642: ParkEvergreen $100/mo Per Airport Parking Space to Help You Park Faster with CEO Ben Cantey

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Ben Cantey. He’s a San Francisco entrepreneur and has a passion about solving problems and changing lives through technology. He teaches entrepreneurship and lean methodology at universities and high schools on his free time. He’s launching some bad-ass technology with a handful of math geniuses in a parking space.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Rough Riders
• What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? — Yesware
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 8 1/2
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Execute faster”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:18 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show
• 01:51 – Park Evergreen revolutionizes the way parking is sold and managed at airports
• • 01:55 – Airports currently use a whole stack of services, suppliers and contractors that are outdated
• 02:15 – Park Evergreen uses geolocation technology to bring physical parking online
• • 02:25 – Travelers can find a reserve pay per parking through Park Evergreen’s app
• 02:35 – Park Evergreen is somehow a marketplace
• • 02:49 – Park Evergreen is more focused on the traveler’s experience
  • 02:54 – Ben and his co-founders came from the consulting space
• 03:10 - Park Evergreen started out with customers who wanted to find paid street parking
• • 03:23 – Park Evergreen currently has a couple of deals
  • 03:30 – Park Evergreen started growing their revenue in June
• 03:54 – Ben is just happy that they got a great product market fit
• 04:03 – Most USA airports are now going into modernization projects
• 04:44 – There’s an interesting balance between travelers who prefer to leave their cars and those who prefer to just take an Uber car
• • 04:53 – Park Evergreen’s average customers are business travelers who are gone for only a couple of days
  • 05:18 – The airport modernization includes parking expansion
• 05:54 – Travels tend to get cheaper each year and more and more people are travelling
• 06:02 – The millennials demographic has the most frequent business and pleasure trips
• 06:28 – The parking growth is growing 4-5% per airport, per year
• 06:34 – Park Evergreen was founded in 2016
• • 06:43 – Park Evergreen didn’t want to compete with parking meters and pay machines
  • 07:08 – Park Evergreen was making a couple of thousand a month
  • 07:22 – Park Evergreen made $15K topline
  • 07:33 – Park Evergreen’s biggest cost was for CAC
  • 08:02 – “It’s a tough market, people are used to their options”
  • 08:10 – Park Evergreen pivoted because they’re tired of their mobile apps parking solutions
  • 08:18 – SpotHero and ParkWhiz are the biggest in the space
• 08:28 – Park Evergreen has raised $150K from 500 startups
• 08:43 – Team size is 5
• • 09:01 – The equity is divided by 5 co-founders
  • 09:19 – Park Evergreen is bootstrapped and the 2 co-founders have been building everything for free
  • 09:25 – Ben is in charge of closing deals and doing the strategy
  • 09:40 – It’s a balanced team
  • 10:03 – The team had some contractual work on the side and some have full-time jobs
• 11:11 – Park Evergreen charges a flat fee per space that they manage per month
• • 11:39 – The average is $100 per space
• 11:55 – The average top 10 US airports manage 18K parking spaces
• • 12:00 – Some double or triple 18K
  • 12:10 – Park Evergreen’s market size in terms of market space is over 4M
• 12:50 – When a traveler books his flight, he books his parking space, too
• • 13:06 – Park Evergreen shows the traveler 2 hours before his flight, the fastest route to the airport and to the parking space
  • 13:22 – Park Evergreen can tell you exactly how long it will take a traveler to go from one place to another around the airport
• 13:46 – “I want our travelers to know when they look at their phones in the morning, before they leave their house, what time will they arrive at the gate, ready to get on the plane”
• 14:20 – Park Evergreen started their user acquisition in March for the contracts
• 14:30 – Park Evergreen is using SMS initially
• 15:08 – “The only way to park is to use Park Evergreen”
• 15:18 – Park Evergreen is doing 500 spaces for their initial pilot
• 15:35 – Park Evergreen’s contracts are on an expansion plan
• 16:16 – As soon as you get to the airport, you can get a Park Evergreen ticket with a code that you will use to text
• • 16:45 – You can pay Park Evergreen ahead of time via text
• 18:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Airport parking is a great space to be in at the moment because of the modernization projects that are on the way.
• To stay competitive in this space, provide the best traveler experience that you can.
• It’s can be quite difficult to broaden people’s understanding of their options, but that does NOT mean you shouldn’t try.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Organifi – The juice was Nathan’s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives