Meet the Disruptors: How Michael Rosenbaum of Spacer.com Is Shaking Up How We Park
“If in doubt, ask your customers” is a line I once heard Meg Whitman share when she was CEO of eBay, and has always resonated with me. Often we try to conjure up the answers ourselves or within a business. The truth is, who better to tell us what we need to know than by asking our customers the right questions.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Rosenbaum.
Mike is CEO of parking app & marketplace, Spacer.com a sharing economy platform that empowers people to save and make money by borrowing and lending space. In addition to this, Mike is also co-founder of The Sharing Hub, Australia’s sharing economy accelerator. . Previously, Mike was the co-founder of DealsDirect, a pioneering online department store which he helped scale to c.$100m turnover. When not podcasting with Founders on Air, immersed in all things technology, sharing economy, startups or parking, Mike is spending time with his family or playing guitar.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I was one of the early web developers in the mid-90’s when there were just 40 million people globally online, mostly academics, government users and a few nerds. My high school best mate and I were 14 and we taught ourselves how to code, and develop websites, we were nerds!
We called ourselves Uniweb services (perhaps to seem older than we were at the time) and helped small/medium size businesses get online. Our go-to-market strategy was to fax hotels and other small businesses, as they didn’t yet have email and our voices were still a bit too high-pitched to be taken seriously over the phone. After school, I attended university and started a business degree in Sydney, but quickly found that I preferred learning by doing, and dropped out to co-found Auctionbrokers, the first commercial seller on eBay in Australia in 2000 which then morphed to become DealsDirect in 2004, one of the early online department stores in Oz. Together with my business partner & team of 200, we built that to a $100m business and exited in 2014.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Spacer was built on the premise that there is significant underutilized assets (space) sitting idle all around us, whether that be driveways and garages in residential areas, car spaces at churches & small businesses, to spots in commercial parking lots and garages downtown. Being digital nerds, we saw an opportunity to empower space owners (we call them hosts) to connect with those who need space (drivers) and unlock the vast amounts of available spaces across the cities and neighborhoods in the US. The benefit is multi-sided, and is a true win-win for both the host (space owner) and the driver. The host earns some handy extra income for doing very little, and drivers can get the space that they need near their home, college or workplace easily via our app, at an affordable price. Our focus is on providing long-term solutions, so it’s regular monthly income for the host and a guaranteed ongoing parking spot for the driver. It’s a simple idea, but one that has real tangible benefits to both sides of the marketplace. Often our customers call us the Airbnb for parking.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
In our first months we attended quite a few local street fairs and festivals. We decked out our stall with a chocolate wheel with prizes for the kids, an industrial bubble machine, which was a bit like Pied Piper bringing all the kids (and their parents!) to our stall. The one big mistake we made (with the benefit of hindsight) was that we printed 100,000’s of flyers that looked like we were selling houses. It had a beautiful photo of a 2 story-home, with little bubbles explaining how much you could earn from each room/part of your home. Attic $100/month, Driveway $200/month, Garage $300/month, etc. We had a LOT of people visit our booth thanks to the bubbles & chocolate wheel, however no one understood what we were offering. Most would say “thanks, we aren’t looking to build a new home right now” and so we had to go back to the drawing board and simply our message, to explain what we do. Embarrassingly we actually sent out a LOT of these flyers to homes prior to the street fairs, which cost us a lot of money and we could have learned this lesson a lot more cheaply if we were smarter about it!
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I’ve been extremely fortunate to have had many great mentors and advisors over the past 20 years. My first mentor was Eian Mathieson, who was also my first client back when we were designing websites. Eian taught me the importance of “always wearing the white hat” and that’s something that has always stuck with me. I’ve had many others over the years who have shared their wisdom. Often hearing the mistakes that they made is where the real pearls have been. Of course I’ve made PLENTY of mistakes and continue to do so, but I like to think that these learnings are what helps take us to a better place.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
“Disruption” is certainly a buzz word, however we see ourselves as enablers, leveraging the 20+ years of experience that both Roland my business partner and I each have in technology, leveraging digital marketing to connect the 2 sides of our marketplace, those who have spare space, and those who need it. Rather than disrupt the status quo, we see ourselves as empowering everyday Americans to derive additional income, and others to find the space that they need. Spacer is growing the size of the pie. Essentially this was not possible previously in an easy, streamlined way. Rather than circling the block looking for available long-term parking options, with a few taps on your mobile screen you can pick the spot that suits your needs, pay for it contactlessly & securely, and then park with peace of mind that your spot is guaranteed. We want to make it as easy as ordering a pizza.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
“If in doubt, ask your customers” is a line I once heard Meg Whitman share when she was CEO of eBay, and has always resonated with me. Often we try to conjure up the answers ourselves or within a business. The truth is, who better to tell us what we need to know than by asking our customers the right questions.
“Perfection is the enemy of the good enough” my business partner Paul Greenberg at DealsDirect used to say this one quite a lot, and essentially it means getting your product to market sooner, learning from customer behaviour, and getting data from which to learn is much more powerful than creating a perfect product, which likely doesn’t exist in any case. Test, learn and iterate.
“There’s nothing new under the sun” is a line that one of my mentors Harold Neumann often says. It’s extremely grounding and humbling. Essentially anything we are creating today has been done before, in some shape or form, and any problem that we face has been overcome by someone before us. So, no need to worry, just get on with working towards your vision.
Lead generation is one of the most important aspects of any business. Can you share some of the strategies you use to generate good, qualified leads?
Our best customers are those who have been referred by others. Customer satisfaction is at the centre of everything that we do at Spacer, and so our key lead generation strategy is for our customers to become our advocates or raving fans and to tell their friends or family around the BBQ or via social media. We run our customer support center 7 days a week and provide phone, live chat, messenger and email support in real-time.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Watch this space(r)… but on a serious note, we feel like we’re just warming up. Our team has helped 10,000’s of hosts earn over $30million in extra income in Australia, our 1st launch market, and we would like to see this turn into $1Billion+ here in the US. If we can help 100,000’s of everyday Americans earn some handy extra passive income to help pay the bills, to help pay school tuition or to save up for their next car or holiday, especially in these challenging times, then we’ve achieved our mission.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
Podcast: I’m a big fan of Naval Ravikant and frequently listen to his podcasts.
Books: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne shares the power of the mind and having a positive outlook. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris — it’s always inspiring to learn from those who have achieved greatness.
Music is another tool that I use to help motivate and inspire me. I listen to Neil Finn & Crowded House, and attempt to play some of his songs on guitar.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
There are many that come to mind, but one in particular that resonates with me and is how I aim to live my life is, “words that come from the heart, enter the heart.” Speaking & living one’s truth, and being one’s authentic self in every aspect of life, business included.
If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
As simple as it sounds, I actually believe that leveraging the power of the sharing economy, we can create more connected societies, in a way that everyone wins. COVID lockdowns have exacerbated social isolation and disconnectedness, and to some extent we have lost the simple pleasures of helping our neighbours out. Our resources are finite, and the proliferation of the internet means our neighbourhoods are now global as well as local.
How can our readers follow you online?
Twitter: mike_rosenbaum
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrosenbaum/
Web: www.spacer.com
Podcast: www.foundersonair.com
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
