2) The addressable market that we are focusing on is cities/towns with 100,000+ population. There are approximately 250+ cities in the United States that meet this criteria. We will be focusing on cities in the Eastern part of the US which tend to have an older infrastructure and higher population densities and tend to have a higher demand for metered parking.
3) Realistically, we are a late entrant into the market but few cities have adopted smart parking technology in general. What differentiates us from the competition and provides us an advantage is that we offer both a reservation and bidding system for metered spots. Our competition does not have these features currently.
4) We have targeted 4 Cities (population). All of these cities
- Boston, MA (625k)
- Providence, RI (180k)
- Bridgeport, CT (145k)
- Cambridge, MA (106k)
Brett,
ReplyDeleteThere is clearly a very large market potential for this type of system given that it can theoretically be applied to any major city in the world. You do have an advantage in the fact that parking technology has greatly lagged behind other transportation technologies. When you look at public transportation systems in most cities, or even taxi services, you see automated machines, reloadable cards, ETA timers, etc. When you look at city parking lots, however, I usually picture a guy in a booth that accepts only cash and gives you a paper voucher for your dashboard. I agree that it’s time for the parking infrastructure and technology to catch up. I do, however, see a huge potential difficulty in market entry, as it would be a game changer and difficult to implement everywhere. You will need cooperation from the existing parking lot owners which may be difficult to obtain. It’s good that you plan on starting locally in a few select cities to test out the concept. I would suggest that you may want to target some even smaller cities to start out to prove the concept. This will give you a little more leverage when approaching the lot owners in large markets like Boston.
Brett, by just looking at the target market you have available, I think your product will seek quick customer acceptance and grow viral(in a good way). I think what is critical for success besides the innovative idea is the fact that city town halls would have to approve of this system. I am guessing it would depend on how much additional revenue the system would indirectly bring to the cities that are targeted. Once that bridged is crossed I think your product would stick.
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