Edit to add value: "Same-day" special + email list of people with confirmed willingness to pay money and get pushed out of a perfectly good airplane = a win. Presumably your costs are pretty much fixed after making the decision to do a jump, so you could hit that mailing list with a special promotion multiple times per year. It's a Tuesday, congratulations, have 20% off if we push you out of an airplane, etc.
Thats exactly what we do! Basically run our own Groupons. Send out an email with a link to a hidden page on our site that will be up for a week. We generally do it in the winter just before Christmas. Lots of sales as gifts, and since it's winter they will wait a few months to jump which will raise breakage, and hence the margin.
Joe just wanted to echo patio on thanking you. With all the breathless negative press Groupon is receiving post the S-1 IPO filing, it's tough to gauge what the reality is. Thanks for the informative post!
Haha yes, you're certainly right. A start-up offering this service would have to do it on some sort of monthly subscription, say $20-30 a month. Though yes, I agree that this doesn't have nearly as much potential as groupon.
Edit to add value: "Same-day" special + email list of people with confirmed willingness to pay money and get pushed out of a perfectly good airplane = a win. Presumably your costs are pretty much fixed after making the decision to do a jump, so you could hit that mailing list with a special promotion multiple times per year. It's a Tuesday, congratulations, have 20% off if we push you out of an airplane, etc.