The Business Idea and Opportunity
Solar Surf is a startup hospitality business in which the company will be leasing out solar-electric powered surf boards to holiday makers and surfers; the business intends to start her operations at Bondi Beach, Sydney Australia, and gradually expand to other areas and regions. Solar Surf expects to attract and catch the attention of beach goers who are fascinated with surfing or would like to try out surfing but do not have the skills for surfing, are not in a physical position to engage in the rigors of ocean surfing and/ or do not have the requisite surfing equipment. Solar Surf will provide solar-electric powered surf boards that users can hire for a fee and enjoy their surfing. The rationale of this business idea is that a long surfboard will cost upwards of $ 400 and the person must transport it to and from the beach; further, the user must learn how to surf over a long training period. What Solar Surf is looking at is the student, the beach goers, and the enthusiast that wants to experience surfing but without the attached strings of owning a surf board and learning how to use it; sometimes having to wait for the waves to go surfing, and having to handle hassle of transporting and storing the surf board. Further, Australia has a lot of sunshine with the country enjoying year round sunny days with a Mediterranean type climate; the country gets about 340 sun days each year. With a pleasant climate, there are bound to be customers almost all year round. Solar Surf will provide beach goers and enthusiasts with a convenient product that they can hire for a few dollars, and enjoy water sports. The people can learn how to use the surf in just a few minutes demonstration as it is very easy to use; just get on the board, paddle a bot, and turn on the electric jet motor and there you go. The sunshine should not be wasted, it is a free source of unlimited energy that can be used to power entertainment activities such as surfing, without consuming a lot of grid power and helping promote a clean and sustainable environment
Solar Surf is a startup registered in Sydney and will be owned and managed by its partners; in addition to staff that will support the business. The company will start off with four employees plus the four partners; employees will handle training of the users, cleaning and charging the boards, safety and rescue, and maintaining the boards’ stores. The managers will handle various tasks, including marketing and sales, day to day operations management, handling the books and accounts, and maintaining social media accounts and offering customer service.
Operations and Management
Solar Surf will offer leasing/ hiring of electric surf boards for short term leases (typically a few hours per day) to intermediate term leases lasting a few days; customers will be charged per hour of use. Any customer that leases an electric surfboard will be provided training for a few minutes and prove their ability to use it. The electric surfboard will be retrofitted with a radio alarm system to notify the company and rescue teams in case a user encounters challenges while out surfing. Further, the surfboards will be fitted with floaters that surfers can activate when they encounter any challenges as they wait for help. The boards themselves are made of light but durable fiber glass, rubber, and plastics, along with aluminum components to help keep it light and buoyant. Solar Surf will have charging spots made of solar where batteries are charged continuously and the batteries fitted onto the boards based on demand/ need.
Surfing is a popular sport in Australia, with Bondi beach being a particularly popular sport for surfers. It holds competitions and there are several amateur and professionals surfers all year round and day long. The population of Sydney is huge and surfing being a popular sport, has compelled Solar Surf to introduce a new and innovative way in which people can enjoy surfing and a minimal cost of ownership and allow anyone with an interest in an afternoon in the waters without surfing skills or a surfboard to come enjoy themselves. Further, the idea is a response to the dwindling local surfboard manufacturing business in Australia that has seen surfboard makers hit the rocks as cheap imported surfboards rock the market. Solar Surf is therefore filling a gap in the market in which the sport is getting ever more popular with the irony that manufacture of surf equipment is dropping as cheap imports from Asia flood the market (Murray, 2012), (Gibson, 2012). Solar Surf believes this business plan combination will be successful as our projections will show. Solar Surf will provide its customers with the thrill of an electric jet ski at a very low price and keep them coming for more of the same, while reminding them of global climate and energy challenges and why solar energy ultimately is the answer the the energy challenge. The surfers will live with the comfort that they have helped in enhancing sustainable and clean renewable energy use by hiring and enjoying electric jet powered solar surfboards.
Electric Powered Surfboards and Cost Benefits
At present, Australia is facing an energy conundrum and challenge in which low cost, reliable electricity is becoming a challenge and energy prices are no longer sustainable. Further, the issue of global warming and climate change has become an important issue for Australia as a nation (Pears, 2017). The energy sector in Australia is also in critical need of reform as the country faces the prospect of significant changes in energy transformation; this transformation will radically change several aspects of energy, including energy generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption, as well as any energy exports (Wood, 2016). Surfing Australia has one of its values as valuing new ideas and embracing change (‘Surfing Australia’, 2017). Solar Surf is responding to this call for a change in energy production and Surfing Australia’ s call for new ideas by introducing a revolutionary new business with a new innovative technology. The technology is not very new, but its application in surfing is what is new. Solar Surf will acquire and install solar generation hardware, including solar panels, solar glasses, and solar reflectors in an integrated energy generation approach. The energy generated from solar energy will then be utilized to charge batteries for the electric jet surf boards. The battery packs are detachable and will be fitted into each board depending on need/ demand. This implies that charging time will not affect the ability to use the boards since when one is brought back with depleted energy (batteries), a new charged battery pack is available and is installed into the board and the used one taken for charging. Customers will then be able to hire the boards; either from the Solar Surf facility or through online and mobile booking. Payments will be made online, in cash, or through various payment portals. A prospective user can download the Solar Surf application or visit the website using a mobile device and view the number, type, and duration for which boards are available of will be available. The customer can then book the board (as an individual or as a team) and make the payments and get a token for that board. Depending on the time, they will have 30 minutes in which to show up and use the board, otherwise the board will be given to the next available person.
Projected Profit and Loss Account
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To provide customers a thrilling experience in water sports using an electric jet surfboard using clean renewable energy by leasing the equipment to interested customers. The aim is to promote the culture or recreation using available resources (water and surfing spots) and also create awareness and be in the mainstream of an energy revolution by powering the surfboards using solar energy; all this at an affordable cost.
Market Potential
Provide users with a thrill through an innovative product/ service at a low cost
Eliminate the need to buy and learn to use a traditional surfboard
Enable customers to access thrills when they need it and where they need it
Use the power of social media to create a community of electric jet propulsion surfing thrill
Keep costs very low to ensure higher profitability
Startup Requirements Summary
Draft Website
Blog Example
Solar Surf is a firm believer in co-creation; a concept in which users/ communities also create content related to the business and become advocates and promoters of the business while also being watchdogs; raising issues of displeasure or areas where improvements are needed and offering advice. Social media use has been on an explosive trend, and it has morphed from a platform for sharing into a serious tool for business and customer service. For these reasons, Solar Surf plans to make use of social media as a primary tool for customer interaction and for promotion of the business. Solar Surf will use social media in the following ways;
Advertising
Promotion and co-creation
Blogging
Advertising: Social media has 2.46 billion users as of 2017 (worldwide) (Gordon, n.d); In Australia, the total number of social media users are in the range of 17 million (17m being the highest number of users in a single platform- Facebook), while other platforms such as YouTube has 15.4 million users, Instagram has 5 million users, Snapchat 4 million users, Linked In 4 million users, Twitter 3 million users, and Whats App 3.1 million, among others (Cowling, 2017). These are monthly users of the social media platforms; showing a high penetration and use of social media. Solar Surf will create targeted ads targeting communities and also use premium paid social media adverts for the platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter to push content, based on their algorithms, to potential customers. Solar Surf will also have presence in the various social media platforms, and include a blog that is connected / linked to its e-commerce database driven website. Through these accounts, Solar Surf will push adverts to target these communities and use the blog to invite and sustain discussion on the products and other relevant content. This is aimed at helping raise the website profile in search engines because the social media content will be back-linked to the website.
Application Software
Brochure
Simulation of the Planned Service Offering
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Summary of the market Analysis
Strategy and its Implementation
management Summary
References
https://www.statista.com/topics/1164/social-networks/
https://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-statistics-australia-june-2017/
https://theconversation.com/2017-will-be-a-big-year-for-australias-energy-system-heres-what-to-look-out-for-71703
https://theconversation.com/australias-energy-sector-is-in-critical-need-of-reform-61802
https://www.smh.com.au/small-business/board-makers-on-rocks-as-imports-surf-rising-swell-20120105-1pmuy.html
https://theconversation.com/once-a-cultural-icon-is-australias-surfboard-industry-destined-to-disappear-7001
https://www.ronjonsurfshop.com/surfing/surfboards.aspx
https://www.surfingaustralia.com/p/about-sa
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