Assignment #4 Forming an Opportunity Belief

Forming an Opportunity Belief

1. I believe that students are unhappy with parking options available on campus. 
2. The unmet need is that students want to have easy and convenient access to parking on campus.  This need, I believe, has become an increasing issue with today's students. To meet this need, students are seeking alternative routes to campus in which they don't need parking, such as walking, busing, biking, or even ubering. 
3. The prototypical "customer" would be students that live off campus who need a place to park on campus. 

All prototypical customers are students at UF.

1. Prototypical customer #1: A student who lives off campus and needs on campus parking. The nature of the need is being able to park conveniently on campus during school hours because they live far off campus. They sometimes experience this need, but sometimes they get lucky and find a parking spot. This need has existed for them ever since they arrived to UF for their freshman semester. They address this need by not driving to campus as much as they would like to, oftentimes using the bus. They are pretty unsatisfied with this solution because they would like to utilize their car and its benefits. 
• Reflection: I learned that this is a pretty big issue for this customer who would like to see improvements happening soon. 
2. Prototypical customer #2: This customer is a student at UF, however they do not own a car, and therefore, does not have a need for improved parking on campus. However, they are reluctant to get a car because of the difficulties that they see others having when it comes to parking on campus. They do not have an unmet need as of right now regarding on campus parking, however they may in the future if they decide to buy a car. 
• Reflection: This student is an example of one who doesn't have this unmet need. He takes away from my idea that all student at UF want more convenient parking. 
3. Prototypical customer #3: This customer lives off campus and has a car however, they live walking distance to campus so they do not use their car to get to campus. They became aware of this need once they moved to an off campus location this year, but filled it by deciding to walk to campus anyways. They are happy with their decision to walk. 
• Reflection:  This student is another example of one who doesn't need improved on campus parking. This shows me that my opportunity isn't as pressing of an issue as I thought it was. 

Summary

I do still believe that my opportunity is still there, just not as much as I had originally thought. There are plenty of students that are satisfied with their means of transportation on getting to campus, or they just don't even need it. My opportunity has become more specific and has given me more ideas that I should consider when evaluating this opportunity, such as, the location of parking, who should get what decals, and the magnitude of the demand for on campus parking. Entrepreneurs should definitely take feedback into consideration when exploiting an opportunity. Satisfying the customer and their needs is definitely one of the most important aspects of entrepreneurship. For new firms I believe you should weigh heavily the feedback of customer, however, for more established firms, one should weigh a cost benefit analysis more heavily than feedback.