Seven questions, seven answers. Munich Startup in conversation with Our parking spaceThe company's motto: "Mine is yours too!"
1. Who are you and what do you do? Please briefly introduce yourself and your product!
UnserParkplatz GmbH was developed as a business idea in the Entrepreneurship MBA at the Technical University of Munich We developed the company in the summer of 2012, and we founded it in August 2013, once we had our investor on board. The original idea was to offer private parking space sharing in major cities to alleviate the parking shortage and implement the sharing trend in the parking sector. The company was founded by five partners, with Denise Schuster, 35, as the majority shareholder and managing director.
The team also includes a lawyer, an SEO expert, a social media expert, a business developer, and the investor. Our beta version of the reservation platform for private parking spaces already offered public parking spaces and over 15,000 airport parking spaces. This set us apart from other emerging platforms and apps.
2. But that's been around for a long time!
When we first came up with the idea, private parking space sharing only existed in England and the USA. By the time we launched the beta version, we had four competitors in Germany and Austria, some of whom also had apps and, in some cases, better website features. So we decided to address a larger parking problem for which there was no existing solution or competitor: truck parking on highways. Here's UnserParkplatz after a year of development. Market leader in Europe.
3. What has been your biggest challenge so far and what are the three main ingredients for your recipe for success?
We faced two challenges: first, finding the right programmer; we had the wrong partners three times; and now we're on our fourth partner. This also means constantly rebuilding the platform. The second challenge was convincing our investor of the completely new market concept of truck parking.
Our three main ingredients are:
- persistence
- Cooperation only with partners who really want and can do it quickly
- View the market without barriers to solve problems that no one has been able to solve before
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
We don’t give any numbers, but We were supported by the EU Commission in 2015 with the Horizon 2020 funding program and our platform was selected among thousands of other innovative ideas from across Europe and in April 2016 we was the first startup ever to win the German Ideas Award with our truck parking reservation. In addition to parking spaces at truck stops and gas stations, we now also want to offer secure parking for trucks, stadium parking, and supermarket parking for trucks outside of game times. These spaces are currently unused.
5. What does Munich mean to you?
The startup scene in Munich is very well-developed, and there are great opportunities for networking. We also enjoy the fact that we still receive great support from the Technical University of Munich and have already achieved quite a bit of recognition in Munich.
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
We're working hard toward our goal of unifying all truck parking types on our platform and thus becoming THE parking reservation platform for all freight forwarders and truck drivers. To achieve this, we're investing another six-figure sum in new programming.
7. Hiking or beer garden?
Beer garden in summer and hiking in spring or autumn.
