Startup Creates Mobile App to Ease Parking Nightmares QuickPay drives the private parking lot into the 21st century.
By Grant Davis •
One night in July 2011, Barney Pell went to an event in San Francisco's Mission District. When he pulled into a self-service parking lot, a stranger came up to his car and asked him to try QuickPay, a new app that would let him pay for a spot with his iPhone (plus 35 cents for the convenience). Pell--an angel investor who was preparing to leave Microsoft, where he was one of the chief architects of the Bing search engine--downloaded the easy-to-use app and registered his information, including credit card number and license plate, thanked the guy and went on his way.
That stranger was Carl Muirbrook, a serial entrepreneur from the agropharma industry who'd decided to bring the business model for parking lots into the mobile-powered 21st century. When Pell returned after his event, Muirbrook was still there--he had recognized Pell from his Bing vanity license plate and knew a potential partner when he saw one.
"The idea of paying for parking with a phone isn't new," says Pell, who joined QuickPay as chairman with a "mid-six-figure" investment. "But the technology was for city-owned parking meters. Carl's focus is off-street, private lots. These are local businesses renting out 10-by-20-foot spaces … and to them an empty space is money they'll never see."
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