119: Fixing the Parking Industry through Technology – Juan Rodriguez of FlashParking

Background on Juan Rodriguez of FlashParking:

Juan Rodriguez is the CEO and Co-Founder of Flashparking. He directs the planning, management of product development, and overall strategy of the company. Prior to FlashParking, Juan held senior executive positions both in operations and retail at various companies including MPower Labs, Inc. and Rev Worldwide, Inc. (MPower Group companies), as well as senior technical positions at Terremark Worldwide and CACI, Inc. He led efforts to launch financial and mobile payments services to the world’s unbanked populations in over 10 countries. In 2005 Juan co-founded Klevernet, LLC (acquired by MPower Ventures), an online insurance portal that bridged the gap between local insurance agents and internet insurance shoppers.

Juan served with distinction as a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army and received numerous meritorious citations while stationed at the Pentagon. Juan attended Strayer University in Washington, D.C., where he received a B.S. in Computer Information Systems.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[3:26] Juan Rodriguez is the CEO and Co-Founder of Flashparking, which is a company that offers software and hardware tools to manage your parking assets and make money out of it.
[4:29] Juan had a previous business but decided to sell it because he wants to get out of the corporate scene. After selling, the idea of getting into the parking business was born.
[7:14] Juan talks about the beginning of the Flashparking company and how it started in 2011.
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[12:52] During the early days of the company, Juan’s wife was very supportive of his business endeavor.
[14:17] There was a particular incident during his previous job that made him realize he wanted to be financially independent when things go bad.
[16:50] The first few months of their business was full of hurdles and they only made about three thousand dollars of revenue on their first year.
[20:10] Juan explains some of the issues and advantages of their system software when they presented it to valet operators.
[23:47] Juan guarantees a 50% uplift in revenue when valet operators use their system.
[25:07] Building the software was very challenging for Juan and his co-founders.
[27:52] On the second year, they were focusing more on promoting and marketing their business. There were a number of people who were not impressed with their product.
[29:50] In the first two years of Flashparking, there were a couple of issues that Juan thinks he should have done differently. This involves marketing and working more on their strategy.
[33:07] Juan emphasizes on the importance of hiring a marketing expert.
[34:16] In their third year, Juan developed a new product that involves automating a garage.
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[45:26] When they installed their first automated parking system on a parking garage, they found out that it was not that easy.
[50:50] Juan explains the advantages of their automated parking system and why it became a success for many clients.
[1:00:12] In 2018, Flashparking handles the largest paid parking facility in North America.

Fabulous 4 Questions:

📖 📚 Favorite Book(s)? Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? My kids order a ton of toys via Alex, it took me 2 sets of delivery until I figured out what was happening and that i need to lock that down.
🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Deploying TRIPIT for the team, my co-founder that leads sales might say SALESFORCE
💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? It's all about people hiring the right folks.

Key Point from the Interview:

“I just refuse to fail. I didn’t want to be that guy that gave up.”

Resources Mentioned:

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