Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity: 
The opportunity I have found is the need for extra parking and easier access to the University of Florida main campus. Students, faculty and just the general public all have this need. This what I would call a luxury need. It is not necessary for its customers to have, but it does make their life easier. It is a huge hassle to pay hundreds a semester for the possibility of finding parking on campus. Then after finding parking, its hard to hop on a bus with multiple stop just to get to campus. My intended marking for this opportunity is literally anyone who has the needs to come onto campus without paying extreme amounts of money. I think that more areas for parking in the Gainesville area will last for the long haul.

Innovation:
For the opportunity above, I came up with Gator Shuttle. What Gator Shuttle is, is a parking garage and shuttle that travels directly to campus. The shuttle will travel to all the main points on campus (hoping to work with UF). These points include: Library West, The Hub, Turlington Plaza, South West Rec. The hope is there will be 4 shuttles that travel specifically to that destination. There will be no extra stops in-between the parking garage and campus. This way uses who are crunched for till should always know just how long the ride should take. Traffic depending of course. The parking garage will be 10 stories full of spots.

The garage will be a pay to park either daily, weekly, or on a semester basis. It will cost $3 dollars a day, $10 dollars a week, or $100 dollars a semester. It includes 24 hour parking. So say a student buys a week pass, their car can stay in the garage without leaving for the entire week and not get towed. The shuttle will be $2 dollars no matter if your a student, faculty member, or just wanting to visit the campus. However, there is also a semester pass for the shuttle that will be $45. I will profit off of the above charges. I'm hoping with the right investors to get this project going.

Venture Concept:
Gator Shuttle will definitely help solve the issue of there not being enough parking on campus. It will offer another option for students to park at allowing both Gator Shuttle and the other parking options to make their full profits. Customers will buy my innovation because it will be another option for parking. My innovation is cheaper than my competitors. UF's park and ride option is $150+ a semester. The Reitz Union Garage is $5 a day always. The lot on University across from Smathers Library is around $6 for 3 hours during normal running operations. I don't think it will be hard to get customers to switch to my product especially with the prices I'm offering. My competitors weakness is that they are not offering what I have and their prices won't compete. From the interviews I've conducted I've found that this is something students will definitely want to have. As far as running the businesses goes, it would mainly be be running the garage. I would need several different bus drivers. I don't think finding drivers would be hard especially since it is located in a college town where students are always looking for work.

I think my most important resource would be my education. I am learning how to run my own business and I have seen it be done first hand through my parents. Learning the proper ways to handle a business is always important. There are so many obstacles that go into it and I feel like you can never learn enough. Also having my parents helps because they've actually started a business. I can learn all I want but sometimes life throws curveballs. This is where their guidance will come in handy.

My new product for the service would be the daily rental of scooters. This would take some time to further get the idea solid, but I think it is something students would really benefit from. It would also help increase sales of my parking garage because students who drive could park then use a scooter to travel to campus.

I hope once this venture starts it will take off. I honestly think it could be great in other large college towns in Florida. I hope that my idea could lead to other students in colleges around Florida to start their own shuttle companies to make traveling to school easier for everyone.