It was another football weekend for the Penn State Nittany Lions and I was in State College looking forward to the fun and debauchery leading up to the next morning’s tailgate prior to the game. Basically, it amounted to a bar crawl from one place to another hanging out with friends and enjoying the entertainment. While making our way downtown to the hotel, we noticed the bus stops packed with students. One of my friends suggested that there has to be a better way to get around and that there’s so much time wasted just standing and waiting on the bus. Not to mention, it doesn’t always get you to exactly where you want to go. From this conversation was born the idea that scooters could provide a transportation alternative.
At this point, I had been trying to come up with an idea for a business for a long time, 
and this seemed like viable opportunity to me. On the drive home from State College, I began drawing up my business plan. There would be quite a bit of overhead for rent, insurance, vehicles, maintenance, and employees but I was able to make it financially viable through a tiered pricing rental model. My target market would be the college students at Penn State University that are seeking flexibility in transportation around town and did not have the financial means to own a car (the worst part about owning a car in State College is finding a place to park it).
The concept around the tiered pricing model is that the longer that someone rented a scooter, the less expensive it was on a per day average. This would help to ensure that the scooters remained rented an providing income. It also reduced the amount of time that it would take to check in and check out a scooter rental. Of course there were countless other details that needed to be explored, but I was excited and hit the ground running!
This was the initial concept which lead to launching Campus Skooters into the business that it is today. Follow my blog for more stories on the opening and growth of Campus Skooters as well as the other business ventures that I am exploring on my path of entrepreneurship.
Real Life Investor 