Why we're building Canopy

We're building one home for camp season, where families plan now and register eventually, and where camps get tools they can actually afford. The Louisville Camp Directory is the first piece, and it's live today.

Read our story

Building for both sides of the sign-up sheet

For families

Browse every Louisville camp, save the ones you like, and plan all your kids' weeks side by side instead of across seventeen browser tabs. A free account keeps your plan year over year, and registering across camps without retyping the same forms is where this is headed.

For camps

A free listing helps Louisville parents find you today, and claiming it lets you control what families see. Next comes a verified badge and full ownership of your page, and then an enrollment platform priced for real camp budgets: registration, waitlists, payments, and rosters built around how camp weeks actually work, shaped with our 2027 pilot camps.

For everyone

The goal is connective tissue between families and camps: fewer emails, fewer phone tags, fewer "wait, which camp is on which week?" moments. We're building the rest in the open, with the people who'd use it.

Born from a really long spreadsheet

Picture this: it's January. You're sorting through camps for three kids, and every camp has its own forms, its own deadlines, and its own way to pay. By February, you've started a spreadsheet to keep it all straight. By March, the spreadsheet has its own spreadsheet. You want to cry a little.

That was us. So instead of going through it again, we started building Canopy. The directory is step one, and it's live today, with every Louisville camp searchable by week, age, and neighborhood and a planner that lays the whole summer out kid by kid. Next come verified listings and an enrollment platform camps can afford, shaped in the open with Louisville families and camps.

What we care about

Simple beats clever

If we can't explain it in a sentence, it isn't ready. The directory has one job: help you find the right camp without making you work for it.

Built for busy people

Parents are busy, and camp directors are busier. We design for the person figuring out summer from a grocery-store parking lot, not an ideal user with all afternoon.

Camps are partners

Camps put real care into their programs, and we try to match it, with tools they can afford and a directory that sends families their way, not ours. When camps do well, kids get better summers.

Joy is the point

It's summer camp, so the product should feel like that, even the boring parts.

How this is funded, honestly

Canopy is independent, with no outside investors, no ad networks, and no data brokers. It's funded by us, two parents who saw a gap: Louisville's incredible camps and the families who love them deserved better tools, and nobody had built them, so we are. That means every product decision gets made for the people actually using it, not for a board, a quarterly target, or an exit. Slow, sustainable growth is fine; selling your attention isn't.

Long-term, Canopy pays for itself through optional, paid features for camps that want them: better tools, deeper analytics, integrations they'd otherwise have to build in-house. It's always opt-in, and it's never the cost of being listed. We're betting that if the software is good enough, camps will choose to pay for it on their own. And parents shouldn't have to subsidize either side.

Our promises

  • Always free for families. The directory and core search will never be paywalled or ad-supported.
  • Never your data. We don't sell it, rent it, or share it with marketers.
  • Always your camp's choice. Camps decide whether to pay for premium tools, and being listed never requires it.

These aren't aspirational; they're how the company is built.

Built by parents, tested on reality

Canopy wasn't dreamed up in a boardroom; it was built by two data-obsessed, community-loving parents who'd lived the planning chaos every March, and seen how much heart Louisville camps put into their programs. They cared enough to build the missing piece for both sides. They're results-driven, thoughtful, and yes, very competitive in the home gym.

Michael

Co-creator

Michael is the mind Canopy was born from. With a PhD in nuclear physics and a career in data science, he had both the vision and the technical depth to see exactly what was broken, and build something better from scratch. He's enthusiastic, not afraid to rock the boat when something isn't right, and genuinely motivated by building things that help people. Dad of 3 and a natural social butterfly.

  • Measures ROI in Chipotle burritos. It's a legitimate unit of measurement at Canopy HQ.
  • Loves a good list almost as much as checking things off one.
  • Will chat with anyone, anywhere: the golf course, the school pickup line, a random airport tram. Networking is just breathing to him.

Kirstie

Co-creator

Kirstie is the person who thinks of everything, and has already thought three steps ahead before you've finished your sentence. A data engineer with a master's in electrical engineering, she's meticulous, blunt, and allergic to wasted time. As a mom of 3 and household manager, she has a black belt in prioritization and brings that same quiet, results-first energy to everything she builds.

  • Doesn't need to write lists down. Her brain is a fully structured relational database.
  • Loves to cook. Loosely following recipes is as close to "go with the flow" as she gets.
  • Runs on Quills Coffee. Local, strong, and non-negotiable.

Got a question? Let’s talk

Whether you're a parent with a question, a camp curious about our tools, or anyone else with feedback, we'd love to hear from you. A real person reads every email.

Get in touch