The on-demand marketplace is growing exponentially and is now a serious business. Companies around the country and around the world are disrupting traditional business models. Also known as the “sharing economy”, companies are using peer-to-peer models to instantly provide services using people’s spare resources. Whether those resources are a spare room, a spare moment to work or a spare seat in the car or a spare parking space that they are leaving. Today, the sharing economy is about $15 billion but within 10 years it will balloon to over $330 billion.
If there is one company that stands above all others in the sharing economy, it would have to be Uber. This company provides on-demand rides from the convenience of a mobile phone. Passengers can track the car as it approaches and have an up to the minute reading of how close the car is. Payment is confirmed before entering the car and the ride is generally more pleasant and professional than a typical taxi. Pricing is also determined dynamically so when there are many riders with fewer cars, prices rise and vice versa.
Uber has grown by leaps and bounds around the country and the world. Tens of millions of people in the US, China, India and Europe are using the app. At the same time, the firm is rumored to be valued over $50 billion and is make increasingly large sales. Lastly, the business model has overturned old taxi businesses and is causing governments to rethink outdated regulations.
Other industries are similarly being disrupted. AirBnB is the leader in peer-to-peer room sharing. LendingClub and Prosper are peer-to-peer money lending. Elance and UpWork are peer-to-peer freelance work sites. There is even a site called DogVacay that is an on-demand pet-sitting site. As they grow, venture capitalists are pouring money into the space to take advantage of the opportunity. Larger players such as Fidelity, Goldman Sachs and various sovereign wealth funds have even dipped their toe into this industry.
Those companies are not the only ones making a huge splash. For example, Chicago startup ParqEx is an on-demand parking app that is revolutionizing the space. It is making a push to be a leader in the sharing economy and is growing rapidly. The concept is simple, people should be able to share their on-demand parking spaces with others when they are leaving them and make money doing it. The ParqEx model solves multiple Chicago parking problems at once. When someone is leaving a spot, they simply register it on their app.  Surrounding drivers find and reserve the spot. The eliminates the hassle of endlessly circling and reduces the costs substantially.
The business model also takes advantage of a huge market opportunity. Parking  is a $4 billion per year in Chicago and $100 billion per year in the US market. Users can cut down on those costs while at the same time finding convenient spots that they are able to reserve, killing two birds with one stone.
ParqEx is also directly linking drivers with one another, following the true peer-to-peer path of companies like AirBnb. In contrast, other parking aggregators simply list the open spots of commercial lots. While that may benefit some consumers by helping them identify near-by lots, it does nothing to solve the problem in neighborhoods where parking lots and garages are not availabile. Similarly, those aggregators do not tap in to the power of peer-to-peer networks who can display the most convenient spots that are available now. ParqEx is rapidly growing in Chicago and has availability in several neighborhoods like West Loop, Bucktown, Wicker Park, Ravenswood, Lincoln Park and more.
ParqEx is the leading peer-to-peer on-demand parking application. It is helping drivers save time, money and hassle.
