24A – Venture Concept No. 1

Indoor Soccer

Opportunity:

• The opportunity I identified was the lack of indoor soccer businesses in the Gainesville area. I found this out while living in the city as a student, so I saw the unmet need through my eyes and I found people with the same unmet need. Geographically, this market does not exist in Gainesville, and demographically, a lot of my potential customers will be young adults, college students due to the overwhelming student population present. 
• Customers are  currently satisfying their need by playing recreational soccer, but this only applies for students at Santa Fe College and at UF since each have their respective programs. They appear to be pretty loyal to this activity because it provides game environments to the students once a week. 
• Another potential group of customers is the group of people that meets up to play Sunday league at the Forest Park. This can be a blend of college students, graduates, and even older people. 
• This opportunity is big because it would be a new addition to the seemingly low quantity of recreational things people can do during the day in Gainesville (or night), and since there are no other businesses of the same type open in the city, the window of opportunity should remain open indefinitely. 

Innovation:

• Since the service I want to provide has not been tried in this location, I believe that my business would be innovative for the city's population. It will be new and exciting to them and it will get a lot of hype and publicity in the time before its grand opening. 
• People will be able to play indoor soccer, a new recreational activity for the population during the day-time and at night as well, whenever they wish to play within the hours of operation. 
• It is innovative because people do not have to depend on the sun outside if they want to play after sunset or dry conditions outside. In Gainesville, it rains a lot and an issue people face is their recreational games getting cancelled and being stuck inside wishing to play. 
• I am providing the rental and use of my indoor fields inside my facilities for the desired amount of play-time. If it is one hour, the price for the rental will be $100, if it is for 90 minutes it will be $140, and for two hours, it will be $160. Customers can reserve the spaces on the internet, over the phone, or in-person. 
• The fields' dimensions accommodate 8 people (4v4) and be a reasonable sized field per person, 10 people (5v5) which will be the optimum size for the quantity, and 12 people (6v6) which is the maximum amount before the space feels cramped. 
• Additionally, customers can buy snacks and beverages before or after their games at the front desk. 

Venture Concept

• For the ability to play at whatever time they wish, under whatever outdoor conditions, people will switch to this new service. It is also not a matter of getting people to switch, since people can play both their recreational league and play indoor soccer games. They do not need to commit to just one since indoor matches can be scheduled at whatever day and time the party wishes. 
• Since there are no other businesses in the same industry in Gainesville, my business would have no competition. 
• The location and pricing would help define my business concept the most, considering it would be located in a college town, and students will make up the majority of the consumers. Its location must be easily accessible for people with and without personal transportation. And the prices must be reasonable since parties tend to split it evenly and cannot discriminate  people based on their income or background. 
• I believe that for this business, there should be only a handful of employees besides myself. There should be trustworthy people present that will be responsible and accountable when showing up to their shifts. The business will not require much maintenance for the employees or heavy lifting during their shifts. Instead they must be attentive to set up games and collect payments from parties and mark down reservations. Ideally the maximum number of employees present should be two people to have things flow smoothly and at optimum effort.

My "secret sauce" will be the fact that I am the sole provider of the services in Gainesville, FL. And if there are threats of new entrants, I will have gained a loyal customer base by the time the rival business opens. 

The next opportunity I would like to tackle is developing a soccer camp for the youth population and provide classes for children while their parents are at work or in other endeavors. 

Within 5 years I would want to have expanded towards another city in Northern Florida, because it is an area that is quite short-handed in the indoor soccer aspect. Within a decade, I wish to have locations set up in the coastal cities such as Jacksonville and Tampa near the original location of Gainesville, FL. 

The first venture will help me set up the standards that my customers will expect of me, and give me the time to modify my advertisement campaign and marketing strategy.