9A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

I believe that my business opportunity and idea targets a niche market of boat owners and marina owners. It would be tricky to get individual boat owners who keep their vessels in general storage to sign contracts, as the service and contract would have to be unique to every customer. My need differs from other cleaning services because it is done right there at the marina, versus having a different third-party source come in that may not specialize in boats. The niche part of my idea is that boat owners would not have to do anything additional to have general maintenance on their boat. The reason that outsider’s needs would be different than everyone who would benefit from this service is that outsiders do not have boats that need to be cleaned in marinas.

It may be possible that some marinas have deckhands that clean boats for tips, and they would not want to have such a service as it would take away from tip money that they make. From the additional interviews that I conducted I have come to the conclusion that some boat owners who do not keep their boats at marinas would also like a service that comes to their house and cleans their boats. I interviewed one yacht owner that explained to me that part of his hired crew’s job is to wax and clean the boat and that the boat owner would likely not consider the additional cleaning an extra pro to docking his boat at a certain marina. The remaining interviews were of people who I believed would not benefit from the service because they do not own boats, which confirmed my initial claim that only boat owners would appreciate my service. One of the non-boat owners said that he would like a service to come clean his car at his house, but companies like this already exist and I would not like to expand into this opportunity.  


Inside the boundary
Outside the boundary
Boat owners who keep their vessel at a marina
People who do not own boats
An on-site cleaning service for their vessels
A cleaning service for non-marine vessels
No existing third-party cleaning services exist
My idea is a niche, marine-vessel only idea

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Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 1, 2017 at 5:03 PM

    It's interesting that the Yacht owner said he already had a full service cleaning crew he has privately. This is a concern that I never thought about before but definitely could be a competitive factor in the industry you're trying to break into. I agree that you should keep this as a boat specific marina as car cleaning services are already so abundant.

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  2. UnknownOctober 1, 2017 at 10:12 PM

    I can't imagine the costs of a private cleaning crew for a boat, especially one as big as a yacht. I believe the idea of presenting dry docks with the idea of having their own cleaning crews is a great idea so long as the price of the cleaning is reasonable. When it comes to maintenance, boat owners pay so much to begin with that I believe they look to cut corners when they can. If the price is low though, there's no excuse to keep your vessel clean.

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