Oindrilla Chatterjee is the Co-Founder at CCO at Parkaze, a Boston-based tech startup tackling the economic and environmental problems linked to parking. She is also working as a Data Scientist at Red Hat. She has a Masters Degree in Computer Science with a specialization in Data-centric computing from Boston University.

Can you tell our readers about your background? 

I was born and raised in India, and come from a purely technical background. I did my undergraduate studies in electronics engineering. I moved to Boston, the United States to pursue a master’s degree in Computer science from Boston University.

What inspired you to start your business? 

Me and my co-founders met during grad school at Boston University and quite early into living in Boston, we realized the troubles around the shortage of parking around the city. We didn't, however, fail to notice the underutilization of parking spaces around residential neighborhoods. It didn't take us long to connect the dots -  that, by optimizing land usage and promoting the use of shared parking spaces, the need for building separate infrastructure around parking can be eliminated and it can provide for a cheaper and smarter alternative for people looking for homes for their car.

Where is your business based? 

We are based out of Boston, United States.

How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took? 

I came up with the idea of Parkaze at a Hackathon where me and my co-founders formed a team. We went on to build a working prototype for the idea at the Hackathon and were motivated to pursue this further. We started this out from within the school and our initial steps were to validate our ideas and assumptions by conducting numerous interviews and starting to expand within the Boston University community with a very simple working platform. 

What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business? 

Before the beginning of this year, we had been distributing flyers around the city around vacant parking spots through which many people enquired about us and registered on our platform. Since then, building an online presence through social media has been a pretty effective channel for raising awareness for Parkaze. Our social media presence led us to engage with several prospective clients as well as other businesses to partner with. 

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them? 

Being international students, a lot of standard processes that work for founders normally did not apply for us and navigating those situations, and understanding the legalities involved has been a big challenge for us. Covid-19 has not been helping the parking industry in general. We have been facing a shortage in supply with people not traveling for work and the cars being parked in the lots. In order to overcome that, we have been trying to build partnerships with small businesses who have vacancies in their lots, now, more than ever. 

How do you stay focused? 

Apart from maintaining daily and weekly to-dos, I find myself taking breaks to decompress when needed. Keeping a divide between work and managing other ends of my life is something I really care about and I have found myself reading, doing yoga, going out for a run or a bike ride, and keeping in touch with friends and family apart from work.

How do you differentiate your business from the competition?

On the demand side, we compete with existing apps like SpotHero and Parkwhiz. On the supply side, there are few startups on the west coast that focus on the nontraditional parking real-estate in residential areas, churches, and universities. No company has yet managed to dominate the supply side. The competition keeps us constantly motivated to move fast as well as indicates a strong product-market fit. We differentiate ourselves from our competitors by remaining focused on the usability of the platform and the technology as well as by establishing trust within the community and inspiring confidence in the platform and its services through verification and reviews.

What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business? 

Engaging through Instagram and Facebook helped us drive the most amount of sales. Over the past few months, we have built a community of realtors and property managers on Instagram. This turned into more potential partnerships and word-of-mouth marketing. We also extensively make use of Facebook Marketplace to expand the reach of our listings.

What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs? 

1)     Your idea might be the next Airbnb or Uber, but there's only one way to know if people feel the same and there is a market segment who values it as much. And if they do, what are some core features they want to see? Find a bunch of people who you can survey and find somebody who's opinion you value (preferably an experienced product designer or commercially minded business person) and ask them to grill you on the idea. Now I cannot stress the importance of advisors and mentors, especially at an early stage.

2)     And I also love the fail fast, succeed fast mentality. The key idea of this model is making smaller progress from feedback and learning through fast iteration, and it allows startups to pivot sooner. Therefore, startups can maximize the utilization of time and resources and create less waste. We follow this ideal religiously. If we waited for everything that we launch or every campaign we do to be fool-proof, we would end up wasting a lot of time where we could build versions of it and succeed eventually.

What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?

Recently, I am exploring the app Quibi meant for byte-sized content!

I love the blog Create and Cultivate. Their mission is to empower women to live, think, and dress with more color. A big and expanding part of their mission is to help women grow their business acumen.

I would recommend the book Outliers: The Story of Success.

What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?

HubSpot has been our central CRM from the beginning, helping us save valuable time on marketing and customer success 

Who is your business role model? Why?

I don't have a single business role model. However, I have always been inspired by my father who happens to be an entrepreneur himself and I have always looked up to his passion and drive.

How do you balance work and life?

For me, finding the right balance between work and life comes with recognizing my personal time, including family and health.

What’s your favorite way to decompress? 

My favorite way to decompress is by cooking and baking and trying my hands at new recipes and cuisines.

What do you have planned for the next six months?

We are currently talking to a lot of schools, churches, universities, and other institutions with an effort to build partnerships where we can mutually benefit one another. We have noticed that many of them within the city need help with managing their parking resources and many of them have underutilized spots. We anticipate a rise in the preference for private transport in the post-COVID-19 commute, primarily due to health and safety concerns. With all this in mind, we are looking to raise a round soon to help us take our web and mobile platforms to more users across the US east-coast cities and beyond.

How can our readers connect with you?

To know more about Parkaze or connect with us you can reach out at hello@parkaze.com. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/oindrilla-chatterjee/. Parkaze: www.parkaze.com