Idea Napkin No. 2

1) You. 

I’m just a university student, but I am more than half way done with my degree in accounting. If I were to take on this business concept it would be after graduation. So that puts me in a place where I will be a Certified Public Accountant, with experience in running an efficient and profitable business. I’ve also been working sense I was 16, all my previous jobs have required direct contact with customers, so as of now I have a great work ethic and great customer service.  

2) What are you offering to customers? 

 I’m offering customers the choice to either use their car or use public transportation. I’m offering them about an hour extra of sleep in the morning. I’m offering them a solution to their parking problems. My underground parking garages will not take up space so in turn they won’t make already crowded areas even more crowded and they will provide a cheap parking spot.

3) Who are you offering it to? 

My main focus is to target the University of Florida’s population. All students that live off campus have struggled or a currently struggling with this problem. Through time we could broaden our target customers to the whole city, but for now mostly students and faculty around the universities perimeters. My original intensions where to help the University of Florida parking problem but Gainesville is not the only city that suffers from this issue, so mainly my target is places that lack parking space.

4) Why do they care? 

They care because most student move away from home and bring their cars with them, and a large portion of them just keep them parked somewhere and barely to rarely use them because you just can’t find parking here. Most students take a 30-40 minute bus ride just to get to class, and take into consideration campus is only 10-15 minutes away from most apartment complexes here in Gainesville. Another major issue it towing.  Towing is Gainesville way of fixing its over population. If you park somewhere you’re not “suppose” to park, your car will get towed and they will hit you for a $100 fine.

5) What are your core competencies? 

 What mostly sets me apart is the fact that they are underground. This allows us to build right under the populated areas and will allow customers to be right where they need to be. Yeah we have parking garages here, but they are really far from your destination, sometimes so far that you have to take a bus from the parking garage just to get where you need to be.

I think all the elements of my idea fit together really well. Parking here is a really big problem and I’m offering a solution for it. A solution that would be inexpensive to students but helpful.

The four main issues students brought up in the comments where whether my idea was possible due to sea levels, where in my business venture was I going to make money, where am I going to get money to start it and ideas on how to make it more eco-friendly. For starters Gainesville is above sea levels although there are some areas that are not, so my company would have to run a lot of test just to make sure the areas we are building the garages will have space. Also my garages will only be of 2 floors or less. We would create more space by expanding sideways (horizontally) rather than downwards (vertically). The second and third points go hand in hand. My plan is to make money through the decals but we are a construction company, not a service provider. So businesses, schools or even the government would contract us and pay us to make these garages and it would be up to them to monitor them. Construction period is not environmentally friendly, usually when contactor go out to build something they start by clearing the land. My company will sadly have to do that, but we will also create a natural environment above the garages. This was we will be using a space efficiently and giving back to the environment as well.