The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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SpotHero's board voted to pivot into on-demand valet parking
“And there was actually a vote to pivot the company to be on-demand valet.”
Why venture blitzscaling failed to disrupt the relationship-driven parking market
“And my point of view was, the parking industry was more about relationships. At the time, you know, 60, 70% of the dollars spent in parking were cash. It was a very, you know, old school group of folks that had, you know, set ways of doing things. And this ide…”
SpotHero's sales now exceed all digital parking competitors combined
“Yeah, I would say, like, we are the largest. Like, we have 1600 parking companies that we partner with, and when you look at, you know, the sales that we're doing, usually it's greater than all the others combined.”
Lawrence: SpotHero bookings plummeted 98% in April 2020, forcing 70% layoffs
“April was 98%. Yeah, May was 95. Whew. It was just an absolute brutal set of decisions to, you know, having to lay off you know, close to 70% of the company.”
Lawrence: SpotHero would have failed without a last-minute Series A wire
“If we didn't have that first wire, we would have been out of business, right?”
Why hybrid workers choose driving over public transit for commuting
“Public transit, you're used to the routine. You go in five days a week, you always take the train. You're coming in two days a week, one day a week. You're going to drive. You're going to drive, drive and park, right?”
SpotHero dominated Chicago by ignoring multi-city expansion distractions
“The number one key thing for why we beat them, all of the folks in Chicago. Is we were only in Chicago. Everyone else was distracted with all these other cities. Even the companies based in Chicago, they were focused outside of Chicago.”
Bullpen Capital warned SpotHero needed a San Francisco presence for Series B
“And bullpen capital, Who, you know, co-led our round, you know, their view was, you're not raising a Series B, and you're not going to be taken seriously if you're not in, in San Francisco.”
VCs poured $500M into on-demand valet parking startups
“Half a billion dollars went to fund companies that said we were the relic.”
Mark Lawrence used $6,000 in savings to start SpotHero
“So I was able to save money, and what's nice is I was able to use 6000 dollars of that to start Spot Hero.”
SpotHero is currently 3.5x larger than it was before COVID-19
“Right now, we are, you know, three and a half times larger now than we were pre-COVID.”
SpotHero acquired only 50 parking spots after one year of hustling
“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 50 spots after about a year.”
Y Combinator rejected SpotHero over an unproven technical cofounder relationship
“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 to have two business founders and a technical co-founder of which was such a new relationship.”
Lawrence: SpotHero and Parking Panda were the top two players in 2017
“And so, it was interesting because they were actually the number two at the time. They were the second largest at the time. And we were the first.”
SpotHero gave Techstars Chicago 6% equity for $50,000 in funding
“Yeah, so they got six percent of the business and we got 50,000 dollars.”
SpotHero grew monthly sales from $5,000 to $80,000 between January and May 2012
“But I remember in 2012, sales ramped in, you know, January, February, March, April, May, from you know, 5000 a month to 80,000 a month in May.”
Lawrence: SpotHero and Parking Panda had only 5% to 10% overlap
“Yes, and that meant that together, the overlap was so low, there's literally going to be five percent, maybe 10% overlap, and that was a really great acquisition.”
SpotHero took nearly 18 months to reach $1,000 in monthly sales
“It took a year, almost a year and a half, to hit 1000 dollars Of sales in a month.”
Early SpotHero required customers to print dashboard emails to avoid towing
“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. And so, you know, and if you didn't print it out and put …”