ParkEasy, park safely.

You might have noticed in the recent update that ParkEasy parkers are now protected by Allianz Malaysia. So  recently, Allianz and ParkEasy has formed a beautiful partnership to keep you safe, and it’s entirely free. 

Allianz is notably one of Malaysia’s top auto insurance companies, which is kind of why we’re ecstatic to team up with them.

It all started off with Allianz approaching us for a collaboration. But before anything, we had to decide what exactly we want to insure. So, we sent out surveys and wanted to see what our users would like to have insured. Also, since drivers already have car insurance, we didn’t want to provide benefits you already have.

We found that the majority of users would like their personal belongings to be insured. Second to that is insuring their personal safety.

Get insured for up to RM1,500

We decided it’s best to provide our users with the coverage of accidents involving self and their personal belonging:

1.   Accidental Death/ Permanent Disablement – Sum Insured of RM1,000

2.   Break – in / Snatch Theft – Sum Insured of RM 1,500

Accidents involving accidental death or permanent disablement refers to your injury while in the designated shopping mall.

Accidents involves break-in or snatch theft refers to your loss and or injury while in the designated shopping mall.

It’s not a claim, it’s a relief

Unlike a claim where you’re only reimbursed for only the damages caused, ParkEasy is offering you a relief. In the event that you do face an accident causing break-in or snatch theft, you will be compensated for the full sum of RM1,500.

Make your claim

There’s a few things you’ll have to do to claim your insurance. Firstly, these are the documents required:

1.       Mall management incident report

2.       Onsite photo of break-in and physical damage of named vehicle due to break-in

3.       Police Report

4.       E-payment form

It is important to note that this coverage is subject to a police report and mall management report being lodged within the twenty four hours of the incident of break-in or theft.

Things you need to know

There is no application form. Once you’ve made an account, you’re already entitled to this insurance package.  

How much do you have to pay? None at all! This coverage is completely free. 

Of course, to use this app, you’d have to be parking at shopping malls available to ParkEasy. To validate this, you need to make sure that you have allowed ParkEasy location services. This insurance is only applicable to ParkEasy listed shopping malls.

If you’d like to know in full detail the specifics of the insurance, you may look at the product summary sheet here.

60 Days into 2016, What Say We ?

ParkEasy has recently gone Open Beta (download here), and that means the office is getting much more busier and exciting. In the midst of pushing for more wins, let’s talk about what has changed, and what we are learning since the beginning of this year.

In the space where our ideas flow, ParkEasy office has expanded from 360 sqft to 720 sqft. After months of squeezing way-too-many-people in a small office, we had to get ourselves more space to grow bigger, putting in more hard work. Think buying one-size bigger pants to prepare for the weight you’ll put on before holidays (okay maybe not). Jokes aside, as much as the entrepreneurial spirit burns in us, we know while adapting to change we should also:

always be prepared for more.

The team is also growing with people getting their hands on more responsibilities, and going out of comfort zone doing new things (I won’t go into how working in a startup itself is already considered as one, “comfort zone” in this context refers to job scope, not career choice); Sometimes it gets a little awkward working with new team members while sometimes saying goodbye to some is unavoidable. However, t’s really pretty exciting to see how everyone is stretching and growing themselves. We are embracing this! So,

stretch yourself.

So here’s a sharing of our 2 simple takeaways, and we really wanted to say — WE ARE EXCITED!
 

View fullsize

Us in the office, what say we keep getting ready for more and do more?

How We Found Our iOS Developers

Two months ago we started iOS Trainee Programme with our trainees — Jon and Voon. They have now completed the training and are continuing this journey with us, #ParkEasyTeamExpands.

This short diary entry is not to teach about how hiring developers shouldwork. This is a sharing of how we found the people who are the right fit for our company. We always believe that they’re out there, looking for an opportunity that matches their aspirations and skills. There we were too, searching for people like them.

When the team started looking for iOS Developers, we almost gotten a little panic attack for how few Malaysian iOS developers are ready. (Hint: Coders, think supply and demand.) After searching for few weeks and considering the resources we have, the team decided instead of finding iOS Developers, wetrain them. We decided that we will invest in people who will invest their time and skills with us.

Changing the game a little, we began carefully structuring the programme, setting goals and requirements. It didn’t take us long to attract some potentials. We then started screening through, meeting and evaluating the people who will eventually be part of the team.

Here are some questions we asked ourselves:
Time is crucial for a startup, are we willing to risk our time to train people?
Do we have the capacity to train people with workload lining up?
Do we have the resources to train people to be very good?

Here are some questions we asked in interview:
Why are you interested in us?
What do you want to do with your life?
Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?

After a series of selection, Jon and Voon got chosen. Jon who returned from studies in Australia found us even before we publicised the programme. He came with the intention that he is even willing to be an intern, just so that he can work and learn with ParkEasy. When we offered him trainee position, he said yes without hesitation. Voon on the other hand, after just one Skype interview, agreed to relocate from East Malaysia within two weeks upon the offer.

Now that the programme has ended, the team are happy that they are staying with us, adapting change everyday and driven to achieve goals together.

Will we recommend this method for others out there looking for developers? Will we do it again ourselves in the future?
It depends on situations at the time of recruitment, weighing some of the pros and cons:

Pros:
1. You and trainee can “experiment” working together as a team.
2. You get to hire a person whom you can see potential and you help to realise the potential before the person is discovered by others.
3. You have less cash outflow as compared to hiring professional developer (only in short term, in the long run you wish the trainee to be professional and you can pay them very well).
4. You are at work developing someone, instead of keep searching among limited pool of talents (this is very skill-specific).

Cons:
1. You may realise at the end of the programme, the person is not a right fit for your company, or the trainee leaves you after the programme.
2. You are basically saying no to continue hunting for a professional developer, because you spend time focusing on developing this person.
3. You realise you are spending too much time training instead of doing actual productive work for your startup.
4. You screw up the training, and the trainee is left hanging.

Trainee programme for a startup, in a way is a form of investment, a huge one considering our current resources — much smaller team as compared to big corporation. This means that each team member carries broader as well as stronger responsibilities. We are also spending a huge portion of our absolute sum of time we have for organisational-level learning versus doing productive work. In contrast, if we hire an experienced developer, the person could take off immediately, without needing other team members to spend time for training.

Reflecting on this programme, aren’t we all “trainees” in our own profession in a way? Aren’t we also learning and improving our skills, getting evaluated by not just the impact of our work, but also our attitude to it?

Does a trainee programme ever actually end?

The Heart of ParkEasy

For Original post, please click here.

My name is Warren Chan, I am the CEO of ParkEasy — a small, mostly unknown Malaysian startup which has suddenly become a hotly debated topic in Malaysian media as of this morning. It all began with an article in The Starand has now become publicized on several other media including radio stations. Last I heard, we were just debated over on Mix.fm (wow!).

Enough said, if you’ve reached this article you may have already seen us on some of this media and you would know that the reviews are mixed. Nonetheless, to any one who took their time to give their thoughts on us via comments or private messages, I would like to start this post by giving a great big heartfelt thanks.

When I see so many people discussing the topic, I know that it is one which people feel and care for greatly. The last time I saw so much discussion was regarding the implementation of English as an official language in Sarawak. Obviously matters that matter evoke emotions that spur action.

And speaking of people who care about parking, I can assure you that those who care most about it are the ones who left their cushy jobs and bright careers to work right here at this small Malaysian startup — ParkEasy.

One of our teammates working while in hospital today (we told her not to).

Thus the reason I write this blog post- as much as I would like to respond to each person individually, it’s a bit difficult with the resources we have. Hence, this post is to communicate to you as directly as I can, the heart and spirit behind why we at ParkEasy do what we do and address some concerns that have been raised. To start things of…

How we began

The idea of ParkEasy arose out of a common problem faced by myself and many other Malaysians. Malls are an integral part of Malaysian society and any urban Malaysian will need to visit one some point in their life. Unfortunately, there is simply no way that a single mall can adequately have sufficient parking. A 100 persons, either in their cars or just standing next to each other are vastly different in the space occupied. To have sufficient parking, the parking area would have to be many times larger than the mall itself!

credit: http://www.citymetric.com/

Hence the problem — there is simply insufficient parking. The result of which is that many Malaysians spend a good amount of time circling car parks looking for that elusive car park so that may leave this carbon-monoxide filled car park purgatory. And this is where ParkEasy comes in…

It was a year ago and I had a movie date in a popular mall. With the wonders of technology, I had booked my movie ticket via an app and did not have to queue for it. Unfortunately, though I did not queue at the box office, I did have to ‘queue’ at the car park. Although arriving a good time earlier than my movie, I ended up being late because I simply could not find a car park. By the time I reached the cinema, I was faced with an angry date and had to jump into a movie well past the intro.

All this while I was circling the car park, frantically searching for a spot, I kept thinking to myself why not apply the same process I had used for my movie ticket to parking. Hence the idea was born — ParkEasy.

The heart of ParkEasy was never to extort parkers for their last dime, nor so people can be more ‘kiasu and lazy’. ParkEasy was born to solve a real problem faced by many Malaysians — the long search for finding parking.

Here are some of the recurring comments:

If you only want to make parking easier, why charge people for your service?
When we came up with the idea, ParkEasy was FREE. But we soon found that setting it for free would lead to abuse. People who were not intending to park would simply book up the entire day, leaving an inefficient, empty, car park.

How does this solve the parking problem? We don’t need a booking system, we need more car parks!
As briefly covered above, the amount of car parks needed to adequately service a mall would need to be several times larger than the mall itself. Unfortunately, it simply isn’t commercially feasible for any mall developer to do this. There are some promising solutions abroad (e.g. car park elevator), but are still too expensive for Malaysia.

Sure, but that still doesn’t mean that booking will solve the problem.
To answer this, imagine you are the owner of a restaurant which has more customers than tables, you have 3 options:

1. Increase the number of tables.
2. Remove the need for tables (offer a take-away service).
3. Implement a booking system.

Solution 1 is difficult for malls as stated as above. As for Solution 2, there are already amazing innovative apps doing this, such as another Malaysian startup I personally admire: MyTeksi which will remove the parking hassle for you entirely. Solution 3, this is where we see a gap in the market and where ParkEasy comes in.

A booking system will decrease the number of people who get to enjoy a mall as you will have empty bays. First come, first served is the most efficient.
Imagine a doctor who can see only one patient every 15 mins. If she works for 8 hours, she can service 32 patients in a day. If all 32 patients come early in the morning, they will have to wait a long time til they are attended to. If more than 32 patients show up, they are likely to wait the whole day and finally be turned away.

This is a classic case of limited supply and overwhelming demand. It is the same for parking in Malaysian shopping malls.
Do you remember the last time you spent circling the car park looking for a park even though you ‘came early’? Have you ever experienced going to a shopping mall only to leave frustrated a while after because you could not get parking?

The future that ParkEasy envisions for shopping mall parking is that people come to the mall when there is space available for them, rather than circling the car park waiting for that space to appear. In the perfect scenario, we want the experience to be that you come in right after the previous person leaves and that is the level of efficiency we will strive towards.

This service is only meant for the rich! Why is this needed when premium parking and valet parking exists?
We exist because most people can’t afford premium parking or valet. What has not been clear in the media thus far is our pricing. Usual valet services chargeat least RM15 and above. We plan to charge only RM2–5 one-off per booking, a fraction of what a valet would cost. In a way our tagline could be ‘Now everyone can valet!” (kudos to another Malaysian startup I admire). And once again, the objective of the fee is just to limit others from abusing a free service and booking up the entire day.

You are promoting laziness
Personally, I believe I am a very productive person and I love the idea of ParkEasy. I am not sure how others will use it, but I plan to maximize my time. Instead of arriving at 10am for a 12pm lunch appointment, I plan to arrive at 12pm. With the two hours I save, I plan to use my time to do other important things with my day.

What about those who are not tech-savvy, or do not have smartphones. (OR) I do not want to have to book a car park every time I visit a mall.

It is our last wish to force you to do something you don’t want to. Even after ParkEasy is implemented, you can still go about parking the usual way. We are not going to occupy every single bay in a car park. We are a service available for those who want it and thus will only occupy a section of the whole car park. Furthermore, we offer you FREE services to help you find your car park (if you have a smart phone).

Free services?
The free services our app offers:

• Our birdseye view function allows you to see all available bays in a car park and can navigate you to them free of charge.

Birdseye View

• After you’ve parked, our app remembers where you’ve parked so you don’t have to.

Remember your Carpark

Your app is buggy
You are wrong. Our app is very buggy! ParkEasy hasn’t actually launched yet. The article that was published was supposed to be a tag-along article regarding innovation. Some things happened and long story short, it somehow became our launch article, haha! Although unintended, we are grateful for whatever has happened because the feedback has been immense and will only serve to further strengthen our product for when it is ready to officially officially launch.

In the meantime, you can still download our app if you have an Android and catch a glimpse as to what the potential of the idea could be. But for now, we really do appreciate your patience in waiting for when the proper app is released.

Closing thoughts

When I say the feedback is mixed, I mean really mixed. One social media commentator called us ‘capitalist blood-suckers’ whilst another private messaged that we ‘embody the innovative spirit of Malaysia that will make a mark on the world’. If this post receives the same level of publicity, I’m sure the feedback will be mixed too. Either way, we’re really just a bunch of Malaysians trying our level best to solve a problem in this world and the feedback received thus far tells us that it’s definitely a problem worth tackling.

Malaysia, thank you for your patience, support and thoughts. -Sincerely, Warren Chan, CEO, ParkEasy.

We’re nominated on Asia tech portal Vulcan Post for ‘Most Promising Startup 2015’. Vote for us! (Psst..don’t let Singaporeans win :P ). http://awards.vulcanpost.com/#/parkeasy