Opportunity:
I live in a big apartment complex in the Southwest area of
the Gainesville and from the very beginning I moved in, I started having issues
with my roommates. They are around my age and they all study full time at the
University of Florida. Some time went by, and my friends started telling me
about their issues with their roommates and the difficulties of keeping the
place clean. Here is an analysis of common characteristics of who ended up
being prospect clients:
·
Full-time students at UF (some of them even work
at part-time jobs, or vice versa, study part-time, work full-time)
·
Ages range between 18 and 25
·
Come from families from medium and high income
·
Share apartment with other students with similar
demographics
·
Live in apartment complexes (such as Gainesville
Place, the Enclave, The Ridge)
·
Do not like chores, or do not know how to do
them efficiently
·
Some of them have pets that make a mess or
roommates are not happy with that fact
·
In the case of guys, I often notice that they
tend to see chores and all these cleaning activities (specially for common
areas) not manly and diminishing.
To clarify, I did not recognize any pattern where males were
more exposed to these problems. In fact, it was a paradigm shift for me,
because I found that many women have the same struggle, and in fact discussions
tend to be of a greater dimension between female roommates.
After performing a series of interviews, the usual tasks
that students struggle with:
·
Wash dishes
·
Vacuum
·
Take the trash out
·
Cleaning drier’s filter
·
General cleanliness
·
Bad smell in the carpet
·
Cleaning the refrigerator
I think this opportunity will be open for a long period of
time because Gainesville is a city where students come and go (they spend about
three to four years in town)
Innovation
With my business idea, I will present the solution to free
student’s time, and help them reduce stress levels and arguments about house
chores.
I am offering a house keeping service completely dedicated
to local students in Gainesville, particularly for those sharing apartment.
With a monthly fee starting at $40 per person (and up to $55 depending on the
size of the apartment and the amount of people) students will be able to live
in a clean place, where a person will come and clean the floor, vacuum the
carpets, wash the dishes, take the trash out every week. This service can be
requested for individuals (of course, it will be cheaper) or for everyone in
the apartment. I plan to deliver the ultimate customer service at an affordable
price, and to accomplish that, I will be considering the personal requests from
our customers and learn from all the feedback. I even will offer a free trial
to give my customers the opportunity to realize what are the benefits of using
the services of EZTime (my company).
The innovation part of my idea is not in the service itself,
but in the challenge of targeting students and having a cost-efficient
structure. Also, it is worth to mention that I am aware of the low barrier
entry to this industry and that it would be easy for competitors to copy my
idea. That is why one of my aims is to create a brand moat.
Venture Concept
What I will be offering is a very straight forward service,
where students pay a flat monthly fee to get a person come every week to cover
the needs mentioned before (wash the dishes, vacuum the carpet, etc.). I think
it will be very important for my success as a company to taking specific
requests into account. In order to have a high customer satisfaction and inflow
of customer I will need to pay close attention to the individual demands, especially
because young (mostly dependent students) are a very challenging market
segment.
The most important element of my business plan will be
price. After doing research, interviews, listening to suggestions, I concluded
that the main reason why my prospects do not use this service is because of
price. Housekeeping services around Gainesville charge around $65/hour which is
too much for them. This is the reason why other companies have not gotten into
this sector yet (it would mean to forgo a great portion of profits). The low
profit margins are the reason for the lack of competitors.
To face this issue of low profit margins I have created a
very cost-effective structure for my company. It will be key for me to deliver
the service to people living within the same apartment complex. That way I will
be able to save travel time and money.
As part of my branding strategy, and in relationship with my
mission to help and free students time, I will be including something similar
to an informative bulletin. It will be something that includes information
about how to communicate with roommates, things to do to improve such
relationships, how to better use your time, etc. I think it will be a good idea
to make my customers more related to my brand and to differentiate myself even
more from competitors.
At last but not least, the staff. I will be trying to keep
the number of employees as low as possible and increasing as the business
grows. It is part of the plan to keep costs low. I plan to start with myself
and another person, getting paid with a percentage of each job done.
Minor elements
My most important characteristic is how I shaped my business
model, to have a cost-effective structure. By targeting specific people, in
specific places. By having this specific structure, I am able to deliver an
outstanding service at a low price (even lower than competitors) and is the
main reason why I can offer this to college students. Also, it is key to the
success of my diversification plan since I will have big groups of clients in
the same place.
My expansion plan is to add other services to the portfolio.
The options include cleaning services to offices, a car wash and a home
delivery. I think it will help me target other prospects that did not go for
the initial cleaning service, but might be interested in a car wash, or other
delivery services. I will also try to make contracts with the administration of
the condominiums, so I become the official service provider of the place.
For the next five years I think that I would sell the
business to keep going with my life, especially because I will not be living in
Gainesville after I graduate. I will be in Law School and getting my MBA at the
same time. After that I will start performing Corporate Law and investing in
startups in the side.
Feedback
In general, I have received a lot of positive feedback.
Students tell me that in paper it sounds like a great idea, and that it is a
real problem, and I will have plenty of prospective customers. People also like
the structure I plan to implement and how I care about students’ well-being, because
I am willing to forgo a big chunk of the revenues just to at an affordable
price for them. In the review comments people have told me that they like the
details I give and how well thought my business plan is and how I am aware of
my strengths and weaknesses.
The constructive feedback I have been told that students are
usually broke and are not willing to pay for this type of service. This goes
back to my point that if the student is “broke” it means that he/she cannot
afford multiple things, not just a cleaning service, and therefore are not part
of my market segment. Same thing with students who tell me that they do it
themselves because they have the time and the know-how. Again, they are not my
target. But these comments helped me realize that it would be harder than I
originally thought, but I think that with the right marketing I can change people’s
mind (or at least for a small percentage of people). In addition, people have
shown concerns about security, for that I will be making background checks to
employees, they will have a profile where the client will see a description and
know who is coming in advance.
I expanded my venture concept a little bit based on feedback.
I added some details to better explain my idea and to include a couple of new
ideas that I got. For example, the informative bulletin and the deal with the
administration of the apartment complexes.