Finding a fix for a broken parking system
Aashish Dalal was a man on a mission when he quit his consulting job in 2005. He wanted to fix what he thought was a broken system: finding a parking spot in a commercial garage.
He initially joined forces with co-founder Jon Thornton to create a hardware company that would measure availability at garages using real-time sensors.
When the two realized that idea would require too much capital, they switched gears to become a Web-based company, ParkWhiz.
"That was the first defining moment of our company, that we were able to recognize we need to pivot and we need to move into something that's actually going to generate revenue," Mr. Dalal said.
They started with event parking. Since then Mr. Dalal, now 35, and Mr. Thornton, 29, have added daily and monthly parking to their website and mobile app, where users can reserve a parking spot at a garage.
ParkWhiz takes a cut of the fee and garage operators fill up spaces that may have otherwise stayed empty.
ParkWhiz currently serves 80 cities in 2,000 locations. Hyde Park Venture Partners recently led a $2 million Series A round of funding that enabled the company to hire more than 20 people.
Added Mr. Dalal: "The finish line is building the best possible service, the best possible product, reaching the most number of consumers we possibly can and making the parking experience from what our original vision was — broken — to fixed."
Original Article: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130423/NEWS07/130429960/finding-a-fix-for-a-broken-parking-system
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