SpotHero: Mark Lawrence

0:03 The problem I think in San Francisco is You've got some really hot competitors, right? Yeah. I mean this was quite possibly One of the most stressful periods that we had experienced to date. Not only had we had only raised seven

0:18 million dollars, but these companies had raised forty, fifty, sixty, seventy seven million dollars. Wow. I remember a board meeting where I was told Mark We've been telling you're going slow, you're not expanding fast enough, and now there's this new model and it looks like you guys are dead. You're being disrupted before you have the chance to disrupt.

0:48 Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. They built. I'm Guy Raz and on the show today, how thousands of dollars in parking tickets drove Mark Lawrence to launch Spot Hero. A service that since launch has parked.

1:09 Fifty million cars. Across North America. More often than not. it's the seemingly boring businesses that succeed. These are businesses that Don't dazzle us with fancy technology or wildly disrupt an established industry.

1:29 They just do a better job of tackling age-old run-of-the-mill problems. Some of these stories we've even told on the show. For example, pots. That company didn't invent storage. It just

1:42 did it better. Or 1-800 got chunk. That business simply made it more convenient to haul your stuff away. It's more or less the same playbook Mark Lawrence used, though it took him quite some time to get there. Back in two thousand eleven, Mark got into what seems like a pretty boring industry. parking. He named his company Spot Hero.

2:04 Initially, he and his co-founder wanted to create a sort of Airbnb for parking, a peer-to-peer service where people would rent out their driveways in exchange for a fee. Mark launched the idea in Chicago, around Wrigley Field, where parking is notoriously challenging. But as many of these stories go, That model. couldn't scale.

2:25 It turns out, many people who live around Wrigley Field were perfectly happy to stand in front of their driveways on game day with the sign that said Parking 50 bucks. So like all good start founders. Mark Lawrence. Him in it.

2:40 He decided to try and partner with parking lot owners to sell their excess inventory. Mark would build the Spot Hero app and then get a cut from every parking spot sold. The problem? Well, a lot of other entrepreneurs had a similar idea. And in quick succession.

2:57 Similar businesses started to spring up all over the US. Many of them were far better funded and growing at breakneck speed. And the pressure on Mark to try and copy them was mounting. But instead, he took a slow and steady approach. First Chicago, then DC, then Boston, and so on.

3:18 Mark resisted calls to try and get into price wars with his rivals, in large part because he believed that their business models were not sustainable. And ultimately, as you will hear, he was proved correct. Today, Spot Hero is one of the largest digital parking platforms in North America, with service in about 300 cities. Before he set out to start his own business, Mark took a job at Bank of America in Chicago right out of college. This was right before the financial crisis of 2008, and just as luck would have it,

3:52 Mark was assigned to work on mortgage backed securities. A massive bubble. That was about to pop. Yeah, the movie The Big Short for me. Is a documentary.

4:03 Yeah. It's funny and it has ridiculous things, but that's like exactly how it was. Like I remember that some of the country wide financial guys that came and they were making jokes About writing mortgages to dogs. And so I mean like it it was not

4:17 Um a very pleasant There were pleasant people. Um, you know, and I did make some some friends and I I worked with some great folks, but you know, th a lot of the A lot of the talk was like hey. Did you hear we're not gonna get bonuses this year?

4:31 Isn't that ridiculous? What would the bonuses be for? So you're working there and um and and I guess I mean And I'm basing this off of some some research we did,'cause we we unearthed a blog that you used to write. And uh called lifestyle ignition. I don't know if this is if this is something you're embarrassed about or not. It's it's kind of interesting. And uh and you had a blog, which a lot of people did and do, and you would you kind of like um on this blog chronicled

4:58 Your frustration with working for A big company. Yeah, it's so funny. I haven't thought about that in a really long time. So yeah, it's a bit embarrassing. But uh yeah, I did chronicle You know, frustrations with working at a big company. One that I remember was um called Fake Work.

5:15 Because it felt like a lot of the work there was just completely fake. And I remember like I had a doctor's appointment and I was told, Well, hey, if you're taking a A long Lunch. which was like an hour and a half for a doctor's appointment. Like You you gotta be the last one to leave the office.

5:32 And and I was like, Okay, well and there was really nothing to work on then. Yeah. And I remember sitting there And there was another guy. And he was supposed to be the last to leave'cause he took a long launch for some appointment. And so we're both just like waiting for each other to leave and it's eleven o'clock at night and we've like been working on nothing. And we're the only ones there. We're finally like let's just leave right now. Um so you know, when your market is down ninety nine point nine nine percent, there was periods of time where, you know, they didn't they ultimately laid off what, like fifty thousand people between all the various, you know

6:04 Amalgamations of banks for Bank of America. There wasn't any work and the work it was just fake work. You eventually were one of those laid off in two thousand ten. Yeah. And was it kind of a relief in a sense?

6:16 You know It was a relief because I started, and it was very stressful because I was a week away from getting laid off. The entire time I was there. There was never a moment

6:29 Of like This is gonna be their career. It was more like okay, we started and it was like crisis. Right. I never spent any money. I save money because I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get laid off and I'm probably gonna have a very hard time finding a job. And so it was a relief because I'm like, okay

6:48 Now it's has some finality. Um but it also was Nice because I literally didn't spend anything. I was like afraid. And so I I was able to save uh money and what's nice is I was able to use six thousand dollars of that to start Spot Hero. Right, which we'll get to in a moment. But but but basically you were

7:08 You're laid off, you you saved a bunch of money. How much money, by the way, did you save? Um, I wanna say about that time it was like fifty thousand dollars. That's great. So you had a lot of you had a lot of money saved up and you were just living really lean. I mean we were looking so lean. Um I remember the there was a friend of mine, Brandon James, who you know went to high school with and we ended up, you know, reconnecting at Bank of America. We we read the book by Rolf Potts called Vagabonding. And it was like a contest of like how little we could spend because we're like we're getting laid off.

7:39 And him and I uh we were roommates and we would eat like just rice and beans. And I remember when I all I bought was like A chicken breast to eat with the rice and beets that I cook myself. And And

7:51 I bought a beer trimmer. Okay, w like off Amazon for like thirty dollars. And he was so disappointed. He's like, I can't believe he's like, You don't need the beer tri trimmer and you don't need the chicken. I was like, I know, but I've been eating rice and beans for months. Um, and so we kinda had that like accountability. Between us. This book, um Vagabonding, is it's called An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long Term World Travel. And I guess the idea was you're inspired by this book to save as much as you could With the idea that once you're

8:21 whatever happened if you were fired or you lost your job. You just travel. And and I and you write this on your blog blog post lifestyle ignition back in two thousand eight, you're right. I am gonna Go on a bike trip across Africa.

8:33 So that that was the plan. I mean, I researched down to the weight of every single item that I would bring. on that bicycle. Because like every you know, ten grams, like the it all adds up, right? Like especially if you're going uphill. Where are we gonna start, by the way, in the south or in the north? Um, I was gonna start in Alexandria, Egypt, and then go to Cape Town. But Um, the person I was supposed to go with, Brandon, he biked, he started in Europe and then he biked all across Asia. And we were supposed to meet up in Africa.

9:01 So you you're laid off. The plan is Let me do a bike trip across Africa and you start to research this. But meantime Um you had a friend A guy named Jeremy Smith. Uh I guess was a had been a roommate.

9:14 Yeah, so here's what's interesting is The reason Jeremy Smith became my roommate. Is because Br Brandon The room is on the bike trip. He w he went on the bike trip.

9:25 And Brandon. You know Um was like, Hey, I need someone to take over the lease. So I didn't even know Jeremy. And so Brandon was like, Hey, you guys have to Live together so I I can bike longer.

9:36 So Jeremy moves in and who is Jeremy? What does he do for what was he doing for a living at the time? Uh so he was at uh Motorola. Okay. And uh he was in he was in the finance department at Motorola. And In the beginning him and I kind of um I don't know the right like we would butt heads because I was so done with

9:57 the corporate world and Bank of America. And he was like in love, like with Motorola. He's like corporate America's amazing and Motorola's the best and you know going on and I remember You know, saying to him I was like I'm sorry I have to say this, but

10:12 I forgot. Motorola existe until you reminded me. But um yeah, there we definitely bought it heads in the beginning. Yeah. So another thing I think that was happening uh around this time, w which would actually lead you to starting Spot Hero, um is that Uh both you and Jeremy, I guess, were um were having a lot of issues with parking. Like they you were getting hit with a ton of tickets

10:35 Do you Remember how much you accumulated in parking fines like over the years w while you were working in Chicago? Yeah, I mean it was it was about five thousand dollars worth of parking tickets. It was pretty embarrassing. And you paid them, presumably you paid them all. Yes, I pay if d you know, if you don't pay your parking tickets in Chicago, they're gonna boot or you know, tow your vehicle. Um and I rem I remember actually Like call call it I don't know if it's like peak demoralization, but

11:01 Um I got three tickets. for the same thing like about a minute apart, which was parking more than six inches away from the curb or something like that. Yeah. And and so I remember I'm like, Oh well I'll just Yeah. I'll go down and I'll I'll beat this. I'll pay one, but I'll save on two. And so you know, they're just like

11:21 Well, is is it is it not true that you were at three oh one, three oh two, and three oh three PM, more than six inches away from the curb? And I was like Okay, well Uh technically, but and they're like, Okay, so guilty. And I was like Wait, what? Like I was like, that's bullshit and they're like, You can't say that in court. Like, do you want to go to jail? And I'm like, Well am I gonna go to jail for parking tickets? Yeah. It it's amazing how efficient a city like Chicago is in in find people and following up on those fines for parking violations, and how inefficient it is in everything else. Well I mean they're so great at it.

11:55 Right, like Here's what's crazy. Street cleaning. It's so confusing, right? Like it's not on a specific date, it's like the second Tuesday of the last month of Yeah. In the bleep year. Yeah, and then what they do is they put up these like temporary signs or these almost pieces of paper or plastic around trees. And then when you parked your car for the night. You miss the sign. Yes.

12:16 Yeah. And then there's the overnight towing band, like if it snows uh uh you know more than certain number of inches, then they just tow every car. I mean there there's there's definitely some efficiency for parking fines uh in the city of Chicago, so they're so good. All right, so you're You're dealing with that. Jeremy moves in and he's Mr. Corporate America. You're looking to kind of transition, you're still thinking about that bike trip across Africa. How do you start to talk about maybe Doing a business together.

12:46 We weren't like, hey, let's build a company. We were like Hey, we both have this problem. With parking. and parking tickets.

12:55 Let's see what we could do. Right, like the way what we looked at is we're like there's all this parking that you can't have access to. And if we bring all of this parking. supply. We're gonna start the Airbnb of parking. Wait, so when you say there's all this parking that's available, you're you're talking about like people's driveways, basically.

13:13 Yeah. People's driveways, but also how about a church? It's busy on Sundays, but it's not busy on other days. Um how about a Dunkin' Donuts? It's there there's no one parking there. At nine o'clock at night. says you do not park here, there's our parking lot and you're like the bangs are open.

13:31 Exactly, right? So banks close Sunday. Right. So you know, the the bank's gonna be completely open on Sunday, the church is gonna be completely packed, right? So why can't we bring all this new parking to market? And solve all these tickets. Right. Okay. So you guys start talking about this. And clearly you're excited excited about it, but initially I mean he's working at Motorola. By this point you're you're already laid off from

13:55 From Bank of America. So I I've I'm already laid off. Um, and then he got laid off for Motorola as well. Well And then Um he started working at a pizza place.

14:08 you decide, let's see if we can build something, what does that mean? Did you What were the first steps you took when you decided to pursue this idea of trying to see if you could use unused people's unused driveways and Dunkin' Donuts parking lots to turn them into paid parking spots? Okay, so the first step was I called my friend Brett. Because he had a parking spot in Wrigley Field that he didn't use.

14:32 on Wrigley Field, but in the neighborhood Wrigleyville, right? In the neighborhood Wrigleyville, in the alley behind his apartment. Okay. So our first spot was called Brett Spot. It was named Bret Spot. Um versus the addresses like today. So the first thing I did was ask him, Hey, can we sell this online? He said, Yeah, I'm not using it, so no problem. And then the next thing we did we're like, Well how do we get customers. So we would go on Craigslist and

14:57 Tell people they could park there. First just starting with one ad one space, one ad on Craigslist. Correct. And what we would do is we'd have two Uh we we had two different ads. One was for self park. And then the other was valet, which I was the valet. And I had my car. So

15:15 Th they would park and then I could drive them to the As close as you could get to Uh where pedestrians can walk in. So we had self park and a valet option for breath spot. And this is all for for Wrigley Field. Yeah. And and there's a phone number or there's like an email address that they can Yeah. Okay. Yep. So what happens?

15:33 I mean we would sell out his spot every day on Craigslist. During the season. During the season, correct. And how much were you charging for the spot? Uh tw twenty dollars for self park and forty dollars for valet. We can't really build a business off. twenty dollars a day or forty dollars a day, right? But this is a start. It's just a start to kinda see and you're selling the spot out.

15:54 Pretty much every day. Aunt through Craigslist. Correct. Through Craigslist. We were selling it out every day. And did you need any money to start I mean you needed you didn't need money to advertise on Craigslist, but did you I mean you had saved fifty thousand dollars, a lot of money for a guy who's twenty four, twenty five. Mm-hmm. How much money did you guys put in?

16:11 So we each put in six thousand dollars. And so then the next step was I called my uncle, my mom's brother. And he was an engineer, software engineer by My background and I I said you know What do you think I should do? And he said. Um well you should um

16:28 Use Python. And it's funny because obviously Python is a critical component of what we do, but I I said to him, I said, What what what's a Python? What does that mean? The programming language. But d did you know how to code? No, I did not. Um and so he made an introduction to um someone who he knew that was willing to contract for us. And just to be clear, I mean th this was to build a website and platform. This is what the co this is what you hired this coder to do. Correct, yeah. So initially the idea starts a wriggly field and and which is smart because you're thinking, hey

17:01 Ricley Field, it's it's in a dense area, built up area. It's not easy to park there. But there's a lot of people who live around there. Who could probably make it extra cash. It's like Airbnb. You can you know, rent out your Air mattress and make some extra cash.

17:15 Mm-hmm. Yeah. How did you find People who were who you could you know

17:24 Uh I mean we would just go door to door. You and Jeremy. Yes. And some people were extremely upset, like, No way, I do it myself, I don't need you. I stand on a corner with a sign and there's a big culture around that. Um, and other people are like, Yeah, like of course, like wait, I I I don't have to do anything. Right. Um like I'm in. And what was the f what was the the fee that

17:46 How what was the split that you you you sort of gave them? So the so the fee was fifteen percent plus ninety nine cents. But I mean you're talking about if Like three dollars and fifty cents that you guys earn. From a spot. That wasn't a lot of money.

18:01 No, it was not a lot of money, but it was more exciting to sell one spot. Like at the at that time it wasn't like oh we're making three dollars and fifty cents or here's the financial model. It was like I like I remember I'm like wow like how good it felt when Someone went on our own website. And purchased one single spot, it was so cool. And then I remember the first month where we had double digit sales, eleven spots sold. It was like

18:26 We hit a milestone. Well we have double digit sales, eleven spots sold in a month. So going door to door in Wrigleyville. I mean, that's a lot of work. I mean that's like Like let's say one out of five or ten people are gonna do it.

18:42 You gotta go to ten houses. before one person is gonna be like I'm in and then you you've signed them up for you know you're ba you're basically gonna make three dollars and fifty off of'em every time they rent the spot. So That's a lot of work. I mean that is really Painstaking work. Uh yeah, and it's not

18:59 Also easy in Chicago in the snow. Um You know,'cause we would Try to get ahead of it. So we in the winter We went

19:07 and wanted to get ahead for the season. So we would, you know, tell people like, Hey You know, six months from now you know, we can make you money on your spot to get contacts. So, you know I g I don't know how many homes, but ultimately even people that said yes, they might have moved or they're like, I need my spot now. And we were able to get about fifty spots. Um after about a year.

19:30 Fifty spots. Yeah. I love this because this is what a business is about. It's painful.

19:39 Yeah, it it's it's You know, like thinking back, it seems ridiculous. Like Gosh, like fifty spots. A year.

19:47 But At the time it was like one foot in front of the other. We've got Five spots. We've got ten spots. Wow, we've got twenty five. And when you're kind of like crawling around in the dark, you don't know what's next, like

20:00 It could be A hundred spots, right? Like It could be two hundred. But I mean even just back of the back of the envelope math, I mean fifty spots after a year.

20:11 If all of them were rented out every day, For the game. You'd make two hundred bucks a day. I mean it's it's small, I mean it's slow going. Right, but I it I wasn't thinking about it like that. I was more like

20:22 Okay, we got double digit sales in a month. Right. Um You know a a a uh a funny milestone was when two people tried to buy the spot at the same time. And the site crashed.

20:34 Alright, so you've got fifty people signed up to sell their spots, right? Through your website, through Spot Hero. Let's talk about the name for a moment,'cause it's a great name. Um, how did you come up with it and was it just a domain that was available? Um yeah, the domain was available. It's interesting because we had a brainstorming session.

20:53 And you you and Jeremy. Me and Jeremy and some other friends. Um And you know, we came up with a whole bunch of different names. And it's actually kinda funny because Spot Hero was the second name we wanted, the first name. I'm so glad it was The domain was not available, but the first name was Park Shark. Park Shark.

21:12 But the domain was taken, so we went to the second one, which was Spot Hero. Um and so the first you know, we Got a d bought the domain spot hero dot com. Um And then we went on ninety nine designs and paid ninety nine dollars to get a logo made.

21:27 Yep. So you really started ninety nine designs, just whatever you bid whoever bid the lowest amount. So you have it just you have a logo, you got a website. And how did it work in terms of like I mean, we're talking this is two thousand ten, two thousand eleven Let's say you click on a spot. Mm-hmm. And you pay for it through the site, right?

21:44 And then what happens? And you get like a code? Yeah, so I mean There was definitely a lot of friction because The only way that it would work is you had to print out your confirmation. So you had to print out an email. So you had to have a printer.

21:57 Okay. And so You know, and if you didn't print it out and put that on your dashboard, you would get towed. So there was definitely a enormous friction. No app, just a website and required a printer. Got it. All right. So you you launch A website. You've got

22:14 It's kinda janky, it sounds like, but it's it's good enough. How do you even get people to be aware of it? Like how did you even Know how to find customers. I mean I Googled

22:26 How do you get customers? Right. Yeah. When we come back in just a moment, Spot Hero expands into parking garages and then hunkers down as competition spreads across the city. and the country. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this.

23:01 Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2011 and in order to get customers for his new parking service, Mark Lawrence literally Googles How do I get customers for my new parking service? And one idea he has is to start a blog.

23:19 About parking. So um I went on the street and I would map every inch that you could park for free with pictures of the signs and where you couldn't park. Um and we had these maps that I made in Microsoft Paint. So if you thought our website spot here was janky, you should see my my artwork. um of of maps for for free parking. And then when it was there, it was like hey

23:41 You don't want to risk. Free parking. Click on this link to go to Spot Hero. That is Absolutely brilliant.

23:48 It's such a smart idea. So you would ru you would spend all this time writing blog posts on how to fr find free parking near a sports arena. People would find it'cause they might type that in. Mm-hmm. And it was really designed to get them to become aware of Spot Hero. Yeah.

24:05 Uh and so that was where our first customers came from. Um in addition, we also posted on Craigslist, too. Those would always get flagged and we have to go through different hoops, but um between the content marketing An SEO. Uh, and Craigslist. And you know, we just went down the the list. When you Google how do you get customers, there were um you know

24:25 things came up like PayPal Click or SEM and our budgets were super low, like you know, a few hundred dollars a month, but you know, it it a it added up. We didn't have too many parking spots, but we were able to kind of, you know, grow neighborhood by neighborhood. Got it. But still I mean The business basically started by by going to people and saying, Hey, Red is your spot, right? Like d just like Airbnb. Uh, but I guess after a year of doing this you realize that that

24:50 This is not scalable, right? This is not a great Model. Um, and I think it was around this time that you started to meet people who actually owned Parking garages, right? Right.

25:01 We were using Twitter. Uh at the time. to tweet about parking and seeing can we attract people uh or see people who are frustrated with parking in Chicago or for Wrigley and say, Hey, have you heard of Spot Hero? Um, it caught the eye of of of someone named Eric Elo, who was at Central Parking, which at the time was the the second largest parking company in the country. He he saw your Twitter feed. Yeah. And so he had reached out

25:25 And so we met and it was interesting because Again, never sold parking in a garage. Um And To date.

25:35 We had fifty spots, like fifty spots. It was a peer to peer system. Yeah. And so, you know, some of the conversations with Eric Like looking back or just you know, kinda kind of

25:45 I you know, he said, You know what, I'll try this out. Why don't we start something small like a couple of thousand spots? And I and I remember like you know, try to keep it cool. I'm like wow, a couple thousand months. I remember I said Eric, so are the

26:03 Are the spots open every day? He's like, What do you mean? It's a parking garage. I'm like, Yeah, well like a lot of the people we work with sometimes they're at work or like they need to move their car or they use it on a certain day. And he's like Yeah, so

26:17 It's a parking garage. It's open twenty four seven. So instantly you go you go from fifty spots to A thousand or more. Even more. Yeah. Initially when Eric said, Hey, let's try this, I'm curious to see how this will work.

26:31 Was it cheaper? Would it be cheaper to go through Spot Hero rather than just to go directly to the garage and pull a ticket and go park? So yes, it was cheaper, and they would sell Access inventory. I'm gonna have eight hundred empty spaces. Um After three PM. Um and I might only have, you know, fifty spaces during the day.

26:56 Right. Okay. So so you're you're starting to work with uh parking garages and then and then I guess you meet this guy named Harlan um Harlan Carp, I think, in And not only does he have garages, but he's also kind of Building or developing. scanning equipment like the the those machines that you that we use today where you scan your ticket. to go in, and I guess he wants you to start using

27:19 Yeah, and again in hindsight it seems obvious, but at the time I'm like goal get spots for Bears games. We have zero. Harlan has these spots and he's like Hey, there's let me show you this future vision of Of of parking be and he w he was telling us about a problem that he was solving that we didn't have because we didn't experience it. We never sold Parking in a garage. Um, the Park Connect from Harland stuff.

27:48 was was put there and you could scan You'd scan your Print it out. Uh the print out?

27:57 So you could scan a print out or you could scan it from a phone. Right. And so dependent on the equipment. But that that was the first actually you know That w that was uh the one of the first garages that we got. So it was perfect'cause I mean with Harlan's technology, you c it could become more seamless. Right.

28:14 And um We ultimately were able to get you know these different garages on board Um, from three of the largest parking companies in the country. Oh wow. And and I guess in in the meantime, like

28:27 Neither you Nor Jeremy. Or all that like technically minded. And I so I guess around this time you brought on somebody who had more like technical skills, because a guy named Larry Kiss. to be your your CTO. Correct. Yeah.

28:41 And this I think is around twenty twelve. And that was the year you also applied to Y Combinator, which of course famously you know incubated Airbnb and Coinbase and Instacart and and and a couple of other major companies and brands. So Um what Like what happened with that? I mean the interview was interesting, but it it didn't go well

28:59 Off the bat. And the key reason they said no. was because we had we they didn't believe that we knew Larry long enough. And they were like It's a huge risk.

29:10 To have two business founders. and a technical co founder of which was such a new relationship. Yeah. Interesting. No, I mean it makes sense. And their record's very good, but obviously they have to make a decision. Was that disappointing when you when you didn't get in?

29:25 You know But I was So Like excited at the time to be in San Francisco.

29:34 to have just been in the room at a Y combinator. Yeah, interview. I felt it also clarified. a lot of things for the business just by actually filling out the application. You know, because of the experience, I was so excited to apply to other

29:50 um ones and you know, did all these interviews and you know, kept getting turned down. And then Um, I remember we got In They accepted us.

29:58 Into the Text our Chicago. Mm. And It was interesting because

30:04 we all weren't sure if we want to do it in you know, myself, Larry and Jeremy talked and we actually decided No. And you know, ultimately sat for you know a few hours talking to them.

30:16 Um, about you know pros and cons and like what we're going through and you know conversations like you said I have to be in all these meetings, meeting all these different people. I'm like, I I'm like I I don't have time for anything. I'm going door to door. I'm having meetings to get parking spots. I'm I'm I'm doing our SEO and our paper click. I'm I'm like right now, I'm like, look, I'm missing Customer service calls people are ne they need me and I can't answer the phone because I'm here in this meeting with you. And Um I was told Well

30:45 You could You know, just You could hire someone, have you thought about hiring anyone? And I'm like, Hiring anyone? Never thought you know, it's like it's been a year and a half of like I didn't realise

30:55 You can Do that. Okay, so you change your mind. You and you wind up joining Techstars, the incubator. Um and and and to to get into it, just to clarify, I mean to g to get into one of these incubators uh would work to your advantage, right? Because o of course you get uh usually an office and the and the office space and a network of people and mentors and and investors who can come by for the pitch day, right?

31:20 And and oftentimes they get sometimes not always, uh these incubators, depending on what they are, get a little bit of equity in the company. Yeah, so uh they got six percent of the business. Um, and we got fifty thousand dollars. Did you need the money at that point? I would say yes. I mean, I know how beneficial. you know, joining Textar Chicago as now. I didn't at the time, but I remember thinking when we raised

31:46 Like we're like, we raised fifty thousand dollars. Like it just felt so good. And I'm like, We did it. Like it took a year, almost a year and a half to hit one thousand dollars. Of sales in a month. Okay. Which meant like we're taking on what, like oh you know. Hundred fifty bucks. Um

32:03 But I remember in twenty twelve sales ramped in You know January, February, March, April, May from Uh you know, t five thousand a month. to to eighty thousand a month in May. But the worry was is this gonna last? And so we were

32:19 You know, kind of scared to hire someone, and and that fifty thousand dollars gave us the confidence to make our first hire. But when Techstars brought you in and and they You know, fifty grand, they get six percent. of the business. I mean Essentially the business is valued at just over a million dollars at that point. Uh I think less. If we gave up six percent for fifty thousand dollars. Yeah, a little less than a million dollars. Yeah. Did anybody say that's a lot?

32:43 That's giving up a lot. Oh like like Everybody. Yeah. But I

32:49 I like And that was kind of like why we initially said no. And I thought about it after the conversation, and I remember I was sitting You know, by myself in the car. Everyone was like, You should negotiate, you should do this, and like, no, you should say no, you guys are already doing eighty thousand a month.

33:06 And I remember just thinking, I'm like, Okay, what is the best Possible outcome. If I say yes to this. And what's the worst possible outcome? And thinking through those.

33:17 like different scenarios, it became clear like okay, I I I I wanna do this. So you guys now have significant revenue coming in, seventy, eighty grand. But again. Yeah. Your costs were that l were super low? I mean, was that so

33:31 I mean, were you profitable? In that year? Yeah, we were profitable. Yeah. And so with that so essentially I'm thinking now you've got some traction.

33:41 You've got real money coming in. I mean You're gonna hit. Almost a million dollars in revenue. in twenty twelve. Mm-hmm. And so I have to assume that the strategy now is to just expand, get more and more and more

33:54 Work with more and more parking garages. Yes. And The idea was can we create a model? That we can then bring. And scale to other cities.

34:03 And so our expansion, we were the only like'cause you know, we start at all these different competitors pop up. Um and many were in, you know, ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, fifty, two hundred cities. We were only in one city. And our focus was can we really get a true playbook.

34:23 for this business in a single market and then go to our next market. And I guess you raise a seed round. um in in December of twenty twelve. It's about two and a half million dollars you guys raised. And your Your idea is

34:36 Let's do this slowly. Лет'сріли ферст. Own Chicago. And then we'll expand out, then we'll go to other cities. Essentially you were able to iron out all the potential friction points.

34:48 By really focusing on Chicago. Yeah. If if you think about it, we've talked about Okay. There's the parking

34:58 operators and there's the drivers, right? There's the parking spots, spaces, and drivers. But the third leg of the stool is the point of sale systems or parks which, you know, help enable that consumer experience. And so like It's not just as simple as getting the spots on the drivers. So working out the different kinks, um, understanding each detail that's needed by the different partners, right? Like there were also, you know, folks in the garage. that we we could talk with and understand what what's happening. How how how does this work? But mean time

35:31 All over the United States. Clones um started to pop up. Companies doing the exact same thing. But expanding faster. In New York and Washington DC and LA, etc.

35:45 Give me a sense of how investors reacted to that. D were your e your even your seed around investors were there saying, Hey, What's going on? Wha why are why are you just in Chicago? Yeah, I would say there was there was a lot of pressure. Why are you just in Chicago? If you're not in these other markets, you're not relevant. Um, Uber

36:04 Was also launching and and and and lift. And there was this whole idea of blitz scaling. And and moving fast. Making sure that that

36:15 You know. The land grab didn't happen. you know by by somebody else. And my point of view was the parking industry was more about relationships. Um at the time, you know, sixty, seventy percent of the dollars spent in parking were cash. It was a very

36:33 You know, old old school group of folks that had you know, set ways of doing things. And this idea that you can just Throw money at a problem. didn't work with an industry that was you know really about relationships and trust

36:48 But I have to imagine, with all these other competitors out there, Uh a lot of the money in Silicon Valley was going to those competitors. I mean probably a lot more money than you guys had raised. Oh, uh an enormous amount of money. And it was Very

37:04 stressful to see all of these pins pop up in different places that You know, while we were just in Chicago. And We were called a one hit wonder.

37:15 Hey. You've got one city, it's really great. You know, where you're going next. I'm curious Was a part of you scared?

37:23 And worried about expanding out and and You were worried that it could actually tank the whole business? I definitely was because I saw that happen to a lot of different companies. They expanded And they got tanked.

37:37 And I'm like man if I'm you know, in these different cities, I'm I'm not gonna be able to have the same level of of uh of care and the whole thing could come down. So there was definitely a a worry of of spreading myself too thin. We also didn't have the same resources as all these other companies. Right, because you'd raise two and a half million dollars. So you You had that runway, but you also and you had some cash coming in, but but you didn't have tens of millions coming in. Right.'Cause this is a I mean, it's it's dog eat dog, right? Like if you're not parking in my spot, you're parking in my competitor's spot.

38:09 Yeah. The the number one key thing. For why we beat them. All of the folks in Chicago. Is we were only in Chicago.

38:17 Everyone else was distracted with all these other cities. Even the companies based in Chicago, they were focused outside of Chicago. But you had competitors who started who were also a based in Chicago. Yeah, multiple competitors based in Chicago. Just sounds like a nightmare. It was hand to hand combat. Slog like you could not imagine like You know

38:38 I I I remember having a conversation with One of the You know, CEOs at the time. uh online company.

38:47 And I and I said, You know what's interesting, all of my signs disappeared. And your signs were put in their place. We we had a uh a hundred of them and they all disappeared.

39:00 Mm. But uh you know I was told. Mark, it uh you know, it's it's just coincidence. And I'm like, Coincidence, really? Um, and so you know, we had our You know, back and forth different sign wars. So it it was a it was a slog, but the real thing is We focused all of our efforts.

39:17 in in one city. And because all of our efforts are concentrated there, dollars, focus, operation, relationships, every aspect, we could react quickly, we could make changes quickly, we could iterate, we had much closer attention to the details. Our response time was extremely fast because we don't have You know, twenty, fifty, hundred cities. We have one city. But it sounds like uh even some of your investors are skeptical of your strategy, even people who are on your side. uh are skeptical of your strategy. Absolutely. Um investors were

39:50 Very skeptical. You know, feeling like hey The trajectory in one city is not interesting. The idea of what spot here could be

40:04 Nationwide and then worldwide is exciting. And people are eating your lunch everywhere. And by the way, that's not bad advice. I mean I These are experienced Investors, V Cs who had

40:16 probably invest in in other platforms and and companies That had done very well with the strategy. So who are you? An upstart young guy.

40:27 To say I know better. Yeah, it it's interesting'cause I wasn't thinking like so much I know better as I really fear going to another market. Right, like You know, so it was like

40:42 Like They would try to elicit the fear of losing But the fear of expanding was greater. Yeah. Yeah.

40:50 Alright, so finally After A lot of pressure. The first place you go to expand is Washington, DC. Um which I I uh February of tw twenty thirteen. uh I was living there at the time. Who sort of owned the D C market when you guys went in?'Cause you you again, there were competitors everywhere. Who who had the m best market penetration?

41:11 Uh there was a company called Parking Panda. Parking Panda ha had the largest concentration in both D C and Baltimore. They had You know, start around the same time as us. And by the way, could one parking garage W do they have to exclusively work with one brand or could they could they work with parking panda and with you guys? So they could work with parking panda and us. So some were exclusive, some were not, but they could work with both.

41:36 But the way that we communicated was different. All the other companies were trying to get exclusives, and our strategy was like, we don't want exclusive. We want to prove to you That we can bring more dollars than anybody else. Here are references from Chicago, from you know, people in your company, some they know, some they don't. And they work with, you know, three, four, five, six, seven, eight players and and we bring more than all of them combined. And we want to do that here. Yeah. In addition, we were the first to have any time parking on a website, and then we were the first that had an app. Mm. We were the first to

42:11 iOS. We're the first to Android. And the focus of being only in two markets allowed us to really leapfrog parking panda. And I think very soon after DC you expend Baltimore. Mm-hmm. And then Boston.

42:26 Um and that year, right,'cause now the last time you'd raise money was in twenty twelve, was two and a half million dollars. now you go back to raise money. This is in in in you're looking for series A money. You know, given the success now, you got success in D C, you're you're expanding, but still slowly. Was were investors lining up to to back you at this point? No. N investors, no way. They were not lining up. Um not only were they not lining up and our traction was

42:55 Good but not great. Um and slightly it was slightly interesting, but not interesting enough. Mm. I didn't keep in contact with The investors the ones that had put money in? Yeah. I was just focused on building the business. So you weren't sending regular updates or anything?

43:12 Not real no. Yeah. That was probably not very popular among some of the Investors. Not very popular and Now, wow, we have a burn.

43:23 We're running out of money. But You know, we did have some investors that did step up. You know, Cola the Round, Chicago Ventures, Bullpen Capital, and uh Mike Camson, but it was it was really It was really hard.

43:40 Round. This was May. If we didn't have that first wire, we would have been out of business. Right. It got to a point and I I never lie. But I lied once.

43:50 And It was to our accountant, Stephanie. And I remember she came to me and said, Hey, I'm looking at the bank account. When is the round gonna be done? I said, Why?

44:01 She said, Well,'cause we have money coming due. Like we have to pay payroll, we have we have to pay operators and Like two days. And I don't see enough money in the account. And I'm like, Oh well, there's other accounts, like, don't worry.

44:17 Um And I didn't know when the wires would actually hit. And w one of the bigger wires.

44:24 I was You know. Asked hey. Yeah, I've got a Delay for a couple of weeks because of some capital calls, some VCs they're going on vacation. You don't mind waiting a couple weeks, right? And in my head, I'm like, well, if I tell them no.

44:36 They're gonna be like, Why are you out of money? Right. So I said fine. Um Luckily we were able to get A wire.

44:45 On the day that we had to pay payroll. Mm-hmm. and operators, and so it was fine. But you know. Very hard.

44:54 All right, so you but you raise four and a half million Yeah. Again, you know, you've got um Well capitalized Competitors.

45:04 You're still under pressure to expand. Mm and by the end of that year, December twenty fourteen, you do go to San Francisco, which is a tough place to go to simply because You know, there's tons of competitors, the smart you know, again, I don't want to say the smartest, but Look, just just statistically, if you look at the stats,

45:23 the smartest startups and VCs are here in the Bay Area. They are. I mean you got Stanford, you've got Berkeley, a lot of'em are coming out of here, the money is here, so on Sand Hill Road and in Silicon Valley. So it's a tough place to come to from Chicago, right? Was it d did it feel intimidating? It was extraordinarily intimidating and I didn't want to expand to San Francisco because of that. And

45:46 Bullpen capital. Oh. You know, cool at our Round. You know, their view was you're not raising a series B.

45:55 And you're not gonna be taken seriously if you're not in In San Francisco. But I feared expanding to San Francisco the most. When we come back?

46:08 Spot Hero goes West. Where its competition has more visibility And a lot more money. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this. Welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the end of 2014, and after much hesitation, Mark and his partners decide to expand Spot Hero to the city they fear most.

46:49 San Francisco. The problem I think in San Francisco is you've got some really hot competitors companies like Lux and Zirks raising insane amount of money. Because they they believe that the future is valet parking. Not not you park self-parking, but valet parking. And I guess They capture the attention of a lot of VCs who agree. They're saying, this is the future.

47:14 I mean this was quite possibly w one of the most stressful periods, um You know. that that we had experienced to date. We we had worse ones later, but to date That was enormously stressful because Not only had we had only raised seven

47:32 million dollars, but these companies had raised Forty, fifty, sixty, seventy seven million dollars. Lux, Zirks, Vatler, Carbon. And they were also extremely visible with the umbrellas and the s you know, s skateboards and And and I remember a board meeting. Um where I was told hey.

47:54 Mark. You are going slow. We've been telling you going slow, you're not expanding fast enough, and now there's this new model and it looks like you guys are dead. You're being disrupted before you have the chance to disrupt. Um half a billion dollars went to fund Companies that said we were the relic.

48:13 And Meetings. in the valley were extremely Demoralizing Because

48:19 People would say, Hey, like You know. I've heard great things about you. Clearly like this business isn't gonna work out, but I wanted to get to know you for your next one. Lux and Zerks were the hot were the hot ones. You saw their logos all over the place. Their logos were all over the place. Everybody knew who they were because they were spending

48:38 You know. you know, crazy amounts of money. The other thing is our cost of customer acquisition were exploding because they were just paying Unlimited. And so costs of acquiring customers were going up. They were also pre-paying.

48:52 for six months or a year to shut us out completely of, you know, some great You know, locations. Wow. So they were subsidizing parking for people, basically. Extremely. I mean totally subsidizing. And we were you pay Fifteen or twenty dollars to park.

49:08 And you park your car yourself. They also had to pay for labor. So you would pay fifteen or twenty bucks, but they would park it for you. Right. So you they were You know, our average was like twenty dollars to park. So they made it where it's fifteen, but they would valet your car. Both ways. So so

49:27 The consumer experience was quote unquote remarkable. Like, wow, I can just press a button and my car gets picked up wherever I'm at and then dropped off and brought back to me. It sounded amazing on paper. Yep. And there was actually A vote. To pivot the company to be on demand valet. There was a vote from

49:45 From who? The board. Your board. To pivot your company. all in favor of pivoting the company, like it's very clear like this is where things are going.

49:58 And I'm like all right, well You know, that's great, but It was Very clear this was Definitely not gonna work.

50:05 didn't make sense. It wasn't sustainable. You'd have to hire Uh I mean all your costs would go to paying for valets, humans who are parking the car. It it made absolutely no sense. You had to pay for humans parking the car, but here's the other thing. There was a thesis that well If you

50:23 Park the car farther away. You can get an arbitrage, and especially in New York City, it's could be a hundred dollars to park in a specific area. But it's only You know, fifteen dollars, you know. Uh a couple of streets over.

50:37 But the problem Із the f you get farther and farther away. to get lower cost, lower and lower parking. The amount of time it takes

50:50 you bring the car there and back increases. So your labor costs go up. So So from consumer standpoint, when it launched in San Francisco Everyone was like, wow, I pressed a button. Had a valet come in two minutes. Yeah.

51:05 And it felt like Uber. Okay, but then fast forward. And You know. There was people screenshotting. It's

51:13 It the valley's coming in seventy two days. Because the algorithm was like, Well, there's this many valetes and there's this many people pressing the button. And so it did some crazy calculations. Right. And people like Seventy Two Days, I need my car now. Right. Um And so you know, tested this in New York and Chicago and it and it just did not work. And I presented to the board the findings.

51:34 And Clearly they what'cause they had voted to pivot the company. Yes. But The findings were pretty clear.

51:43 And the discussion was, okay, well then why are they able to get such mind share? They're like If this is gonna be the thing We need to make sure that We are also part of that thing. If it is not the thing.

51:57 Okay, fine. But they have to do it. How much more money? than us in terms of capital. How long can they be irrational? And what are we gonna do to survive this?

52:08 Right. We're shut out of parking spots. Our cost of customer acquisition is going is b everything is blowing up. Like what are we going to do? in order to survive this and and get to the other side. This is such a great Like case study and

52:23 And Sticking to your core principles. Because It's it makes sense to me why investors would want you to do this, right? Because at the end of the day, their goal is to make money, right? That's and there's nothing wrong with that. That's what an investor is there to do.

52:39 They're not um d they're not in the charity business. And so when they see these other hot brands doing these things and all their friends are talking about and everyone's talking about it. You and you're in the in San Francisco, you're thinking Well, this is where it's at. This is where it's all headed. And so it makes sense to me that they would

52:57 say that to you, but on the other hand, it's very reactive. Right. And and humans are reactive. We we're not patient. By nature. It's very rare to find somebody who's like, No, let's look 10 years down the line. So it's it is kind of remarkable that you were able to withstand that pressure. And and and prove that

53:14 This really wasn't gonna work. This wasn't sustainable. Yeah, it was definitely Extraordinarily stressful for So many reasons.

53:24 And me questioning myself and thinking Okay. I remember when different parking companies would tell me. Nobody is gonna buy parking on a telephone.

53:35 Hey, this internet stuff is a fad. And Laughing at how ridiculous The the the things were that they were saying. And remembering them saying, listen, I've been in parking for fifty seven years. I've been in parking for thirty seven years, fifty years, forty years, right?

53:51 What do you know? And I remember thinking, well, I've been in parking for You know, five years. Um And then thinking, wait, am I being just like that?

54:00 Yeah. So the The amazing thing about this story is I'm gonna Give it away here.

54:07 Із та а я летер, твоні сикстін. Zirks. Shuts down. Mm-hmm. And I think the next year, twenty seventeen, Lux ceases operations. They they both fade away, they fizzle up.

54:21 And the other ones did too. Even though in twenty fifteen everyone was like, This is where it's at. These are the hottest companies out there. Yes, these are the hottest companies. This is where it's at, and this is where half a billion dollars from Uh

54:35 Dozens and dozens of the top Silicon Valley firms are are putting their money. I you know, listen, that's that's the that's what investing's about. You're gonna Win some lose some but it is It is amazing how We are

54:49 Our perception is so biased, right? Human like what we think is right. Is so Skewed. A reality And I'm applying applies to anything.

55:01 Mm-hmm. It's just so flawed. I include myself in this. The way we see the world We're so certain because it's how we're seeing it. And

55:11 So m so often it's just not The reality that is. Now I sound like um a word seller there, but you know what I'm talking about. I know exactly what you're talking about. I mean it whether it's recency bias or Whatever you want to call it.

55:25 the idea of what is right in front of me is exactly how it is now and how it always will be is is is definitely not the case. And it it it was certainly not the case with with on demand ballet. Alright, so you withstand that very difficult time. Mm-hmm. This is in twenty fifteen. Mm-hmm. We were doing our series B.

55:45 We're trying to raise twenty million dollars, which Which at the time that was a pretty sizable series B in twenty fifteen. So you You you raise the money. And and and that of course enables you to continue to expand. And and as you grow, right, I I imagine you're not profitable.

56:03 Right at this point. We're not profitable. No. But twenty seventeen, um you acquire your previous competitor parking panda. Yeah. Yeah. Um and that gave you access to c to Canadian cities.

56:20 What was interesting though with parking panda. Is they basically decided they're like we're selling. And so it was interesting because they were actually the number two at the time. They were the second largest.

56:32 Um at the time. And we were the first. And There was a moment where I wasn't sure if I wanted to buy them.

56:39 And you know, you're kinda cagey'cause you're like, if I give un too much to my competitor, then the and they don't buy me, then they know my s my secrets, so to speak. But if you don't give enough, then it's not interesting. And I was asking them like

56:55 I I'm like I need to see more detailed revenue by city. And they were so cagey. They showed me a breakout and I was like, Why are you like he's like, I'm gonna turn the computer. I'm like, Why are you so afraid? Like, remember, if we're gonna do this together, like We need to understand like where Not just your PL, but like where are you doing revenue? And he's like, Well, our strategy was

57:16 We went. To all these places. To hide. So that you wouldn't compete with us. to grow revenue. And I said, where?

57:24 And I'm looking at the and I'm like You're doing how much in Sacramento? What? Secondary cities were actually arguably proportionally more profitable.

57:35 Yes. And That meant that together. The overlap was so low. There's literally gonna be five percent, maybe ten percent overlap. And that was I that was a really great acquisition. I'm really happy we did that.

57:49 Alright, so now you've got parking panda. And You are really starting to emerge as A big player, if not the big player.

58:00 in p in the parking space. Um And You know, we're not gonna go through all the the additional rounds of of funding because you start to raise more money. Um and and by the way, I mean l you know fifty million round series D was that by now twenty nineteen. I have to imagine it gets easier at that point.

58:20 To raise fifty million. Um I wouldn't call it easy. We've always been In a category that has has has always something wrong with it, right? Yeah, what do you mean by that? Well obviously it it's my fault I didn't keep in touch with investors or give updates. I'm very good about that now. But yeah, let's take

58:39 You know. Series A. Right. The the idea the everyday

58:44 In the media, Uber and Lift is saying parking is dead. The future is no car ownership, but everybody Ubering and Left everywhere, right? Then it was okay, parking is not dead. It's the future and everybody is gonna car ownership is great, but valeting those cars is the future and it's not you. Yeah. Then it was actually sorry about that.

59:06 It's not labor that's gonna scale. The cars are gonna drive themselves. And they're gonna be in perpetual motion. And so they don't ever need to park. And I'm just like

59:18 Come on. Can we get a break? Yeah. We've never been like what I would call on trend, right? Like we've never been this Like on theme type. Company. For a raise. Because you're not the hot thing. It's like, oh well

59:33 What about this AI company? tech start up and you're doing you're selling parking lot parking spots. Right. So it's boring, but it's also uh the thing is is I I'm don't mean boring, but but But the boring the quote unquote boring businesses Uh

59:49 Very often the most successful businesses. Here well here we are. Here we are. Yeah. Alright, let's go to let's get to Covid because I

59:57 You know, you're plugging you're growing. Everything's looking great. Um you've raised at this point up to this point, I think now you're looking at um at least you know, close to a hundred million dollars by the time Covid comes around. And then

1:00:14 That's it. It's like the world shuts down. And you're now in the movie theater business. No one's parking. All of a sudden. Yeah.

1:00:23 I I remember right before Covid we had a board meeting in February, early February. And You know, it was um a kick off to the year, and I gave a a bit of a preamble. Um Every year in the company we had an existential threat to

1:00:39 Uh parking. And spot hero. And I went through every one. For every year just to remind people of what we had you know, transcended and come through. And I said, and this is the first time that we sit here today without an existential threat to spot your and parking. Um

1:00:55 I am reminded by the board constantly um about the words that I should eat because Uh obviously COVID happened and I and I always And that was what two, three weeks later? Two, three weeks later, I'm like, Oh man. Um and I uh I remind them, I said, Well it wasn't an existential threat to to parking, it was an existential threat to everyone. Um But uh yeah, it was two or three weeks later, and that was By far the hardest time. Um that we

1:01:20 as a company had to go through I mean brutal, brutal. I I you guys p put on your blog that you're Your You're s you're looking at ninety percent. A drop of ninety percent bookings.

1:01:33 Yes. Instant by by April of twenty twenty. April was ninety eight percent. Ninety eight percent. Yeah, May was ninety five. Yeah.

1:01:46 It was It was br just a absolute brutal set of decisions to, you know, having to lay off um you know, close to seventy percent of the company. But it made it easier.

1:02:00 to Be brutal externally. Right. Yeah. Me meaning what? What I mean meaning that is like

1:02:07 Okay, we signed some SAS contract. Mm-hmm. In January. Don't care. Not paying it. Right, like you just stop paying. Just stop paying literally every bill. It it's some some like

1:02:19 Some like I don't know, uh customer relations uh management or something. Voice automation saw like you know, d you name it and I'm like Wait, I have to decide between paying for some software to some stranger that I don't even need to use. 'cause of some contract and then I gotta fire. somebody else someone is gonna lose their livelihood because of this I'm like absolutely not

1:02:43 Even as people start to emerge from Covid. Um You guys, I mін, I have to imagine. It was slow going because I mean even to this day, San Francisco as you know, thirty percent of of office space is still empty. Have you recovered?

1:03:01 From The the pre Covid, you know. sort of I mean has it have you fully recovered and more Or and and and if so, how long did it take? Yeah, so

1:03:11 I mean we have fully recovered it more. Right now we are, you know Three and a half times larger. Now. Than we were pre Covid. Hm.

1:03:20 And There's a number of different factors for that. But There is actually a greater percentage of people driving and parking.'Cause they're not using public transit. Right, public transit, you're used to the routine.

1:03:32 you go in five days a week, you always take the train. You're coming in two days a week? We're gonna drive, drive and park, right? And Interesting. So the public transit crisis, in a sense, has kind of benefit of the parking industry. It um is part of it, but the other part too, there was a

1:03:49 time where people were worried about public transit, regardless of the Th you know, people just felt safer in their cars. Um yes. And you know, we ultimately obviously

1:04:02 had a had a snap back and we ended up hiring a lot of folks that we unfortunately had to let go and And um you know, they're they're they're still with us, which is great. And now, you know You start in twenty eleven. Lots of competitors, there still are competitors out there. Where are you in the competitive landscape? Would you say you guys are the biggest or among the three biggest or Or or what?

1:04:25 Yeah, I would say like We are We are the largest. Like we have one thousand six hundred parking companies that we partner with And when you look at

1:04:34 you know, the sales that we're doing, usually it's it's greater than all the others combined. I started this With the idea of how do I stop getting parking tickets. And you know, love to drive hate to park. I'm actually like Loving to park a lot more now.

1:04:50 And I'm You know, just Absolutely jazzed about Like what we could. accomplish right like

1:04:58 To me, it's Focus on executing How do we change the moments of people's days? Right. How do you make it so People don't even have to think about parking.

1:05:09 When you think about the journey you've taken, you know, he started out There's this little kind of project in twenty ten and where you are now. And all that you've been through. How much of where you got to,'cause you could have been crushed at many points along the way. Mm-hmm.

1:05:23 Right. Um so many variables. How much do you do you attribute to the fact that you guys are here and successful and Now the sort of the eight hundred pound gorilla on the block. So to speak. Um

1:05:36 is due to how hard you worked in the grind and how much do you attribute to Just getting lucky. I mean I think there's a value to consistency. There's something to be said for focus. Our focus, consistent focus.

1:05:51 You go through the history of the company, every aspect. All these potential distractions, or things to spread ourselves to thin, or things that could, you know, have have killed us sooner, f uh are focused on just one thing, and one thing very, very well. has contributed. Yes, of course there's there's always luck. And I do believe in luck, but I also believe in manifesting it. And I think that Consistency and focus has been key.

1:06:19 Um Across everything. That's Mark Lawrence, co founder and CEO of Spot Hero. By the way, remember that bicycle tour Mark was planning to take across Africa before he started the company?

1:06:33 Well, he still hasn't done it, but that ride from Cairo to Cape Town, it's actually a pretty popular trip. It's nearly seven thousand miles, and the fastest that anyone's ever completed it. Forty one days, ten hours. Twenty two minutes. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, sign up for my newsletter at guyRaz.com.

1:07:03 This episode was researched and produced by Catherine Cypher with music composed by Rantine Are Blue. It was edited by Neba Grant and our engineers were Patrick Murray and Quasey Lee. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Casey Herman, JC Howard, John Isabella, Iman Maani, Chris Massini, Sam Paulson, and Carrie Thompson. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening. to how I built this.

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