29A - Venture Concept No. 2

Part 1

Gator Parking        

            The main opportunity that is associated with my venture concept is to meet the unmet needs of UF students around campus. The unmet need that my service is targeted towards is finding available parking spots around campus. The problem is that UF students who have vehicles at campus have trouble finding available parking spaces, and often leads to a lot of stress and a lot of wasted time when they do go out to find a spot, if there are any available. The problem also reaches out to students who currently use scooters to get around campus, because they were forced to purchase one in order to get around campus, and hopefully my service will make it so that they will be able to avoid another major purchase just so that they can find parking efficiently. Changes in environment that create this opportunity are increases in population. With increases in population, parking doesn’t and therefore it becomes harder to find spots. Geographically and demographically, this need extends mainly to UF students who are currently living on campus, since they will be the main group facing the problem. Currently these students are satisfying their needs through two options: either by utilizing bus services or by purchasing a scooter. Through this, they are loyal either to the RTS bus system or companies that sell scooters respectively. This opportunity is not as big as it could be, maybe extending to possibly 30,000 – 40,000 potential customers at the current time. This window of opportunity should be available for as long as the University of Florida remains open.

            The main innovation that would be incorporated would be consisted of two parts. The first part would be creating new parking room around campus. There are many spots that are underutilized that could be better used if parking spaces were created. An example would be the Broward Parking garage, which is relatively close to where I live. Currently, it is only available to certain people, such as teachers or staff during the day. Because of this, at many times during the day the garage is relatively empty when many students could be using that parking space. This part would generate no profits whatsoever and would merely be the first step into creating a successful business opportunity. For the second part, the part that would make me profit, I would mark certain parking places for “premium members”. Basically, my service would allow students to pay an up charge of $75 a semester to have access to these parking spaces. Approximately 50% of these spaces would be marked for premium students. On top of this, I would have an app that my customers can utilize to figure out which parking spots around campus are open. I would offer other options, such as premium for a week for $10, and premium for a month for $25. Overall, I would want to force students to purchase the $75 package because it is the best deal and would generate the highest profit at no extra cost. This would be how I would make my main source of revenues and profits. I believe that this is a fair price point because the cost of a full semester of parking is relatively cheap compared to tuition costs and housing. It also costs less than the average textbook, so I think that students will be willing to spend money on my services.

            The innovation of premium parking spaces via using an app available to students would be the venture that would solve the problem and work together with my opportunity. Basically, it would solve the needs of the students listed above at a relatively low cost. Customers will purchase my innovation simply for the fact that it will reduce stress and will make them feel more comfortable using their car around campus. Students who have purchased a car already or are currently paying for their own gasoline or insurance should really have no extra problem buying premium parking memberships simply because the price point that I am offering is marginally below the cost of owning and maintaining a car. Personally, I would be willing to cash out $75 for a semester of hassle-free parking, and many of the people that I interviewed agree with me throughout the process. A reason that people would be willing to switch to my service is because it is cheaper to pay $75 a semester or $600 for their extended time at UF than to go out of their way to purchase a scooter for $1000+. Because of this, I believe that it may be easy to get new customers to switch to my service, especially if they are new incoming students who were previously thinking about purchasing a scooter. The main competitors would be the RTS bus system and companies that sell scooters. The weakness of the RTS system is that waiting for the correct bus and then actually getting to the destination that you are trying to go is often a hassle and not worth the time or effort. The weakness of scooter companies is that their products that they are offering are almost at double the price point of what I am offering. On top of this, many students already own their own cars. Business location, customer experience, and price point play the biggest role in my service, because these are the main areas that I am targeting to satisfy the needs of my customers. I would have relatively few employees: I would need people for customer support via the app, people to handle accounting, and people to paint and maintain the parking spaces for my company.

            My most important resource and secret sauce would be our incredible customer support. I want to offer my customers the best possible experience so that they will be more willing to maintain their loyalty and support. The next step of the venture would be to extend to other university campuses around the nation, because I am sure there are many other places that have similar issues to UF. I want to be able to expand this beyond just University Campuses as well. I want to be able to reach other facilities that face this problem. For instance, theme parks in general face parking issues as well as any other places that have big events. If I were able to reach out beyond my original scope, I will be able to reach more people who have more money to spend, therefore, giving me increased profit potential. Finally, in 5 years all my customers should be satisfied with their results and we should expand and be nationwide. I will take my experiences and skill sets to other technological based businesses that can help people all around the world.

Part 2

A lot of the feedback that I received was incredibly helpful. The main thing that intrigued me was how can I take my business further than I already have. The answer that I have come to is to expand my opportunity to other university campuses. Right now, my idea is primarily focused on students at UF. However, I can expand this to other places, not just campuses as well. This will allow me to target people who have more money and are more willing to spend on parking spaces. Another piece of feedback that I received was to maybe change the name "premium" to something else, as this can drive some potential customers away. My goal is not to separate students from each other based on wealth, rather to make parking more convenient for everybody, which is why it will be cheap as it is: less than the cost of a single textbook.

Part 3

I changed the last part of my venture concept based on the feedback that I received. I want to expand my opportunity to more places than just the University of Florida. I want to reach other potential markets who are filled with customers with a very similar need. The more people I am able to reach, the more money I will be able to make and the more people I will be able to solve a problem for. I can use this to build up a higher valuation for my company, and in the long run, if it comes to selling it, I will be able to ask for a higher price for my business because it will be worth more.

Part 4