Mark Abramowicz (left), Braden Golub (middle) and Mitchell Gaynor (right)
What’s the biggest complaint of Bostonians besides the fact that the city closes so early? If you ever had to drive in this city, chances are you’ll immediately scream “Parking!”. And you’re right. We have very little street space, while everyone seems to have a car, garages are far away and wicked expensive, and so parking is a pain in the ass. It gets even worse when you stop to think about how much money you paid for a parking spot next to that new apartment of yours, because if you discount the time you’re at work or away on vacation….it turns out you’re never quite using it. Bummer, right?
But what if you could turn that to your advantage and make money out of it? No, I’m not crazy. I just happened to come across a great new startup that allows you to do just that. Easily described as the Airbnb for parking, SPOT lets you rent out your parking space(s) when you’re not using it, allowing you to make the most out of it. The company has devised a rate of the parking spots around various Boston neighborhoods, allowing you to quickly determine what your spot’s worth. And it’s incredibly easy to use. All you need to do is download the app (available on iOS and Android), and a few clicks later you can start banking on your underused parking spot. Pretty cool, huh? Apparently, the startup press seems to agree with that, as this infant of a startup (they’re barely a year old) has managed to get covered by the likes of BetaBoston, BostInno, TIME and TechCrunch.
Now, how did they get here? SPOT is the brainchild of Braden Golub, an Ohio native that felt the pain of parking when he first moved to Boston nearly a decade ago. One day, as he was feeding the meter for his girlfriend’s car, Golub noticed all the empty parking spots behind his apartment building. And then it hit him: people weren’t using their parking spaces when at work, while others (like him) kept spending time and money on street parking. A couple of months later SPOT was born. A year later the company has already grown to 7 employees and managed to establish a cordial relationship with the City of Boston (which Director of Marketing Mitchell Gaynor cites as a significant factor for SPOT’s success), accumulate more than 15,000 users, and is currently in the process of raising a seed round of investment. Not bad for a company that’s just getting started.
Even though SPOT is currently operating solely in Boston, it’s planning to expand its service to other cities very soon. Chicago is first on the list, with San Francisco, L.A. and Miami to quickly follow, and then the company plans to roll out in Philadelphia, D.C. and Seattle. Right now you’re probably thinking: “Why not NYC? After all, that’s the one place parking is even more of a bitch than in Boston.” My thoughts exactly. However, according to Gaynor, parking in Manhattan is heavily regulated and garages hold an overarching monopoly, SPOT is postponing that move until it garners sufficient brand recognition. And then? The team just hopes to continue expanding while doing what it does best – helping people.
“We recently contracted a school to rent out 15 parking spaces during the summer”, says Gaynor. “They will manage to capitalize on their untapped resources, with all the money going back to the school, so that it develops more afterschool programs for the kids”. A Salem native, Gaynor worked in advertising after graduating from Salem State University, but his heart wasn’t into it. After an extensive job search and what Golub deemed “the cockiest cover letter he ever read”, Mitch Gaynor landed at SPOT. “What keeps us motivated here”, he says, “is that we’re giving back to the people, allowing them to take their money back by capitalizing on the resources they have”.
Beantown Innovation 