Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert:

1)    The first group of people I talked to own a business in Miami that have multiple developments and are profound in the hotel industry.

2)    Domain Expert

3)    This person was one of my good friends in high school and went over to his house to talk to his parents about their projects and experiences of developing projects.

4)    After talking with them, they agreed that I have the right idea when it comes to identifying a market that is in need of a service. They also explained that the parking garage industry is highly lucrative if you can identify the right geographical area.  Furthermore, they were worried about the amount of revenue I could actually bring in. There reason was that in South Beach a parking garage has new people coming in and out every day because of the location, here in Gainesville I will be banking on people using the spots from month to month. Day to day you are able to charge a higher price, a month to month I will need to charge a much lower price. Overall, they help me conclude that I would need to do much more research to see if the opportunity in Gainesville would be the right fit, and that I may need to restructure my business plan in order to see a good source or revenue.

5)    Knowing this family will always help me get information about business development and learn from their experiences.

Market Expert:

1)    The next person I talked to was Carl Zelholf, she is an expert in real estate and identifying potential markets.

2)    Expert on market

3)    I have known Carla for a long time, I had talked to her about my project before but never used in any other posts. I called her and I talked to her about my business idea.

4)    Carla agreed with my friend’s family that I have identified a market that is in need of more parking. She also agreed that revenue can be an issue and would need to identify a group of customers that would be willing to pay for this service. However, she did not discourage the idea and pinpointed that this area in Gainesville would most likely not lose value any time soon, so that investing in a piece of land to create a parking lot would have minimal risks attached.

5)    Having someone who is an expert in real estate is very important to the success of my business opportunity. Getting a hold of the land is the most important factor in my model and making sure that the piece of land is central to the area of apartment complexes and having the land retain its value will help mitigate all risks associated with this project.

Supply Expert:

1)    The last person I talked to was my father, He owns a construction company and gave me advice on the costs of what it would take to transform the piece of land into a parking lot.

2)    Supplier (I don’t feel that this applied to my opportunity so I wanted to see the costs associated in order to transform a piece of land to a parking lot)

3)    Sense he’s my dad I just called him

4)    After talking to him, I called our estimator Don who works for my father’s business and I explained to him that I was looking for the costs associated to create a new asphalt parking lot for a quarter of an acre. He called me back a day later and explained that with a quarter of an acre we could fit around 60 cars and the costs associated would be anywhere from $2.63-$3.42. Therefore, I could expect that the renovations could costs anywhere from $28,640.7 - $37-243.8

5)    By having a company and their resources at hand is a huge benefit for me and my business opportunity. Also, being involved with a construction company could benefit me because when I build my project I will be able to minimize construction labor costs and project management costs.

Reflection:

Overall I think I am lucky because I know a lot of people that would be able to help me out on my business opportunity. I have made many of my connections from my friends in high school and have used their parents for business advice throughout this course. I will continue to be in contact with these group of people because in many cases my father has worked with all of them.