Delivering Health To The Cedar Valley
Dreamer: Brent Johnson
Business: Bike Tech
Location:
Cedar Falls, IA
We are growing into the Cedar Falls
historic post office. Having outgrown our current space years ago, this
space provides the room for our business and services to grow for
future years while highlighting historic preservation efforts in
Downtown Cedar Falls.
Business Description:
Bike Tech focuses
on customer service and knowledge - two items that the internet and
larger stores can't provide. Since 1996 Bike Tech has been keeping the
Cedar Valley and surrounding areas rolling with bicycle sales and
service expertise. Purchased by Brent Johnson in 2006, Bike Tech has
doubled its sales in just under 7 years. Since that time, fitness
equipment has been added to give a much needed boost to weak winter
sales and to help retain year-round employees.
We are extremely
excited to expand our product range to include recumbent trikes. This
category of product does not have any dealers located in Northeast Iowa
and has the potential to make our store a regional destination. New
customers will be entering our store and community to shop our
selections.
Having already had moderate success with professional
fitting services, our new location will allow us to provide for a
dedicated room and will let us perform fits before, during, and after
regular store hours. Our current space only allows for fits to be
conducted after store hours and by moving multiple store displays to
make room for the various pieces of equipment used during the process.
Our
competition varies greatly in terms of size and style of service. We
have big box retail along with the smaller independent bicycle dealers.
Bike Tech's move will aim to blend the benefits of both - a large
spacious floor with attractive displays and professional appearance
blended with friendly, knowledgeable, down to earth staff whose goal is
to make your next bike ride the best ever. All in a space full of
historic character helping to balance them all together.
Reason for Entering:
The funding
provided by this contest would help Bike Tech with the significant build
out expenses associated with moving to a new space. These would
include lighting and flooring, new computer and service equipment to
increase efficiency, and an increase in inventory levels to fill the
larger space.
The additional space will also allow us to expand
our product range to increase sales and services to under served
demographics in the Cedar Valley and Northeast Iowa. We hope to do with
dedicated space and products for aging Iowans, fitness equipment
shoppers, and premium bicycle fitting services.
With these new
offerings we hope to provide a better, more modern customer experience
that consumers will be expecting from bicycle specific retailers in the
future.
Support
Bike Tech and the
city of Cedar Falls have been a major supporter of BIKEIOWA.com for years. Let's return the support and help them get into their new space!