rating system, photo documentation, and community data sharing. I also emphasized the collaboration features I was planning to add, which was the original inspiration for building the app.

I targeted the OneSignal category specifically because I wanted the best chance to win something. I knew notifications and in-app messages would be part of Camp Notes eventually, so implementing OneSignal for the hackathon made sense.

Using OneSignal

OneSignal handles several things in Camp Notes. Initially, I used it to collect emails for the waitlist and notify users when the app launched. Now it powers in-app messages for updates, notifications when subscription trials are ending, and both transactional and marketing emails.

When a user registers, they get a welcome email encouraging them to use the app again. It's straightforward stuff, but it works and sets up the foundation for more sophisticated messaging down the road.

The Competition

Placing 5th out of over 800 entries feels really good. The judging criteria included functionality, design, potential impact, and how well the RevenueCat SDK was integrated, so there was a lot to get right.

I learned that I should think more strategically about categories if I do this again. The Build in Public award, for example, might have been a better fit if I'd actually planned for it and documented the process more publicly.

I'd absolutely do this again. The competition pushed me to ship faster and think more carefully about how I could position what I was building.

What's Next

The app's roadmap stays the same. I'm focused on visit collaboration, gamification with user rewards, advanced filtering and sorting, and API integration to populate the database with existing campground data.

I'm aiming for 10+ visits recorded per month by next year and building out the features that make Camp Notes actually useful for people who camp regularly.

Thanks to RevenueCat, OneSignal, and the other sponsors for running the hackathon. It was a great experience, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

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