Assignment 11A Idea Napkin No. 1

1. You: 

• For starters, my name is Brooklyn Nave and I am a sophomore. I just transferred to the University of Florida and I am a General Business Major with a minor in Economics. I'm hoping to either be in the MIB program or graduate and then pursue a MBA after graduation. My skills have always been in communicating with people and being able to contribute strong leadership abilities in groups and situations. I have always had a gift when it comes to talking to people and being able to negotiate and settle disputes. Being able to talk to people and settle disputes would come in handy with my service of parking garages that I am providing. When negotiating items such as price, land, location and other details in a contract with landlords it could potentially turn into an argumentative conversation, this is where my skills of settling disputes would help in a situation like this. This business could give me an opportunity to put my foot in the door when it comes to negotiating business sales. 

2. What are you offering to customers?

• I am offering a service to citizens in Gainesville, FL and students attending University of Florida. My parking garage will meet the unmet needs of citizens whose parking is limited during the school year due to students parking in the spots that are normally empty. My service will also provide a need for the students by creating parking garages for people living off campus so that they will have safe and affordable parking spots. This in return helps the citizens of Gainesville because they will have more parking spots open up as a result of less students parking on the streets. 

3. Who are you offering it to?

• I am offering my service to two main groups: off-campus apartment landlords and city hall with regards to downtown Gainesville. Apartment landlords would include any of the following: L3 Campus Gainesville, Trimark, KLM, etc. This service would most likely primarily be targeted towards this group of people since they would provide the most beneficial outcome for my unmet need that I am looking to solve. This group of people would probably be the most problematic in terms of successful negotiating, since they would have to contribute their time and money into the service as well but in the end would end up making the most profits out of the two groups I would be offering my services too. Gainesville will be my trial city and the first college town I would start with for parking garages before eventually moving to other college towns such as FSU, UCF, USF, and many others!
• My second group that I would be offering my parking garage services to is City Hall. This group of leaders would be offered the opportunity to have a parking garage centered in downtown Gainesville. This parking garage instead of the monthly rates that the garage for the apartments would be offered, would charge parking residents hourly rates to park in the garage.  

4. Why do they care?

• I am confident that people will buy my service because of how large of an unmet need there is for this service in crowded cities and especially college towns. My service of parking garages has numerous attributes to it that make it appealing to consumers in the market, such as, the locations of the garages will be very convenient to all main attractions, off-campus parking garages will be located in a centralized area between all agreeing apartment complexes included in the garage making it safe for the students, and the rates for the parking garage will be fair and reasonable. Consumers will actually pay money for this service because it is relevant and there are not a lot of other competitors in the market that provide this service, at least in Gainesville speaking. 

5. What are your core competencies?

• In my own personal knowledge, I do not know of any other company around here that offers services like these --- without insanely expensive rates. My only other 'competitors' would be the apartment complexes that opt out of signing onto a combined parking garage, and offer residents their own personal spots, but those spots are usually outrageously overpriced and sometimes not in the best locations either so I am assured that my core competency of offering affordable and safe parking spots in a great location will be more than enough to sway the consumers into renting a parking spot from one of my parking garages. 

Do these elements fit together?

• I do believe that all of these elements work together and would be great, however, I do feel that there are some important parts of this opportunity that are weaker than others. First, I am not sure what it would cost me personally to get this business up and running and where to begin looking for a credible and safe contracting and construction crew to hire to work on the parking garages for me. Secondally, I am not sure how to go about getting my name out there and the services that I provide. This is due to a lack of connections and people to spread my business around to people in the community and area. Other than these two details I feel that all of these elements that I have work together to make this a great opportunity!