Baltimoreans can rent out their parking spots thru Parking Panda
Hey Baltimore: Here's your chance to make a buck off your own parking spot.
Parking Panda, a Baltimore web startup, recently went live with its website -- parkingpanda.com -- which can also be accessed by mobile phone browsers.
Parking Panda is kinda like the Airbnb (a site that lets people pay for or rent out homes and apartments for travelers) of parking.
People who are looking to make a little extra money off their unused or lightly used parking spot can list it for rent on the site. And people who are looking to park in city neighborhoods -- perhaps during big events such as baseball or football games, or the upcoming Grand Prix -- can turn to it to find a spot they can rent with their smartphone.
The site is the work of Nick Miller and Adam Zilberbaum, two young guys from Baltimore who won a startup competition in the city in the spring. They are currently working on their startup in New York City, at the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, but they plan on returning to Baltimore to jump-start their business.
[I wrote a story about Parking Panda and the trend of business accelerators recently.]
And they're hoping the Grand Prix, over Labor Day weekend, will generate demand for their app as people struggle to find parking downtown.
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Categories: *NEWS*, Apps, Big Ideas, East Coast, Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Smartphones, Social Media, Startups
Comments
It's so great to see this app come to life, this is a testament to how many great ideas Baltimoreans have. If Baltimore becomes a better small business incubator, this city will explode in some amazing small business startups.
Posted by: Shea Frederick (@SpotAgent) | August 9, 2011 1:44 PM
I think it's a massive stretch to call this a "Baltimore web startup."
The founders moved to NYC almost immediately after the _idea_ for Parking Panda was announced, and one of the founders never lived in Baltimore.
Let's celebrate startups that are HQ'd in Baltimore. Otherwise, the startup climate in Baltimore is inflated beyond what it actually is, which doesn't help anyone.
Posted by: John | August 9, 2011 2:34 PM
I wouldn't say it's a "massive" stretch. Parking Panda won a Baltimore competition. They won office space in the Emerging Tech Center in Canton to use for their startup. Then, they won a brief gig to go to NY to ramp up, but have publicly stated they plan on coming back to Baltimore as soon as their stint is up in NY. And, their initial product launch is geared towards Baltimore, not any other city. I guess what's really an issue is that it can be hard sometimes to encapsulate the genesis and evolution of a company based on geographic descriptors, but it doesn't mean we shan't use geography somehow to try to describe them.
Posted by: gus sentementes | August 9, 2011 2:44 PM
Thanks Gus. We actually are both from Baltimore and we moved to NYC for a few months to help accelerate our growth. Gus is correct, we are launching our product in Baltimore and we will be returning to Baltimore in September run and grow our business.
Posted by: Nick Miller | August 18, 2011 10:27 AM