About Us
OCR Buddy is the world’s only calendar and database app and the foundation for one of obstacle course racing’s strongest community.
OCR Buddy started because I was looking for a better way. To find OCRs and events to participate in. Bouncing from website to website was tedious and there had to be a batter way. It took hard work and desire to create something that had never been seen before. OCR Buddy was released on November 1, 2016. What started in four countries and a few hundred users has grown to ten thousand downloads with over 31,000 lifetime listings in over 70 countries.
OCR Buddy is also a community. The community has the overall goal of supporting, improving and continuing the development of obstacle racing for the athletes, businesses and all involved in the sport. How can an app assist a community? OCR Buddy has features built into the app that will help you find hotels, get directions, weather and more about each event. OCR Buddy can provide you discount codes, training locations, find trainers and will allow you to help others within the OCR Community. OCR Buddy is the OCR Concierge.
One feature that is integral in OCR Buddy is the ability for athletes to help one other. Users (and non-users) can add events into the OCR Buddy database. OCR Buddy allows users to add their own information, codes and more importantly, gives them the control over their schedule.
The OCR community benefits because Race Directors use OCR Buddy. Imagine if all Race Directors checked schedules so that there was limited competition on dates? Every time a Race Director decides not to compete directly with another race, we all win because athletes can attend more events.
The OCR Buddy Ambassadors were announced for 2022. The OCR Buddy Ambassadors, while promoting OCR Buddy to the OCR community, has the goal of promoting the OCR Community itself. While podiums are great, helping people overcome their own obstacles, promoting those that may not otherwise have a forum and being the basis for someone to say, “they inspired me” is our goal. With 75 Ambassadors in many countries around the world, we have only just started to see how well a simple app can affect athletes from the United States to the United Kingdom, through Kuwait, Chile, South Africa, Malaysia, India, Estonia, Denmark and more. The OCR Buddy Ambassadors bring the world together through the love of obstacle racing and the desire to make our community a better place.
Functionally, there is no other calendar available today like OCR Buddy. Users can filter in over a dozen ways. Users can keep track of past performances. Users benefit by constant upgrades and updates to the app, mostly made through suggestions of the OCR Community. OCR Buddy supports other race types such as ninja, adventure racing, hybrid, ruck and much more.
OCR Buddy is never satisfied where it is as there are always ways to give more to the OCR community and to its users. The goal of OCR Buddy is to be able to provide everything it needs to its users for an event. OCR Buddy will help you plan, schedule and register for a race. Then it can help you prepare for your event. If there is something more that OCR Buddy can do for you, tell us. Your suggestion may be our next upgrade.
I do not see OCR Buddy as an app, but as a living thing. It grows. It improves. It makes mistakes and learns from it. Building this app has been the best thing I could have done in this sport. I was once a guy racing alone and found a community and a team to race with. Now, I want to be the force that brings the entire OCR Community together as one team going forward
When I had to figure out what to name this app and how to portray it to the community, I only wanted to be one thing. I wanted to be the “Buddy” for the OCR Community.
I hope that I am doing just that.
- Russ
OCR Buddy is the world’s first mobile calendar and database application for Android and iPhones. OCR Buddy eliminates the need to jump from website-to-website, event-to-event and keep track of a race schedule on a spreadsheet, whiteboard or scrap paper. OCR Buddy does all of this for you.
Since its release on November 1, 2016, OCR Buddy has been changing the way that obstacle course racers plan, prepare, create and update their race schedules. While OCR Buddy is a tool that will help you keep track of your schedule, it is also a tool that will help save you time, eliminate frustrations and will keep you organized.
OCR Buddy is constantly growing and evolving. Through OCR Buddy, you can find your teammates/Buddies and see their schedules to help plan for future events. OCR Buddy has an extensive list of filters so you can see every event listed, or get as specific as possible. OCR Buddy began in five countries and has expanded to well over a dozen, with future expansions planned. The more that obstacle course racing grows, you can believe OCR Buddy will expand as well.
OCR Buddy’s database is fluid. It is constantly updating with the help of its Buddies. One feature of OCR Buddy is that anyone can add events. If there is an event near your house that you want people to know it is happening, add it to the OCR Buddy database. We cannot find every event out there and the Buddies help fill the gaps beautifully.
There are many more features to OCR Buddy and we are constantly updating based upon the suggestions and comments from our Buddies. Many of our past changes happen because of Buddies suggestions as we believe that they know what they want in the product and we try to provide it the best way possible.
OCR Buddy also believes in giving back to our community. OCR Buddy donates 20% of all proceeds from app sales to charities that assist the fight against cancer and that help our veterans/first responders. We believe that giving back is part of the OCR Community’s foundation and we are proud to continue this trend.
If you have questions about OCR Buddy, please click the Contact tab above and ask your question, give us your suggestion and add your comment. Look around the website and find us on Facebook. OCR Buddy is a growing app. It is always changing and updating and we are excited every time something new happens and it can only mean we are providing a better product for our Buddies.
OCR Buddy is available for download at the App Store and Google Play. We invite you to become a Buddy and we remind you to continue to be epic and keep playing in the mud!
Blindhack is the software development company behind OCR Buddy. Following Russ Blatt's unique vision, they brought OCR Buddy into existence. With the all encompassing energy of OCR Buddy's founder as well as the rapidly growing community of racers supporting OCR Buddy all over the world, Blindhack continues to work to improve and expand OCR Buddy.
We find OCR Buddy to be an incredible avenue to inject positive change into the world - writing code that helps people get out on courses, meet new buddies, develop a love of fitness, accomplish challenging things and grow the OCR world as a whole is truly something we are grateful to be able to do.
Find out more about Blindhack on their website.
