1. Me: As it relates to my future service, I am a student at the University of Florida who drives a car and someone who becomes extremely irritated when I can't find parking relatively quickly. Transportation issues led me to think of my business idea of Mid-Assist (MA). I have worked in customer service for the past 5 years, and know from those experiences that the customer may not always be right, but they are still the customer. If this business idea were to become a reality, I imagine that it wouldn't play a huge role in my life, but may be a big role in the lives of my fellow Gators. This would be meaningful because it would be really cool to leave behind something that could benefit future Gators.
2. I'm offering a set of school-sponsored vehicles that would be driving students from the mid-town area to their off-campus, respective dorm/apartment on Wednesday-Saturday nights from 10 pm to 3 am. This solves customers' unmet needs because there currently is no school-sponsored vehicles in operation to assist student living off campus. This is a relatively big problem, considering the majority of UF students live off campus. This also could prevent drunk driving and attacks late at night.
3.I'm offering this service to all UF students. The service is free for all UF students with their Gator 1 cards. The service would not be available to those who do not attend the University of Florida. Attending the university, living off campus and needing a ride home would be something that all of my customers would have in common.
4. Customers would use my service because everyone wants to get home safely after going out for the night. MA (Mid-Assist) provides students with an alternative to walking home in the dark, walking to campus to wait for a SNAP van, or looking for an Uber or taxi.
5. I think what would set my business apart from other driving options, like SNAP, is the fact that is catered to the mid-town area. SNAP vehicles take such a ling time because they are ferrying students all over campus. By only picking people up from one location, the drives should be faster, thus making the cars available to more students.
After writing down these bullet points, I am more confident that my idea is a good one. I think the parts mesh together nicely, and that if this business were to become a reality it would be able to benefit a lot of students. I believe most aspects of the business are connected to the others', and that it makes sense as a whole. The one thing I would have to be sure of is that students know that this service is primarily for off-campus students.
Bianca, if this idea came to life I would definitely use it. The only thing is, where would the revenue come from? Would the students just be able to charge there student card and there is a set price for the rides? I know people don't like using the bus, but as a free service, it is more cost effective because of the amount of people it can transport at a time. Check out my blog post here:
ReplyDeletehttp://keifermcclainent3003.blogspot.com/2016/02/idea-napkin-1.html
This idea is great! Its kind of like the schools snap but drives farther off of campus. Maybe collaborating with UF and seeing if you could get a car service within snap that drives farther off campus. I think doing it that way would make it really successful because a lot of UF students use snap.
ReplyDeleteLike Keifer said, I don't know how the company would make money. Also, would that mean that school tuition would go up? I think it's a great idea and it would definitely be used, especially on weekends. Also, how many cars would you have to start off with?
ReplyDeleteOverall, It's a great idea but there may be some things you want to look into first.
Check out my idea here: http://kalimcauleyentrepreneur.blogspot.com/2016/02/idea-napkin-no-1.html