Assignment 25A - What's Next?

Existing Market:

Step 1: In all honesty, I have already thought of pretty much everything possible for a high-tech parking garage. If I were really working on differentiating my product and had to make a modification for the better, I might create a decal system that automatically charges car for their time spent in one of the parking garages to avoid wasting more time.

Step 2:
Interview 1: My first person interviewing said that they feel like we should add speed bumps around the corners of the parking garages to promote safety, especially on campus.
Interview 2: The second interviewee said that I would also need to add an elevator to my parking garages, which is a detail that I had not thought of since it would not improve parking itself but rather the convenience of parking. She also suggested that I promote this idea with fliers around campus and at apartment complexes.
Interview 3: My third person interviewing said that we might want to add cameras to the facilities. They also said that customers are probably gonna be looking for rates that are cheaper than the UF and neighborhood decals.

Step 3: In all honesty, there really isn't much that I could do to improve upon the opportunity itself. My interviews gave me some sort of feedback on things that I could add if I really wanted to make my garages advanced. In terms of the future, I plan to add the three things that my interviewees have suggested. These things would be mostly for safety, with the exception of the first idea that would also improve convenience.
         The main thing that I would do to grow my venture would be to add the automatic payment system in which people would attach a decal to their car that would automatically be scanned upon entering my garages. This system would auto-charge the card after every time someone comes in to park. This would be mainly in an effort to improve convenience since there are a lot of people going to school on a time crunch.

New Market

Step 1: If I were to pick a different market aside from college students, I would pick businesses in the downtown and midtown area who also have trouble finding reliable parking.

Step 2: I think that this venture concept would bring utility to this new market segment since it would provide them with a consistent and reliable way of finding parking that would be located near a lot of major businesses for added convenience.

Step 3:
Interview 1: This individual suggested I offer cheaper rates for employers buying parking for their company over a longer period of time.
Interview 2: My second interviewee suggested I advertise to all the nearby business in the downtown and midtown area that would be close by the hypothetical garage.

Step 4: What I learned from this new market is that I would be dealing with a completely different type of market in which my really advanced parking garage would not have much use for. These people would be coming in and leaving their cars in there for the majority of the day, which is not the idea I had in mind for my garage. Furthermore, people who are going to work would probably also be willing to pay less for parking so I would also not be able to charge as much.
         To be quite frank, I feel like this new market would not cut it and would likely not be successful in the long-run. I believe that the most profitable market segment by far in the city would be college students who commute to and off campus and popular areas via car. My parking garages are intended for high traffic areas in which people are coming in and out during all times of the day, which is exactly why college students are perfect: they're always busy.