4A – Forming An Opportunity Belief

1) Your beginning point:  

So, I am going back to one problem on my bug list which was parking at UF. I really like driving my car to campus and I believe many other people would like to drive their own cars too instead of taking the bus or park far away from campus and have to walk a long distance. I also thought about an expansion where scooters can park freely with no more jams such as the ones at campus scooter parking.  

I also thought about all the home football games that we have in Gainesville and all the events, that would be another source of income for the potential operation as well.  

2) Describe your belief:  

A- The unmet need is a good private sector parking location that is close to campus, easy accessible and affordable.  

B- I believe there is a lot of students who would appreciate this service, there are at least couple of thousands potential customers who might use our service on yearly basis. 

C- The need came from the increase in the number of cars and scooters around the UF campus, also the need came from the lack of UF parking locations for undergrads near campus.  

D- people park now either far away from campus, they take the bus to school which might take forever sometimes, and they also park in highly costly parking locations near campus such as ritz union parking.  

3) Identify the prototypical customer:  

My potential customers are:  

A- Students who like driving their personal car to campus.  

B- Students who ride scooters and do not like the busy scooter's parking at campus.  

4) Iteration No. 1:  

I met with some students who drive their own cars to campus and I asked them some main questions:  

•  How much you are willing to pay for a good located parking?  
• On average, how many days a week you drive your car to campus?  
• What is your payment of choice?  
• What are some of the worries you have when you park your car in a private parking? 

5) Reflection for #1: 

I learned that students like to drive their car to campus but they don’t like to pay much, the average was around $3 or $4 a day. And they also like to pay through an app instead of cash. Couple of students said they worry that someone will scratch their cars or break into them if the parking is not secured.  

6) Iteration No. 2:  

I met with couple of students who ride their scooters to campus and their reply mostly was that they do hate the jammed parking at campus but they are not willing to pay any money to park their scooters somewhere else.  

7) Reflection for #2:  

I learned that students who have scooters mostly are not interested in off campus parking unless I can find a way to make it really affordable and unique somehow! 

8) Summarize: 

 A- most of the original opportunity is still there and I think it is a good idea to solve the problem and make some extra money. New student comes to UF every year, around 40000 to 50000 attends per semester so if I get 0.001 of all the students then I will be a successful operation. 

B- I have thought about this problem before, so yes, I think it is still accurate and it can help some people with their daily life.  

C- customer feedback is the most important thing in any operation, not matter of size or type.  

I learned that through my own experience, my two retail stores are located at really different areas in Jacksonville so I had to adopt to people complains, requests, and needs to make sure both store are successful in their own way.