Outfttr wasn't designed in a Silicon Valley office by people who've never set foot in a lodge. It was built by someone who's been running a fly-in fishing operation for over 20 years — and whose family's data goes back nearly three decades.
My brother and I bought the lodge in 2004 — a fly-in fishing operation on a remote lake in northern Manitoba with a main lodge, multiple outpost camps, charter flights, guides, and guests who've been coming back for over 20 years. About 80% of our guests are repeat visitors. The operation's data goes back to the late '90s.
For decades we ran on a legacy desktop application, plus spreadsheets, printed schedules, and lots of handwritten notes. The old software did some things well, but it couldn't send emails. Couldn't take online payments. Couldn't integrate with anything. And it was just one piece of the puzzle.
Everything else — tracking deposits, knowing who owed what, sending confirmations, managing supply lists for outpost camps — was done by hand or not at all. We were missing payments because there was no single place to see the full picture.
Before the lodge, I spent years at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works — advanced defense programs, large-scale software deployments, and systems where reliability isn't optional. I've been writing production software since 1997 and building professional websites since '98.
At the lodge, I built custom hardware and software for everything — remote monitoring, solar power systems, generators, communications. When it became clear that no existing lodge software could do what we needed, I did what engineers do: I built it myself.
Outfttr pulls it all together. Bookings, guests, billing, payments, emails, questionnaires, vendor orders, reports — in one system that actually understands how outfitters work. Not how hotels work. Not how Airbnb works. How you work.
The occupancy grid is the heart of it. It's where I live while I'm working. One glance and I can see who's coming, who owes what, which shuttles aren't confirmed, which guides are assigned. Vendor orders show as colored boxes right on the grid — red for “needs attention,” green for “confirmed.” Phone rings, a popup shows the guest's name, booking, and balance before I even answer. That speed and visibility is what over 20 years of doing it the hard way taught me to build.
We imported all of the lodge's historical data — thousands of guests, reservations, and charges — from the old system. Nothing was lost. Every guest relationship, every booking, every note. That history is priceless when a guest calls and you can see their entire journey with your operation.
Every outfitter I talk to has the same problems we had. Spreadsheets for tracking payments. Missed deposits. Confirmation emails sent one at a time. Supply lists built by hand. Printed schedules taped to the wall. No way to see the big picture without digging through three different systems and a stack of notes.
The existing options are either generic hotel software that doesn't understand your world, legacy desktop apps stuck in the past, or marketplace platforms that charge per-booking fees. None of them were built by someone who actually runs an outfitter. Outfttr was.
“I built Outfttr because I needed it. Every feature exists because we hit that wall ourselves — not because a focus group suggested it.”
— Shad Torgerson, Founder
Founded by
Shad Torgerson
Skunk Works Veteran • Lodge Owner • Software Builder