Innovator: Sam Friedman's ParkMe App Finds You a Parking Spot

Sam Friedman, 28, recalls driving to a movie theater in Santa Monica, Calif., in the summer of 2007 to see Live Free or Die Hard, then spending a fruitless hour and a half looking for a parking space before giving up and going home. Drivers circling U.S. business districts in search of an empty metered space or a cheap garage account for 30 percent of urban traffic congestion, according to an IBM survey. After his movie no-go, Friedman decided to build an app that allows users to outsource the chore.

His Santa Monica-based startup, ParkMe, gathers data from Web-connected parking meters and garage ticket machines to display available spaces in real time to car navigation systems, as well as iPhones and iPads running the software. Friedman’s app isn’t the only one of its kind, but rivals Parking Panda and ParkWhiz focus solely on reserving a garage space online. ParkMe also provides local garage rates and discount offers, and flags the parking location on users’ phones. “It’s really about the notion of informed, intelligent transportation to reduce your carbon footprint,” Friedman says. “Plus, I hate parking and didn’t want to always be stressed about it.”