Case Study: Mappy achieves real-time, location-based ski navigation and analytics with ESRI

Entrepreneur's Dream Ski App Empowered by GIS and Location Intelligence

Mappy, a mobile app developer founded in 2019, set out to build Snow Mappy to modernize the ski-resort guest experience with real-time location intelligence, friend-finding, and turn-by-turn navigation. Founder Karyn Nolan, not a developer by trade, needed GIS expertise, a scalable geospatial engine, and startup support to turn her vision into a consumer app—so she partnered with ESRI and accessed ESRI Services and the Esri Startup program to evaluate technology options and plan the build.

ESRI Services provided consulting and helped assemble the geospatial architecture—custom network datasets for ski lifts and runs, ArcGIS Enterprise to deliver assets, and ArcGIS Runtime API for iOS in the app—while partners handled UX and implementation. The Snow Mappy iOS beta launched at five resorts in February 2021; nearly 1,500 users downloaded the app and it generated close to 7.5 million real-time skier data points. ESRI’s technical guidance, product access, and startup support were key to accelerating development and enabling measurable user and data outcomes.

Mappy

Karyn Nolan

Co-Founder and CEO