Canoe Rental Idea

**LibertyForMe** · Feb 7th, 2013, 12:16 PM

For the past month I have been communicating with trucking companies to try and discover where they are having pain and frustration in their day-to-day operations. I've talked to 4 people so far, and I have another call scheduled sometime soon. I think that going this route and solving pain in this way would be most likely to lead to a viable fastlane business, but it could take a significant amount of time to find an idea, validate it, and develop a product.

Two days ago, an idea hit me out of the blue to start a canoe livery (rental) company. I live near a fairly shallow and slow moving river that is very pretty. There is a very popular park located right on the river that is co-owned by the county and the small town that it is located in. The park is within 5 minutes of a mid-sized university with 4,000 students, within 20 minutes of a town with a population of 20,000, and 15 minutes from a town with a population of 12,000. The area I have in mind is located 11 minutes from Interstate 85. Additionally, it is about an hour from Charlotte.

The closest competition is about 50 miles to the west, but they are on pretty popular and well known rivers like the Green and the French Broad. The only canoe rental places near Charlotte are still-water canoeing on the big lakes (Norman, Wylie, etc) that are near Charlotte.

There is a program that my church does where 8 students come and live for a year at this house and get mentored, and the house is the closest possible piece of property to the county park. The students always have trouble getting hours at the part-time jobs they find, so I am thinking I could work out a deal with them to store my canoes and gear at the house in exchange for giving all of them first dibs on working hours. The church even has a tube/canoe trailer that stays at the house, so I might be able to convince them to let me use it or rent it.

I sent an email to the park people asking about canoe policy. I know the perfect place upstream where I could launch, and a friend of mine that has an outfitter company told me that the guy came to him a while back asking about setting something like this up as well. I think I could either pay the guy who owns the put-in a monthly fee or give him a dollar or two per canoe that gets launched.

Downsides:
-the river can get pretty low in the summer time, so people would need to get out occasionally and push the boat over some rocks.
-I don't have any canoes or tubes so I would need to buy some (used off craigslist I could get decent canoes for around 200$ each. I talked to my outfitter friend, but he uses his canoes in the summer, so i can't really rent them off of him.
-Forecasting demand: I have no idea how many people would come every day, so it is hard to forecast what I would need.

I am thinking that if I end up starting this, to start out as an online reservation-only company. I would have no office or official headquarters, so people couldn't just show up and rent a canoe, they would have to make a reservation in advance. If I did it this way I would need to start a website that could accept reservations and payments. This approach would be beneficial in that I could do a lot of free marketing to generate website hits without having to pay people to be at the river if no one is going to come. Downside is that if only one person wants to rent a canoe one day, I have to pay my employees for that time, and wouldn't really make money.

Marketing ideas I have brainstormed so far:
-Advertising to parents of students who go to the local university. When they come to visit their kids, this would be a fun family activity that is only 5 mins away.
-Partnering with a local tackle shop and do promo's where if a customer spends 20$ on tackle they get a coupon.
-Parterning with my outfitter friend to use his lists to email people who have already done adventure trips.
-Have specific days where I market on-campus to students, like 5$ tubing days or something like that.

Anyway, this business would be on the side to generate cash flow while I try to start a truly fastlane business.

Any advice or thoughts? This would be my first business venture.

Thanks!
Jacob

**Boston3432** · Feb 7th, 2013, 01:31 PM

Hi, it is not a bad idea to get a business started but it is not fastlane unless you find some way to brand yourself. I think you need a set brick and mortar location rather than just concentrating on more of an online presence. Canoing is not really something everybody is thinking about all of the time. A lot of times people will drive by or walk by and see the canoe rental place and canoes and kayaks sitting out on the lawn and it will strike the idea for them to go canoing...I just graduated college last year and there was a rental place on a river 5 min from campus. They did a deal where students could rent for free with a student ID if it was during the week and between a certain time. This is one way to get some customers during slow times of the week. Even if you don't do it for free, maybe have a good discount for students. One disadvantage I see is if the river is too low in the summer and people have to keep getting out to walk past the rocks. I know this would seem inconvenient and a hassle to me. Also what kind of rentals are you going to have? Just Canoes? Two Person Canoes? Three Person Canoes? Are you going to have kayak rentals also? Just something to thing about....The rental place near my college had several different types of canoes and kayaks so there was something for everyone. Kayaks always seemed to be the easiest and most popular, especially among college students. Let me know if you have any other questions regarding the rental place near my school, might be able to help you some. Good Luck

**BeingChewsie** · Feb 7th, 2013, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by LibertyForMe

For the past month I have been communicating with trucking companies to try and discover where they are having pain and frustration in their day-to-day operations. I've talked to 4 people so far, and I have another call scheduled sometime soon. I think that going this route and solving pain in this way would be most likely to lead to a viable fastlane business, but it could take a significant amount of time to find an idea, validate it, and develop a product.

Two days ago, an idea hit me out of the blue to start a canoe livery (rental) company.

So instead of investing the time to discover a pain-point in a market, develop a soution based on real customer needs and feedback, and then sell that product or service to your already needy market, and in doing so developing a process you can use and replicate in other markets over and over and over...your going to go with an idea that you thought up "out of the blue", have no idea if there is a need for because of the time committment involved in developing a needs-based business?

Sounds like a solid plan.

In a month you have talked to 4 people? In a month?

Sue

**LibertyForMe** · Feb 7th, 2013, 03:27 PM

Thanks for the reply; I guess I needed a good bucket of cold water. My plan was to continue trying to find ideas, but do the canoe thing on the side to make some extra money. I guess that if I did the slowlane canoe biz I would have no time to work on my other and more important venture. Thanks for the input, sometimes I get too excited about things and cannot see common sense.

I just moved to a new apartment and we don't have internet access yet, so the only time I have been able to send emails is over my lunch break at work. I have also been hitching a ride with my wife when she goes to the university for grad school night classes and working at the coffee shop, but limited internet has made it tough. I've contacted ISPs and should have internet within a week, so that is the good news. Then I can work in the evenings after work and I can get up and work on stuff before work as well.

**topherea** · Feb 7th, 2013, 05:20 PM

Originally Posted by LibertyForMe

For the past month I have been communicating with trucking companies

Trucking/transports is a massive and growing industry. Schneider alone is blasting out around $1M a month in tires alone!!

**Ivan** · Feb 7th, 2013, 07:16 PM

Lead gen for truckers is pretty lucrative. You find loads for them and take a percentage of the pay. A lot of those guys don't want to deal with the paperwork, they just want to drive. Most of the people I know who are into it make around $10k/month.

You don't need a lot of capital to start.

**Clayton** · Feb 8th, 2013, 11:41 AM

I also know trucking companies spend a ton on recruiting drivers. A small trucking company I did some web work for has 5 recruiting offices and was willing to pay good money for job applicantions.