> Working on going independent here in Denver, acting as a 'broker' between businesses and their staff/customers to convert single-occupancy-vehicle-users to scooters, to increase the functional number of parking spaces in a given parking lot by 10% or more.
How do you make money doing this?
I also don't see how you really achieve this as a business. The best way to do this would imo run for city council with the backing of developers, remove zoning, and then implement road improvements.
Most cities have parking requirements for cars, so they legally can't remove paring spaces. This needs to change at a legal level.
Offer this as a service to a business. The service (which I'm charging for, but don't yet have customers) is:
1. Paint some scooter parking lines in a reasonable spot, and add a signage explaining why the org wants to incentivize scooter usage.
2. The scooter parking would make use of existing nooks and crannys in the parking lot, so it wouldn't take away existing car parking.
3. Work with the staff to find the staff that lives relatively close to the business, and is amenable to scooting. Teach and train and hand-hold through their scooter purchase, so when they're working, their scooter is parked outside.
4. Once there's staff using scooters regularly, there will nearly always be a scooter or two parked outside the building, which will start to normalize scooter usage for customers
5. Hand-hold early adapting customers through the same process.
6. Add signage and website and email campaigns to let interested customers learn more about the whole thing.
Done. Every time there is a scooter parked in front of a business, that's a car parking spot freed up. Keep refining the process until during busy hours, there is a number of scooters in front of the business equal to ten percent of the number of parking spots.
I won't be removing any parking. Only creating new parking, and helping more people start scooting.
I ran for city council in golden, Colorado, a few years ago, and saw far too much of how the sausage is made. City councils have no power, by design. They exist to absorb the ire of angry citizens, and to insulate the city staff from the effects of their decisions.
There is no world where city council is helpful. They're a lagging indicator of the social norms of middle and upper class white people.
The legal changes will lag social changes, so it's not helpful to directly target legal changes.
Okay, I commented below but you mean a MOPED type scooter not a lime / bird type e-push scooter.... I literally was imagining you out in the street marking lines on the pavement for lime scooters that are the size of... well the lines in the first place and was like "this dude is off his rocker"
I may indeed be off my rocker, but at least it's for slightly more sophisticated reasons than what would be implied by my choice to be hustling lime scooters!
'i went to Canada on a scooter' has such a a different implication...
revzilla, like revzilla.com, the motorcycle store, or magazine, as you say?
saw a dude yest cruising around on some type of etrike - i liked it, and i think the main reason was because it didn't seem as ugly and wide and low-quality as a typical non-e-trike.
i could see etrikes becoming a thing for older americans, and that matters because they have a ton of political power, relatively speaking.
i figure, all the hype around ebikes is great, but largely useless. all that really matters is infrastructure/policy -- i.e. bike tracks, bike sidewalks, cycletracks, protected bike lanes, whatever you want to call them.
i feel like the golf cart-oriented communities are a perfect example of re/designed infrastructure allowing people to get around by something other than cars. same might happen if a bunch of older, upper-income white people with tons of political power decide etriking might be something they might like to do occasionally. they wouldn't have to be older or white - it just so happens that's the demographic that is currently in charge and has been forever and prob will be for the foreseeable future, and so many of our policies are based on identity politics.
I think scooters could be great for older folks, too. Help them retain balance and stuff. Scooters are way more stable than bicycles, but can go fast and can ride as fast as a car, if needed.
Totally agree with old white people representing political power, so whatever they want is what happens.
Revzilla has a blog and paper magazine (yes, real high quality paper) and it's the some of the best writing on motorcycle culture anywhere right now. (Along with Zach Bowman at The Drive and Fortnine's YouTube.)
The pitch is that businesses can reduce parking congestion (is there a dollar value you can pin to this?) by paying you to act as a personal scooter consultant for their employees?
During research did you come across any mass-market applications of this sort of concierge service? It sounds very niche/upscale. I can’t think of any purchase I’ve made where I could have even found someone to hold my hand through it that wasn’t the person making the sale. The closest analogue I can think of is a travel agency.
A good (new) scooter costs $4500 out the door, and plan on another $600 for a jacket, gloves, a Snell-certified helmet, cell phone mount, and bluetooth headset so you can hear directions from your phone.
Take a motorcycle rider training course, and get the motorcycle endorsement on your drivers license.
Next would be skills-building around slow-speed turns on the scooter. It'll be pretty easy, but you'll have to practice it at least a little.
For that cash I can just have a motorcycle or an e-bike. Why would I want a scooter in this case? Not dissing on scooters, I don't get it though. Bikes and motorocyles are a lot more stable at speed than scooters.
OH YOU MEAN A MOPED... not a Lime Scooter. OK... we're on the same page.
Yeah I'll keep rocking my FJR but I'd do a e-moped if I had rides around my house, tho for that an e-bike is more compelling. FJR oddly gets 40+mpg.
Hah! I wonder how many other people have made the same mistake. There's really not a great word for this class of vehicle. I have been tempted to use the word 'moped', but got sternly corrected by the staff at sportique scooters when I was last there.
I think I might keep using the word moped though, motor scooter doesn't quite do it, and scooter is too confusing.
Or maybe I could say 'gas scooter' or '125cc scooter' or something.
I recently crossed paths with the the electric moped I met in the wild, and it was beautiful and quiet.
I'm not going to get rid of my 170cc scooter anytime soon, but I would totally consider adding an electric moped to the fleet.
There is indeed a dollar value one can pin to the extra parking availability. It's business dependent, but absolutely it can be tied to additional revenue.
And yeah, 'personal scooter consultant' is the pitch.
It's concierge and not traditional, but so am I.
As far as mass market application of this concierge service, I don't think there needs to be a mass market adaptation. Once there's some minimum buy-in, scooters will be normalized and more and more people will default into using them.
Its way more likely you would buy a scooter once you'd ridden on a friend's scooter from the gym to a local park for throwing a Frisbee. If, however, you didn't know anyone who owned a scooter, maybe you'd never own your own.
So... I'll hand-hold and concierge whatever is required to get critical mass.
I've already got two friends that have bought scooters, and they love it. I have four more friends now about to take the plunge. Scooters spread through friend groups, it seems.
Once you see how many problems they solve, and how much more fun and convenient they are, it's hard to unsee.
But it's damned hard to be the first person to make that choice.
I, too, don't know that I have seen this exact model before, but each scooter purchase saves a parking spot for another customer, so the businesses I work with will be invested in the results.
It's fun to work on, and everyone I've talked to has been super interested. Parking issues dominate the lives of general managers/directors/owners of Denver area businesses.
They'll try nearly anything to make those problems be less of an issue.
you sell the scooters and get a commission for the people re-doing the parking lots. the customer company is incentivized by green initiatives and they have budgets to spend.
Critically, no re-doing of the parking required. It'll just be adding scooter parking spots in existing nooks and crannys around the building/parking lot.
Company is incentivized by adding available vehicle parking spots.
Sportique scooters, the local scooter dealer to Denver, is down and happy to offer me some commission for scooter sales that I bring in, but that's not the main thing for me. I want corporate buy-in from the companies I'm courting, cuz I'll need their permission to access staff and customers.
(I'll be adding signage, and the companies will make some concession to scooter riders, to make it a bit more appealing. A free drink, $20/mo in free food, etc. It'll be a case-by-case decision, based on what they can offer that's easiest/most useful to the customer, etc)
Scooters are super cheap, and let you move through a city way fast, and can be parked nearly anywhere, regardless of how busy the area is, and it's literally $6 for a tank of gas. And they get 100 mpg.
I think a little progress will lead to a lot of progress.
How do you make money doing this?
I also don't see how you really achieve this as a business. The best way to do this would imo run for city council with the backing of developers, remove zoning, and then implement road improvements.
Most cities have parking requirements for cars, so they legally can't remove paring spaces. This needs to change at a legal level.