ENT Blog UF

Existing Market I believe that my business is primarily target towards boats in marinas, and I believe that this is a good place for my business. I do not think that growth to other forms of mobiles, such as cars or planes would make any sense for my business. As far as growth for my business, I believe that expanding to the maximum number of marinas possible would be the best way for my business to grow within the existing market. The three people that I interviewed all told me that expanding to new marinas and new clients would be the best way for my business to expand. One person brought up a thought that getting a contract with a boat show would be profitable, as companies showcase dozens of marine vessels and want them to look as clean as possible in order for them to be sold. I agreed with them that this would be a good way to expand my business, although I have doubts that this idea will work because most of the boats that are showcased are brand new and therefore do not ne...

Opportunity When coming up with my business idea of creating a service that cleans a customer’s marine vessels at a marina, when they return from their voyages, I thought to myself, who exactly has the need for such a service. The answer was quite simple: anybody who owns a boat and keeps their vessel at a marina. The nature of the need exists because no existing cleaning services such as the one that I am offering exist. Currently, boat owners are required to clean their own vessels that they store in marinas. This is an inconvenience to the boat owners, and because they are already paying such high prices to store their vessels at a marina, this service should be included in the monthly storage price. This is why I proposed to act as an independent contractor who would sign contracts with different marinas to institute my marine-cleaning service as part of the amenities that they can offer to customers. The market is defined geographically by people who live in coastal citie...

1.       Well-educated staff with prior marine knowledge – very valuable, you need a well-educated and knowledgeable staff in order to start the business. This is very rare to have, as few people fit this description of human capital and the workers would need to have prior marine knowledge. This is capital that is very hard to copy by other businesses, as the demand for well-trained workers is high. No physical resource can provide the same service as a human being who is well trained in his job. 2.       Cleaning skills- valuable for the job, as it is a cleaning service, although it is not rare to have cleaning skills and anybody can possess these skills. Most workers can provide this benefit regardless of previous experience. 3.       Network of boaters- very valuable, as word of mouth is a good way for my business to grow. This is rare and hard to accomplish, but still achievable, as many boat owners...

My business is fairly unique and I have not been able to come into contact with anyone who is doing the same thing as me, so I called and interviewed a mobile car wash service instead, to get feedback on a similar business. This person, John, was my domain expert. John only gave me a few minutes of their time so I was only able to ask a few questions. I found the person online by searching boat washing Boca Raton and then only being able to come into contact with people who wash cars. I asked how he planned to expand his business and what his hiring process was because I wanted to know how he hired skilled professionals and not everyday workers who have the potential of making his business look bad. He told me that he goes off of existing workers recommendations. He also told me that my idea was a good one and he would consider expanding his business to let some of his workers work for me as well. The second person I called was my expert on the market. I called a marina owner, to ...

For part two of the book review, I read “The Art of Social Media” by Guy Kawasaki. This book reinforced a lot of my existing knowledge about social media. It was provided me with useful insight on how to use third party resources to bring more attention to my social media platforms, whether I am advertising a product on Instagram, looking for more blog followers, or just trying to grow my existing network on various social media sites. The general theme of this book was informative with regards to business and growing an online platform for someone who is not an expert with social media. I believe that this book indirectly enhanced what we are learning in this class. We have not directly talked about social media, but part of this book included expanding the popularity of your blog by attaching twitter links and other social media sites to attract the attention of more users. This is somewhat relevant to our blog posts. We do not care to have as many users as possible view our blo...