Episode 50: Josh Futterman, Founder of ParkYou!: The sharing platform designed to solve New York City's street parking problem

It is no secret that parking in New York City is a miserable experience.  Everyone knows this, but especially Josh Futterman.  He's been driving and parking in New York City for 34 years.  Spending a lot of time battling New York City traffic and circling the blocks looking for an elusive parking spot, Josh thought there had to be a better way. So Josh decided to start a company to solve the problem and ParkYou! was born. Josh's idea is centered around the concept of bringing drivers in New York City together. Of course, you can't bring all 8.5 Million people together all at once, so Josh is starting in micro-communities. Unlike other companies that have been algorithmic predictors of parking availability or even tried to monetize public parking spaces, ParkYou! is based on the concept of sharing. Once a user indicates that they will be leaving a parking space another user will be matched if they are parking in the area at the same time as the first user is leaving. The secret sauce: in order to be able to receive a parking space, you need to have first offered up a space. As Josh says, "it's forced altruism". Listen to the episode to learn more about New York City parking and the extensive research Josh did before starting the Company and why the Company's mission is so important to Josh and how the start-up was destined to be born in Harlem. More on ParkYou!: https://www.park-you.com/ For a transcript of the episode please visit: https://nylaun.ch/parkyoutr