Company: Parkbest UG i.G.

Founders: Neil Deloch, Jonas Langbehn

Founding date: February 6, 2023 (sole proprietorship)

December 1, 2024 UG (expected)

Industry and company: App / technology / mobility solutions

What drives you? What is your motto?

"Fast & efficient parking search - for cities with less traffic and more life."

What is your company about and what is special about it?

With Parkbest, we are pursuing the goal of reducing parking search traffic in city centers and giving drivers back their valuable time. Our concept combines anonymous user-generated data, existing sensor technology, surveys and much more to offer a comprehensive solution for parking space management.

What are your first successes?

Our initial successes include over 4,000 downloads of our app, interest from users in over 120 cities across Germany and the integration of more than 200 parking garages, with more on the horizon. We are also testing the digital parking disc in Limburg from December as part of a six-month pilot project to draw conclusions about its use.

What is your professional background?

Jonas and I completed our vocational baccalaureate together at Obermayr Business School in Wiesbaden. Jonas then studied business psychology at the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences and successfully graduated, while I studied real estate management but dropped out to concentrate on founding Parkbest.

Our different academic backgrounds and experiences complement each other perfectly in our start-up.

What was the trigger for you to set up your own company?

The decisive trigger for founding Parkbest was frustration with the frequent search for parking spaces in our cities. We realized that this everyday stress not only costs time, but also contributes to traffic congestion and unnecessary CO2 emissions.

Our passion for innovative solutions and our desire to improve mobility in urban areas motivated us to develop an app that helps drivers find parking spaces efficiently while relieving the burden on urban transportation infrastructure.

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors?

In the first year, the incubator and accelerator program of the Pioneer Lab at Fresenius University of Applied Sciences provided us with enormous input and valuable knowledge. But the YBG startup program also expanded our know-how. Our families also play an important role by advising us and encouraging us to follow our path as founders.

How did you experience the first few days as founders?

In the first few days as founders, we felt a mixture of excitement and uncertainty. It was an interesting feeling to finally put our ideas into practice and found a company.

We spent long hours developing our app and planning the first steps to launch. The support from our families and mentors gave us extra courage. At the same time, we were aware that we had to overcome many challenges, but the enthusiasm for our project motivated us to tackle every hurdle.

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?

The biggest challenge was the technical implementation of our app and the sales exchange with over 100 municipalities. At the beginning, the process of talking to the cities was often lengthy and challenging.

We had to learn how to present our solution effectively and respond to the specific needs of the municipalities. Over time and by continuously optimizing our approach, we have become increasingly articulate and confident.

Now, not only have we built strong relationships with many cities, but we have also gathered valuable feedback to help us further refine and adapt our solution.

How do you draw attention to your company? What is your best marketing idea?

We raise awareness of Parkbest by using a mix of online and offline marketing strategies. Online, we rely on social media to generate app users and optimize our website weekly so that cities and municipalities become aware of us.

Offline, we will place several hundred advertising posters in our first partner city, Limburg, to increase the visibility of our app and address the local population directly.

This combination of targeted online presence and effective offline advertising helps us to

us to reach both private users and public administrations and generate interest in our solution.

How did you finance your start-up?

We completely bootstrapped the financing of our start-up. This means that we financed our initial investment from our own funds and savings without using external investors or loans.

This approach not only gave us full control over our company, but also the incentive to work economically from the start and use our resources efficiently.

What dream would you still like to realize?

We dream of scaling Parkbest across Germany and beyond to become an app that is an integral part of people's everyday lives. Our goal is to enable drivers in every city to find a parking space without stress and at the same time support cities in the digital management of their parking space.

Please complete the following sentence: If we had more time, we would ...

... work even more intensively on partnerships with other cities in order to expand and scale faster.

What is your special tip: What would you recommend to founders?

Our special tip is to build up a strong network right from the start and to actively exchange ideas with other founders and experts. Take every opportunity to learn and gather feedback. Be open to criticism and ready to adapt your business model. It is also important to be patient and persistent, as the road to a successful start-up is often long and full of challenges.