ParkFlyRent is a brand new concept in the Netherlands. The name of the company explains it all: park your car near the airport, for free. Get dropped off at the terminal of your convenience and fly to your (holiday) destination. In the meantime they wash your car and try to rent it out. Once you get back, they pick you up again and if your car is rented out, you even receive a fee. Niels de Greef started ParkFlyRent this March and already received several awards and quite some media attention.He shares his ideas and inspirations with Dutch curator, Harmen van Sprang.
What inspired you to start ParkFlyRent?
On a trip to Italy last year, it struck me as very strange that parking my car at the airport cost more money than a return flight to Italy. Renting a car there also turned out to be rather expensive. Over an excellent espresso at Cagliari airport, it dawned on me that it is so inefficient to have a parking lot full of new, quickly depreciating rental cars right next to a huge parking lot full of cars that wouldn’t be used at all. I figured that by combining the two, we can make rental cars obsolete and create the most efficient parking lot in the world with free parking & cleaning and very cheap rental cars. This in turn leads to fewer cars: for every 14 people that park with us, our car rental competitors produce 1 car less.
What was your own first experience with the sharing economy?
As a host and surfer on Couchsurfing, I experienced the heartwarming hospitality of people all over the world, as well as experiencing my own hometown through their eyes. Sharing to me is the way the world unwinds and connects again, it makes sense to trust, to share, to interact.
Where do you want to be in three years?
In Lisbon, opening our twentieth location, renting out a car to a traveler who just parked their own car at ParkFlyRent Amsterdam Airport that morning. The dream is to connect, to become the leading airport carsharing company.
What is ParkFlyRent’s business model?
ParkFlyRent offers free parking and car cleaning to travelers at airports, in exchange for the right to rent out their car. We share the proceeds with the owners, and guarantee our renters 25% or more in savings compared to all airport car rental companies.
What are your international ambitions?
We aim to grow quickly, expanding first within Western and Northern Europe, then further, as there are many advantages to size in this highly competitive car rental business. The same goes for the sharing economy, where your platform and user base take time to build and expand, as it takes time for people to get to know and trust you enough to hand over the keys to their car.
What is your advice to other startups in the sharing economy?
First off, determine if your business idea requires you to be a service business or a tech startup (i.e. a platform) and really ask yourself if that role suits you. Think hard about how you create value for your customers on both ends of the business, and make sure you know how to convert that value to turnover. Then test this.
Figured that out? Then get it insured/legislated/endorsed and get going quickly, collaborative consumption is a very fast train so don’t miss it! Oh, and remember the sharing economy is the trust economy, so don’t mess it up by treating your customers or their belongings poorly.
What’s your final thought?
It is amazing to me that, just a few years after collaborative consumption emerged as a concept, there’s virtually no object left I need to own in order to have access to it. It goes to show how far we can go with just a tiny percentage of a population backing collaborative consumption, just think how much more we can accomplish using the wisdom and willingness of the crowd.
