GoParkr is a platform where people with parking spots can rent them to people looking for event parking. It’s like an Airbnb for driveways. Here’s their company in their own words.
Your Solution
Do you know where the closest parking spot with the best rate is? How long do you drive around trying to find parking after you’ve already arrived at your destination? A recent study showed that up to 70% of the cars on the road are already out of transit but still driving around aimlessly for parking. The average motorist spends 107 hours per year searching for a parking spot, this figure is even higher at congested areas such as special events, downtown, and transportation hubs. Drivers do not have accessibility to transparent and accurate parking information in real time. 40% of parking spots in the downtown area are underutilized during peak demand hours. Commercial lot owners still use manual car counting method to collect data but have the potential to gain 30% in revenue if they implemented data analytics to make informed business decisions regarding aspects such as on-demand vs monthly space ratio or pricing models.
In the wake of continuing urbanization and congestion, GoParkr recognizes that this as a problem for
future growth and we aim to better improve our solution as traffic and parking become increasingly difficult to manage. With emerging technologies such as IoT, autonomous vehicles, and AI, the $100 billion parking industry is on the brink of disruption by the $15.5 billion smart parking sector, growing at 17.9% (compounded annual growth rate).
Our product is in its 2nd iteration with some major design changes through customer feedback. We are coding a few features and integration work while continuously testing the app with beta users.
Your Customer
Our core customers for owners are middle-aged households looking for additional passive income. Drivers are younger and tech-savvy individuals that often visit downtown and prefers to have the luxury of driving their own car rather than taking public transportation or Uber.
To eliminate time and money inefficiencies in the parking industry by providing more convenient and cheaper parking options for drivers and rental opportunities for parking spot owners. GoParkr connects drivers to parking spot owners, empowering both parties through an easy to use mobile app, while providing actionable insights for parking lot owners through our analytics dashboard with the help of machine learning.
GoParkr not only acts as a broker for renters and owners but also seeks to maximize value for both
parties. By ensuring that the parking supply meets the demand through the use of our analytics platform, drivers will receive the cheapest parking while renters will maximize profits through GoPark’s dynamic pricing feature. Going forward, we seek to work with municipalities to optimize city parking space through analytics obtained and intelligent pricing of on-street parking in our app. To put our philosophy in two words, it’s optimization and efficiency.
What Stage are you In?
We are still in seed stage at this moment. The startup is funding with money from friends and family at this stage. It is important for the investors to have aligning values as the startup. More importantly, having investors that provide more than money such as their network and extensive relevant experience is hugely important to the success of the startup post-funding. There should be a balance between aggressive feedback and passive advice from the investor in order to maximize the success rate of the startup.
What does the title Founder mean to you?
Founder means that they are a core part of the company’s values and ability to move forward. There is
no hard-drawn line for GoParkr to know when to cut off the title of a co-founder, as we are more interested in the person and the contribution they can bring to the firm. After confirming that the values are aligned, the following attributes are tested to ensure the quality of the partner such as the ability to learn, grit, and passion. The ideal partner will be smart enough to learn almost anything swiftly as being in a Startup requires one to wear multiple hats. Grit is crucial since the startup journey can be long and daunting at first, often involving multiple failures. The partner should also be passionate about the product and the problems it solves for our customers. At the end of the day, they should understand that fundamentally the success of our customers is the above all else in our business.
What hardships did you face to this point?
In the beginning, starting GoParkr was very difficult due to lack of people who are interested in us. At the time, I was a non-technical founder trying to find a technical co-founder when there is just a concept with no MVP. It took a lot of trial and error, networking, and convincing to finally onboard the first 2 technical co-founders. I learned so much about how to negotiate and persuade people as well as looking for the right people for the team. This skill is incredibly important even after the initial co-founders were finalized. GoParkrtendsd to hire slow and fire fast, hence it can take up to 3 months for us to fill a single position.
Are you hiring?
Yes, we are hiring software engineers (full stack, frontend, backend), growth hacker, product designer,
business development individuals.
Anyone you’d like to thank on your journey so far?
Stanley Jing, Patricia Wang, Bill Chen, Tan Wang, Vincent Chen, Jatin Narang, Supul, Wayne Chen,
Conrad, University of Waterloo, Sabrina Si
How do people contact you?
M: Frank Jing, 519-781-9061
E: frank@goparkr.com, contact@goparkr.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/GoParkr/
TW: https://twitter.com/TheParkr
IG: https://www.instagram.com/GoParkr/
AC: https://angel.co/goparkr