October 8, 2025 • 29 mins
Jordan Justus, CEO of Automotus, Inc. - CEOs You Should Know: Washington, DC
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M and T Bank Prison CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You should know power by iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Let's meet Jordan Justice. He is the co founder and
CEO for automotis, a Southern California based company that uses
computer vision technology to automate curb management for cities, airports,
and fleets. They helped manage congestion, emissions and safety hazards
at the curb by automating tasks like payment for parking
and loading, enforcing curb regulations, and optimizing loading zones. Before
(00:29):
we talk more about Jordan's incredible company, I first asked
him to talk a little bit about himself, where he's
from and his origin story.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I grew up in Southern California, Ventura County, ended up
going to Loyle at Marymount University in Los Angeles for college,
and been in LA for the last ten years more
or less ever since heading out there for school.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
All Right, we got a SoCal kid and who's been
a lifer, which is really cool and I know this
is not going to surprise you. A couple things that
we've learned about you before this interview is that we
do find a lot of lifers that's in one area
and create their company and excel and grow and go
through all the groin pains starting a company. And the
other thing that you have in common with a lot
of our guests, Jordan, is that sometimes great ideas are
(01:11):
born at school and college in post secondary and I
know this is where the story starts at LMU. So
tell us about the idea about the company, how it
all came about with your co founder, because it really
is fascinating.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean it's We're very fortunate. We
went to a great school for entrepreneurship, my co founder
and I.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
He studied computer.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Science, I studied entrepreneurship, and we're taking Internet of Things
class together. At the time, LA being what it is,
we were both spending an hour in the car driving
five to seven miles to various internships, and at the
time we had come across this study done by a
really famous urban planning.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Professor out of UCLA who unfortunately passed.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Away this past year, Donald Shup, that found roughly thirty
percent of traffic in all cities across the globe is
drivers searching for parking cars that are already at their destination.
People are just looking to get out, but they're circling
the block trying to find a parking spot, and at
the time we were exposed to quite a bit of
computer vision technology, so we thought, why couldn't you just
(02:14):
put cameras up automate this, share parking data, and generally
help produce traffic.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I ended up.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Cold calling probably about ten thousand people in cities across
the country over the next six months, and we found
the further we dug into this problem, but more there
was to it. In the last ten to fifteen years,
cities have seen a pretty dramatic shift in how the
public right of way is being used, how our streets
are being used. There's been a lot more commercial activity.
Amazon ups doorda uber lift that really changed how the
(02:46):
curb is used, a lot more vehicles trying to get
in and get out to drop off packages, pick up food,
and now cities are seeing a big influx in autonomous
vehicles to it here in the US and generally parking policies,
parking rates, all of the technology that's used is pretty
archaic and built around passenger vehicles. So after chatting with
(03:08):
a lot of folks, we realize there's a lot of
white space and a lot of problems that cities are
seeing that have really gone unaddressed and are only getting bigger.
So after many conversations and hearing from the folks that
are dealing with the day to day, we decided to
dive in and start automotis all.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Right, I want to talk about a lot and this
could be its own podcast. My next question because I'm
always thrilled when I hear about ideas being born. And
I don't know if you guys classify yourself as a disruptor.
I know that that word is used probably by layman
like me, But what you are doing is you're trying
to change something for the better for everybody out there.
And that's what I love about people like you and
(03:46):
your co founder with that, when you were talking about
the idea and you're making the calls, you probably didn't
know what was ahead of you. But did you know
that you had a good enough idea that there could
be a company born out of this idea and what
it was going to take.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
It only takes a couple hundred bucks to start a company.
You really just have to a few forms to the state.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
And so you know, anything could be a company to
some excp. Did we know we would be able to
solve problems at scale for cities like we're doing today.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
We had a hunch. I think we knew that there
was a lot of opportunity. We probably didn't know how
convoluted getting from where we were to where.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
We are today.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
It might be right, but no doubt we knew there
was a lot of opportunity. I think wherever you can
find a big problem and you know, not just big
in terms of scale, but really cute for certain number
of people, but then also as well a scale problem
that a lot of people are experiencing, there's always an opportunity.
It's just a matter of whether or not the juices
(04:40):
were with the squeeze and how hard it is to get.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
There right, and a lot of timing, which we're going
to talk about too, because not only did you do
things domestically, but you were taking things international during COVID,
which I want to talk about. But I do want
to talk about just the overall mission and vision, and
then we'll talk about exactly what the company does, because
I think people are going to be fascinated. But as
we talk about mission and vision, I know that's important
to a lot of company leaders. Jordan, what are those
(05:02):
for us?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
It's always, I think helpful to start at the end
for something like this because where we are today, what
our cities are dealing with, is a lot of solvable problems. Today,
if you look at statistics here in the US, around
forty thousand people die every year from traffic accidents, which
is crazy. It's an enormous amount, and it's all preventable.
(05:24):
Like today, if you ride a scooter in a city,
for example, there's a governor on that that's dictated by
local regulations, but you can drive a car as fast
as you want.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
That's one example.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
But also if you look at generally just what's happening
in cities nowadays, there's a ton of safety hazards from
vehicles stopping in the public right of way, stopping in
the middle of the road, bikers having their biking to
oncoming traffic, and crosswalks being completely cluttered and so people
are peeking out over freight trucks to see if they
can cross while the light is green, and all sorts
(05:57):
of really preventable safety hazards. And so for us, our
mission is to really eliminate safety hazards and transportation domestically
and abroad, while also helping to generally just make our
cities more livable, reducing traffic, helping local economies thrive through
promoting economic activity at the curb, increasing retail and restaurant activity.
(06:21):
So there's a wide array of different values that we
hold true to all of these different projects and programs
that we're working on, but at our core, what we're
really focused on is helping make cities more livable for everybody.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Very good. I want everybody to buckle in for this
next one, right, are you ready? All right? How'd you
come up with a company name?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Nothing groundbreaking here.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
We use an autoname generator, typed in what we do
and clicks generate a few times and we settled on
the first one that we thought we liked picking the
company name. You know, it's funny, it's something that is
I think important, but also easy to waste a lot
of time on.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, I agree with you. And by the way, that's
the first in this I've been doing for four years
of the auto generation. But you know, whatever works, you know,
I just whatever works it really, it really doesn't matter
if you like it and if it's cool and if
you think it says to who you are, then that's
the way to go. Well, let's do this, I really
I think a lot of people are intrigued, and we're
going to get into the weeds. But if you were
(07:17):
to give a thirty thousand point view to all the
listeners that are new and all the people that live
in cities and airport areas that are listening to our
interview on our podcast right now about what the company
does in that thirty thousand foot view, what would you
tell them that you exactly do.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
At a high level, what we do is help cities
automate parking and traffic management, and airport's more or less
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I'll start with the city landscape in cities.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
The way that we pay for parking, the way that
parking is managed is really focused around you or I
going to dinner downtown or go into coffee shop and
hanging out for a couple hours. But more than fifty
percent of demand today comes from commercial activity, comes from UPS, FedEx, Amazon,
all these other companies also on demand delivery rde hailing.
(08:02):
Cities are seeing big influx and autonomous vehicles, and none
of that is really managed today. The way that cities
do manage that is by enforcement. So for example, UPS
a few years back, spent a little bit north. It's
thirty four million dollars in parking tickets in New York City.
That is government fine, not tax deductible. It's just the
(08:22):
cost of doing business because they can't access the curb reliably.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
What we do is deploy a product called caur pass.
It's like easy paths for the.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Curb with cameras mounted on street lights, where we automate.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Payment for curb access.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
To help cities reduce double parking by ensuring that the
curbs are available. The way that we do that is
by charging a market rate and then also enforcing safety hazards,
so if you stop in a traffic lane or a
bike lane, setting tickets in the mail.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
But generally all of these.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Activities are very preventable through just assigning better rates and
better policies. Those cities have massive abundance of off street parking,
but because on street parking is oftentimes cheaper or in
some cases free, a lot of people that.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Don't need to park on the street.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Will do so, and then you've got these bigger commercial
vehicles that have to stop in the middle of the
traffic land.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So we help cities apply.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Rates and policies change behavior, and then we help fleets
drivers automate curb payments via our product curve Pass.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
All right, I know that your pilot project kind of
started right on home base at LMU. I'd love to
hear about how that went. And then you went overseas,
which is very interesting during the COVID time, So tell
us about how that all came out and what you
were testing and what you expected to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, it built a fairly complex product with a wide
ray of computer vision technology, not dissimilar from a lot
of autonomous vehicle technology, using sensors to understand what's happening
in the built environment or the real world. So we
started at LMU just putting up a few cameras to
understand parking and traffic data and start to automate some
(10:02):
simple operations. That was enough to get us into a
venture capital accelerator program with a firm called tech Stars.
They had a smart mobility program in to Reno, Italy,
which got us our first city project. Trying to sell
into cities is not always super straightforward, and we were
first starting out, the first question everybody would ask.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Us was what other cities are you working with?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
So by being able to launch through this accelerator program
in to Reno in March of twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It was interesting times. We went out there for this.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Accelerator at COVID hit Northern Italy pretty early on and
city more or less close up shop, but they allowed
me to go into their city buildings and still put
up some hardware and all of that while.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Everybody else was working from home, and.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
We were able to get our first city project up
really analyzing parking traffic data.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
That unlocked a lot of opportunity for us.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
We then worked on a small project in Paris and
then came back to the US where we had enough
credibility the municipal market now to really start to expand.
We then launched zero Mission Z owned projects with Los
Angeles and Santa Monica and smartpaer projects with Pittsburgh, and
that unlocked the North American market force where we're really
able to show the impact not just in understanding what's happening,
(11:16):
but then by helping these cities implement policies, implement rates,
show how in Pittsburgh we were able to reduce double
parking downtown and partnership in the city by ninety seven percent.
In other cities, We've been able to increase turnover and
economic activity, sales tax by as much as thirty percent,
also reducing traffic during rush hour, and a wide array
(11:37):
of other benefits.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Really by just helping these cities implement.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Policies that they've wanted to for a long time but
not necessarily had the means to do.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
You know, I know they say timing is everything, and
it must have been a little weird that we're starting COVID.
All hell's breaking loose and you've got this great idea
of starting a company and you still moved forward. And
you know, I don't know if that was fortuitous or not,
but do you still kept on driving forward and moving along.
But it must have been a strange time.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I mean, timing, to your point, is everything. There's been
a number of studies around the different variables that have
a high correlation to success and early stage startups, and
you can look at the team, the idea, execution, but
timing has the highest correlation by far. For us at
the time, it worked out very well in an industry
where there's a lot of sales and marketing spend, where
(12:29):
people are going to conferences and spending hundreds of thousands
of dollars to look like they're the most credible company
in the space. But now all of a sudden, all
you can do is zoom calls, and my zoom call
looks the same as your zoom call. So it really
leveled the playing field in a lot of ways and
go to market and selling, which was very helpful, But
it also accelerated a lot of the pain points that
(12:50):
cities were seeing in that people that were going to
the grocery store to get their groceries started using Instacart,
and people that were going out to dinner started using
door dash or and a lot of things that we're
already happening to some degree accelerated.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
That created more.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Friction at the curb in cities, and generally more pain
points that cities hadn't been able to address previously that
we're now becoming larger and larger.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I know you know this, but I'm a layman, but
I'm very curious because AI is in all of our
lives right now. How integrated is it and with your
product now or what do you hope it to be
in the years coming.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, AI is certainly a broad term, and it captures
a lot. But at our core, we're a computer vision company,
which is you know AI by you know a lot
of folks natural definition. We put up cameras and we
have intelligence that automatically analyzes what's happening, detecting different vehicle types,
reading logos, reading license plates, analyzing all of that to
(13:47):
then automatically output events that correlate to policies and prices,
and so at its core, we are an AI company,
and it's something that going back to your timing question,
is very relevant too, because a lot of these things,
I've gotten a lot easier to build quickly and scale
quickly as a result of Nvidia really making quite a
(14:08):
bit of cash off of their business and reinvesting in
all of their customers like us, which has been very helpful.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I wanted to ask about that because I think you
and I watched enough documentaries or seen movies on disruptors
out there. Whether it's people driving cars and picking you up,
or it's a social media platform, there's always some kind
of pushback. It's a great idea, but you're always stepping
on somebody's toes for something, and usually it has to
do with power or money, with all that said, is
(14:35):
you present your product to a local city government agency
or an airport, what is initially the feedback or the
reaction that you're getting from your incredible technology.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
The nice thing about what we do is it's really
a win win win, especially in the city market and
the airport market. Really just a win win because it's
primarily two stakeholders there.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
But for the city is it's.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
A win from the perspective of the constituents now are
able to have less traffic, safer streets, and it's just
easier to get around in the public right of way.
For the city, less liability from safety hazards, and they
have a lot more visibility into what's going on in
the public right of way generally, and they're able to
(15:19):
achieve a lot of their core objectives around Vision zero,
reducing safety hazards through decarbonization, reducing emissions from traffic from
idling circling the block. And it's also a win for
the fleets and the drivers where they're able to now
reliably access the curb, reduce the amount of time they
spend circling the block, reducing amount of tickets they get,
and generally just operate more efficiently and as a result,
(15:44):
we haven't seen that kind of pushback. I mean there's
always education around something new, and working with cities is
complex and that it requires engagement with a variety of stakeholders.
But because this is really green space greenfield to white space,
there's not something that we're coming in and saying, oh,
you have to remove that to put this in. This
(16:06):
is a net news solution for everybody at the table.
We've had a lot of success. And in the airport
space similarly, there's a lot of traffic at airports. Everybody
knows this and there's usually a few ways where by
implementing policies and rates and things like that, you can
change behavior introduce traffic. And so we've seen a lot
of success and just creating win win solutions, and I
(16:28):
think that's really the key is sitting down with stakeholders
and identifying what's the right recipe to solve everybody's problems here.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
And to that point, you.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Know, our technology is really, as I've mentioned, really just
the means to implement policies and prices. Like what those
policies and prices are. It boils down to what the
city is the business improvement districts the stakeholders want and
can agree on.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
That solves everybody's problems.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
All right, well, let's do this. I'd love to hear
about how the company is growing. Obviously sustainability is paramount,
but also growth is important too in a lot of companies.
You can talk about that. But right now, as you
cast your net, how many different markets are you working
with and are you just domestic or are you already
working internationally as well or is that the plan?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, we work primarily in North America, the US and Canada.
Today we work with about thirty different cities and a
handful of airports.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Today.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
We've grown about five times over the last year, really
through expansion within a lot of cities as well as
expanding to a great number of new markets. We work
primarily in larger cities today in the US, so cities
like Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Houston, and array of others.
(17:42):
Or we're helping to automate current management and downtown cores
and beyond to reduce as mentioned, just like the safety
hazards and the traffic that all these cities are seeing.
And we're really now breaking into the airport market to
help solve a lot of similar problems, but really focused
on airport terminals and what's going on there around congestion
(18:02):
and just alleviating some of the rush hour challenges they see.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
But still a lot of opportunity for growth. There's a
wide array of.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Challenges that small towns and other jurisdictions are facing around
really just operational capacity where cities are in a lot
of more rural or less urban areas having police officers
write parking tickets where they're walking around chalking tires and
it doesn't necessarily make sense to have somebody who you're
(18:31):
paying one hundred thousand dollars a year with benefits, that's carrying.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
A firearm to go out and issue parking tickets.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
So we're seeing a wide array of growth in different areas,
but generally in those three primary customer segments of larger
cities airports are now smaller towns as well.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I know technology is moving very quickly, Jordan, It's fluid,
and I'm sure you're keeping an eyeing everything as you
work on your patent technology with your co founder and
your team. With that said, where do you think things
are going to go with the industry, but specifically with
you do over the next five or ten years, because
cars aren't going away. I know, we're getting more into
the automated car and driverless cars and things are going
(19:09):
on there. But there's always going to be drivers, there's
always going to be deliveries. And you know, to your point,
your technology, it's just getting busier out there in all
these major markets. Where is the industry growing and how
do you see fitting into it.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
The interesting thing about our industry is it's really at
this point constrained by policy. Most every jurisdiction has an
ordinance or maybe a state code that says this is
how cities can manage the public right of way, this
is how they can charge for parking, this is how
they can do X, Y or Z, and a lot
(19:42):
of times it's pretty restrictive. Most cities update their parking
ordinances every five to ten years at maximum. Some haven't
been touched in sixty or seventy years, which is crazy.
But the reason why city's structure for parking is to
manage demand well and any it was tuls Oklahoma was
theversity to come out with parking meters almost a century ago.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Now people were you.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Know, there was an uproar people were up in arms,
like why are you charging for this?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
They should be free?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
But obviously, like the reason why we all know charging
for parking makes sense is there's more demand for the
curve than there is supply, and so you have to
assign a rate to curtailed demand.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And then by doing that, you dose traffic, you do
safety hazards, all of these things.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
And today commercial activity, which makes it more than half
of parking and cities, is largely unpriced, unmanaged, and is
creating quite a bit of chaos. And it's not by
you know, any malicious you know acts from the commercial sector.
It's just, you know, there hasn't been any policies or
technologies that have kept up with demand. Commercial activity is
(20:48):
expected to continue to ramp. Autonomous vehicles will be pretty
abundant across most cities over the next decade, and policy
going to have to catch up.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
That's the most important piece. Both from a state and
local perspective.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
We've seen a lot of good examples of cities taking
the lead on that, passing local ordinances that allow them
to manage these types of things, as well as state legislation.
That's a key element from us from a technological perspective.
We've seen a lot of cities that have implemented these
types of policies then use technology as it means to
(21:26):
manage the policies and rates, and that's been very effective.
And so for us, we'll continue to play an integral
role in helping cities advance these efforts. But technology alone
is not a silver bullet. It requires the legislative and
policy framework to really manage all of this stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Understood, well, you talked about some of the challenges. I
love to hear a good story, and I'm sure you
have handfuls of stories about agencies, as cities or an
airport that you work with. Is there something you can
share with us, and you don't have to get specific
if you don't want to, but is there something that
really turned out really cool for either a downtown or
an airport or one of your clients said with you
and your co founder team, this is why we get
(22:02):
up every day because something cool happened and we changed
lives here. Can you share one with us?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I mean there's been a lot of success, really led
by all of our city partners that have taken the
bold action of implementing the policies that make it happen.
But Philadelphia is a great case study where they implemented
smart curbs across their downtown and Center City, really their
densest part of the city that has some of the
worst traffic, and by just automating curb management, automating deplying
(22:30):
smart curbs, smart loading zones, to deployed curve pass charge
vehicles by the minute, they've been able to reduce double
parking by about forty percent downtown. One of their primary
goals though, was reducing traffic during rush hour, and they've
seen traffic speeds increase by eighteen to fifty percent during
rush hour downtown, which if you live in Center City
(22:50):
Philadelphia or you drive through there, that's a big difference.
As well as they've also seen a big increase in turnover,
which for the layman basically means more vehicles in and
out of the same space, which is key to what
we do.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
It's key to current management.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
It's one of the primary indicators that your policies are working.
Where you have limited space, now you're able to get
fifty percent more vehicles.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
In and out.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
That means that that real estate is working for you
and for your constituents a lot better.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
So that's been a great success story.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
And yeah, really big supporter of all the great work
that City of Philadelphia is doing because they're on the
cutting edge.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I realize it. I'm sure you can agree. There are
no guarantees on how anything works, but it's really got
to put a smile on your face with you, your
co founder, your team that it's working that well in Philly.
I mean, that sounds very impressive. Did it even surprise
you those numbers in that data?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
No, I mean the first time it did.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
You know, We've had a few other really good outcomes,
like in Pittsburgh they were able to reduce double parking
ninety seven percent by wow, automating payment and enforcement for
commercial activity and bike lay in violations and things like that.
They've also been able to reduce traffic and increase turnover
and all of these other things. And so we've seen
(24:06):
what happens when cities implement policies. Technology is not a
silver bullet, as I mentioned, it's really just a me
and so help cities implement good policies to manage this
kind of stuff, and so we know what will happen.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It's just a matter of doing it right. There's varying degrees.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
It's always a balance too, because you think you're charging
for something that maybe is free, or you're automating enforcement.
Enforcement can be kind of a dirty word, and so there,
you know, is always a political balance of what do
constituents want, what do the politicians want, and what is
good policy and figuring out, you know, where everybody meets
in the middle is usually what ends up happening. But
(24:44):
regardless of what you do, you'll get better outcomes because
today most cities are doing almost nothing.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, that's a good point. I'm talking to you today
from Washington, DC and the DMV. I think I'm going
to put a good word in for all the local
city centers and what you do, because my goodness week
to use it out here. I'm sure you know.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
About that though I'm familiar.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, I bet you are. Well. Listen, I before I
let you go, I want to talk about leadership. And
one of the cool things about the series is the
you know, several years ago you were at LMU with
your co founder and going to school, probably not knowing
what exactly what you want to do, and then you
came up with this incredible idea and then you executed it.
We have a lot of kids and future entrepreneurs who
listen to the series and want to know how did
(25:27):
they do it, why did they do it, how did
they move forward? What's a cost? What am I going
to have to give up? I realized that your journey
is very specific to yours, Jordan. But when it comes
to starting a company and then executing that company with
leadership and culture and team and all the things that
you and you partner and your co founder had to do,
can you talk a little bit about that for everybody?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
And I think to your point, Dennis, everybody's journey is
a little bit different. We were very fortunate and we
started it when we were twenty two years old. We
didn't have families, we didn't have a mortgage. That's always
a big help, but we did have our share of obstacles.
It's never a straight line. But when you're a twenty
two year old kid with a gov tech business trying
to manufacture hardware, you don't necessarily have a laundry list
(26:12):
of investors that are reaching out to you to help
fund your business.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
You don't have the credibility. You're entering a hard market.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
We had our fair share of obstacles getting off the ground,
but the key element was to our success and we
still have a long way to go, but what's really
helped us be successful to date is being very persistent
one which is just incredibly important, but persistent with an
open mind and that always trying to listen to our
customers first understand what their problems are, what we can
(26:39):
do to solve them, and being open minded just broadly
around what kind of feedback we're getting from not just
our customers, but also, you know, as it's relevant, from
the investors community. Although like when you're building a business,
your customer is really the only thing that matters, but
when you need capital, you also need capital. And then
(26:59):
ensuring that as we are scaling and building these solutions
for these cities, empowering our team to have ownership over
not just their role, but really the company's success, and
that's been key to building a fantastic team that's helped
us get to the point where we are today, because
innovation is a team sport and the only way that
(27:19):
you're really going to win is having a great team.
So there's a bit of I covered a bit of
ground there, but we've been fortunate to have a lot
of support over the years, and we wouldn't be where
we are today without it.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
No, it's great, and it could be its own conversation
because when it comes to leadership and team and culture
and starting companies, it is very specific, but it's you know,
I think the message that I've gotten from a lot
of leaders like you is that you have to be
really passionate about your project and own it one hundred percent.
It's like a sports athlete at the pro level, or
maybe a celebrity that's a movie actor or a singer,
(27:54):
that if you don't put all of it into it,
you're probably not going to win, and you're going to
have a lot of people say no to you. And
if you can't take rejection, it ain't for the faint.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Of heart, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah, well, listen, let's do this. Let's give the website,
and if you've got an app, let's talk about that,
any social media platforms, and if you're hiring people, listen
to this wonderful series about that too. Jordan's so just
some final thoughts, and let's give all the information that
people were already probably starting to look up, but let's
give it to him anyway.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, thanks Dennis.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Check us out at automotives dot ai. We are hiring,
so if you're looking for a job and go to
market or engineering, please reach out and otherwise make sure
you register for Curve Pass and hopefully you'll see us
soon in a city near you.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Well, Jordan Listen, I talked to a lot of cool
people in this series. But when you're changing almost everybody's
life because almost everybody drives, I think it's cool. And
I know you guys think that that it was a
cool idea. You've implemented and executed. You're growing, and you're sustainable,
and it's just wonderful what you, your co founder and your
team are doing. So I wish you nothing but the best.
I think it's just a wonderful idea what you have,
(29:00):
and I think great things are going to happen to
you guys. So I'm really excited for you and the team,
and I'm really glad that we could feature you on
CEOs you should Know. Thank you so much and continue success.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Thanks for having me Dennis. Good chat today.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Our community partner M and T Bank supports CEOs you
should Know is part of their ongoing commitment to building
strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses within them.
As a bank for communities, M and T believes in
dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local businesses thrive
because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed
M and T Bank Prison CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You should know power by iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Let's meet Jordan Justice. He is the co founder and
CEO for automotis, a Southern California based company that uses
computer vision technology to automate curb management for cities, airports,
and fleets. They helped manage congestion, emissions and safety hazards
at the curb by automating tasks like payment for parking
and loading, enforcing curb regulations, and optimizing loading zones. Before
(00:29):
we talk more about Jordan's incredible company, I first asked
him to talk a little bit about himself, where he's
from and his origin story.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I grew up in Southern California, Ventura County, ended up
going to Loyle at Marymount University in Los Angeles for college,
and been in LA for the last ten years more
or less ever since heading out there for school.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
All Right, we got a SoCal kid and who's been
a lifer, which is really cool and I know this
is not going to surprise you. A couple things that
we've learned about you before this interview is that we
do find a lot of lifers that's in one area
and create their company and excel and grow and go
through all the groin pains starting a company. And the
other thing that you have in common with a lot
of our guests, Jordan, is that sometimes great ideas are
(01:11):
born at school and college in post secondary and I
know this is where the story starts at LMU. So
tell us about the idea about the company, how it
all came about with your co founder, because it really
is fascinating.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean it's We're very fortunate. We
went to a great school for entrepreneurship, my co founder
and I.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
He studied computer.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Science, I studied entrepreneurship, and we're taking Internet of Things
class together. At the time, LA being what it is,
we were both spending an hour in the car driving
five to seven miles to various internships, and at the
time we had come across this study done by a
really famous urban planning.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Professor out of UCLA who unfortunately passed.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Away this past year, Donald Shup, that found roughly thirty
percent of traffic in all cities across the globe is
drivers searching for parking cars that are already at their destination.
People are just looking to get out, but they're circling
the block trying to find a parking spot, and at
the time we were exposed to quite a bit of
computer vision technology, so we thought, why couldn't you just
(02:14):
put cameras up automate this, share parking data, and generally
help produce traffic.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I ended up.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Cold calling probably about ten thousand people in cities across
the country over the next six months, and we found
the further we dug into this problem, but more there
was to it. In the last ten to fifteen years,
cities have seen a pretty dramatic shift in how the
public right of way is being used, how our streets
are being used. There's been a lot more commercial activity.
Amazon ups doorda uber lift that really changed how the
(02:46):
curb is used, a lot more vehicles trying to get
in and get out to drop off packages, pick up food,
and now cities are seeing a big influx in autonomous
vehicles to it here in the US and generally parking policies,
parking rates, all of the technology that's used is pretty
archaic and built around passenger vehicles. So after chatting with
(03:08):
a lot of folks, we realize there's a lot of
white space and a lot of problems that cities are
seeing that have really gone unaddressed and are only getting bigger.
So after many conversations and hearing from the folks that
are dealing with the day to day, we decided to
dive in and start automotis all.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Right, I want to talk about a lot and this
could be its own podcast. My next question because I'm
always thrilled when I hear about ideas being born. And
I don't know if you guys classify yourself as a disruptor.
I know that that word is used probably by layman
like me, But what you are doing is you're trying
to change something for the better for everybody out there.
And that's what I love about people like you and
(03:46):
your co founder with that, when you were talking about
the idea and you're making the calls, you probably didn't
know what was ahead of you. But did you know
that you had a good enough idea that there could
be a company born out of this idea and what
it was going to take.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
It only takes a couple hundred bucks to start a company.
You really just have to a few forms to the state.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
And so you know, anything could be a company to
some excp. Did we know we would be able to
solve problems at scale for cities like we're doing today.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
We had a hunch. I think we knew that there
was a lot of opportunity. We probably didn't know how
convoluted getting from where we were to where.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
We are today.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
It might be right, but no doubt we knew there
was a lot of opportunity. I think wherever you can
find a big problem and you know, not just big
in terms of scale, but really cute for certain number
of people, but then also as well a scale problem
that a lot of people are experiencing, there's always an opportunity.
It's just a matter of whether or not the juices
(04:40):
were with the squeeze and how hard it is to get.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
There right, and a lot of timing, which we're going
to talk about too, because not only did you do
things domestically, but you were taking things international during COVID,
which I want to talk about. But I do want
to talk about just the overall mission and vision, and
then we'll talk about exactly what the company does, because
I think people are going to be fascinated. But as
we talk about mission and vision, I know that's important
to a lot of company leaders. Jordan, what are those
(05:02):
for us?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
It's always, I think helpful to start at the end
for something like this because where we are today, what
our cities are dealing with, is a lot of solvable problems. Today,
if you look at statistics here in the US, around
forty thousand people die every year from traffic accidents, which
is crazy. It's an enormous amount, and it's all preventable.
(05:24):
Like today, if you ride a scooter in a city,
for example, there's a governor on that that's dictated by
local regulations, but you can drive a car as fast
as you want.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
That's one example.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
But also if you look at generally just what's happening
in cities nowadays, there's a ton of safety hazards from
vehicles stopping in the public right of way, stopping in
the middle of the road, bikers having their biking to
oncoming traffic, and crosswalks being completely cluttered and so people
are peeking out over freight trucks to see if they
can cross while the light is green, and all sorts
(05:57):
of really preventable safety hazards. And so for us, our
mission is to really eliminate safety hazards and transportation domestically
and abroad, while also helping to generally just make our
cities more livable, reducing traffic, helping local economies thrive through
promoting economic activity at the curb, increasing retail and restaurant activity.
(06:21):
So there's a wide array of different values that we
hold true to all of these different projects and programs
that we're working on, but at our core, what we're
really focused on is helping make cities more livable for everybody.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Very good. I want everybody to buckle in for this
next one, right, are you ready? All right? How'd you
come up with a company name?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Nothing groundbreaking here.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
We use an autoname generator, typed in what we do
and clicks generate a few times and we settled on
the first one that we thought we liked picking the
company name. You know, it's funny, it's something that is
I think important, but also easy to waste a lot
of time on.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, I agree with you. And by the way, that's
the first in this I've been doing for four years
of the auto generation. But you know, whatever works, you know,
I just whatever works it really, it really doesn't matter
if you like it and if it's cool and if
you think it says to who you are, then that's
the way to go. Well, let's do this, I really
I think a lot of people are intrigued, and we're
going to get into the weeds. But if you were
(07:17):
to give a thirty thousand point view to all the
listeners that are new and all the people that live
in cities and airport areas that are listening to our
interview on our podcast right now about what the company
does in that thirty thousand foot view, what would you
tell them that you exactly do.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
At a high level, what we do is help cities
automate parking and traffic management, and airport's more or less
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I'll start with the city landscape in cities.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
The way that we pay for parking, the way that
parking is managed is really focused around you or I
going to dinner downtown or go into coffee shop and
hanging out for a couple hours. But more than fifty
percent of demand today comes from commercial activity, comes from UPS, FedEx, Amazon,
all these other companies also on demand delivery rde hailing.
(08:02):
Cities are seeing big influx and autonomous vehicles, and none
of that is really managed today. The way that cities
do manage that is by enforcement. So for example, UPS
a few years back, spent a little bit north. It's
thirty four million dollars in parking tickets in New York City.
That is government fine, not tax deductible. It's just the
(08:22):
cost of doing business because they can't access the curb reliably.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
What we do is deploy a product called caur pass.
It's like easy paths for the.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Curb with cameras mounted on street lights, where we automate.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Payment for curb access.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
To help cities reduce double parking by ensuring that the
curbs are available. The way that we do that is
by charging a market rate and then also enforcing safety hazards,
so if you stop in a traffic lane or a
bike lane, setting tickets in the mail.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
But generally all of these.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Activities are very preventable through just assigning better rates and
better policies. Those cities have massive abundance of off street parking,
but because on street parking is oftentimes cheaper or in
some cases free, a lot of people that.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Don't need to park on the street.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Will do so, and then you've got these bigger commercial
vehicles that have to stop in the middle of the
traffic land.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So we help cities apply.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Rates and policies change behavior, and then we help fleets
drivers automate curb payments via our product curve Pass.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
All right, I know that your pilot project kind of
started right on home base at LMU. I'd love to
hear about how that went. And then you went overseas,
which is very interesting during the COVID time, So tell
us about how that all came out and what you
were testing and what you expected to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, it built a fairly complex product with a wide
ray of computer vision technology, not dissimilar from a lot
of autonomous vehicle technology, using sensors to understand what's happening
in the built environment or the real world. So we
started at LMU just putting up a few cameras to
understand parking and traffic data and start to automate some
(10:02):
simple operations. That was enough to get us into a
venture capital accelerator program with a firm called tech Stars.
They had a smart mobility program in to Reno, Italy,
which got us our first city project. Trying to sell
into cities is not always super straightforward, and we were
first starting out, the first question everybody would ask.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Us was what other cities are you working with?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
So by being able to launch through this accelerator program
in to Reno in March of twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It was interesting times. We went out there for this.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Accelerator at COVID hit Northern Italy pretty early on and
city more or less close up shop, but they allowed
me to go into their city buildings and still put
up some hardware and all of that while.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Everybody else was working from home, and.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
We were able to get our first city project up
really analyzing parking traffic data.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
That unlocked a lot of opportunity for us.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
We then worked on a small project in Paris and
then came back to the US where we had enough
credibility the municipal market now to really start to expand.
We then launched zero Mission Z owned projects with Los
Angeles and Santa Monica and smartpaer projects with Pittsburgh, and
that unlocked the North American market force where we're really
able to show the impact not just in understanding what's happening,
(11:16):
but then by helping these cities implement policies, implement rates,
show how in Pittsburgh we were able to reduce double
parking downtown and partnership in the city by ninety seven percent.
In other cities, We've been able to increase turnover and
economic activity, sales tax by as much as thirty percent,
also reducing traffic during rush hour, and a wide array
(11:37):
of other benefits.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Really by just helping these cities implement.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Policies that they've wanted to for a long time but
not necessarily had the means to do.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
You know, I know they say timing is everything, and
it must have been a little weird that we're starting COVID.
All hell's breaking loose and you've got this great idea
of starting a company and you still moved forward. And
you know, I don't know if that was fortuitous or not,
but do you still kept on driving forward and moving along.
But it must have been a strange time.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I mean, timing, to your point, is everything. There's been
a number of studies around the different variables that have
a high correlation to success and early stage startups, and
you can look at the team, the idea, execution, but
timing has the highest correlation by far. For us at
the time, it worked out very well in an industry
where there's a lot of sales and marketing spend, where
(12:29):
people are going to conferences and spending hundreds of thousands
of dollars to look like they're the most credible company
in the space. But now all of a sudden, all
you can do is zoom calls, and my zoom call
looks the same as your zoom call. So it really
leveled the playing field in a lot of ways and
go to market and selling, which was very helpful, But
it also accelerated a lot of the pain points that
(12:50):
cities were seeing in that people that were going to
the grocery store to get their groceries started using Instacart,
and people that were going out to dinner started using
door dash or and a lot of things that we're
already happening to some degree accelerated.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
That created more.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Friction at the curb in cities, and generally more pain
points that cities hadn't been able to address previously that
we're now becoming larger and larger.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I know you know this, but I'm a layman, but
I'm very curious because AI is in all of our
lives right now. How integrated is it and with your
product now or what do you hope it to be
in the years coming.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, AI is certainly a broad term, and it captures
a lot. But at our core, we're a computer vision company,
which is you know AI by you know a lot
of folks natural definition. We put up cameras and we
have intelligence that automatically analyzes what's happening, detecting different vehicle types,
reading logos, reading license plates, analyzing all of that to
(13:47):
then automatically output events that correlate to policies and prices,
and so at its core, we are an AI company,
and it's something that going back to your timing question,
is very relevant too, because a lot of these things,
I've gotten a lot easier to build quickly and scale
quickly as a result of Nvidia really making quite a
(14:08):
bit of cash off of their business and reinvesting in
all of their customers like us, which has been very helpful.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I wanted to ask about that because I think you
and I watched enough documentaries or seen movies on disruptors
out there. Whether it's people driving cars and picking you up,
or it's a social media platform, there's always some kind
of pushback. It's a great idea, but you're always stepping
on somebody's toes for something, and usually it has to
do with power or money, with all that said, is
(14:35):
you present your product to a local city government agency
or an airport, what is initially the feedback or the
reaction that you're getting from your incredible technology.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
The nice thing about what we do is it's really
a win win win, especially in the city market and
the airport market. Really just a win win because it's
primarily two stakeholders there.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
But for the city is it's.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
A win from the perspective of the constituents now are
able to have less traffic, safer streets, and it's just
easier to get around in the public right of way.
For the city, less liability from safety hazards, and they
have a lot more visibility into what's going on in
the public right of way generally, and they're able to
(15:19):
achieve a lot of their core objectives around Vision zero,
reducing safety hazards through decarbonization, reducing emissions from traffic from
idling circling the block. And it's also a win for
the fleets and the drivers where they're able to now
reliably access the curb, reduce the amount of time they
spend circling the block, reducing amount of tickets they get,
and generally just operate more efficiently and as a result,
(15:44):
we haven't seen that kind of pushback. I mean there's
always education around something new, and working with cities is
complex and that it requires engagement with a variety of stakeholders.
But because this is really green space greenfield to white space,
there's not something that we're coming in and saying, oh,
you have to remove that to put this in. This
(16:06):
is a net news solution for everybody at the table.
We've had a lot of success. And in the airport
space similarly, there's a lot of traffic at airports. Everybody
knows this and there's usually a few ways where by
implementing policies and rates and things like that, you can
change behavior introduce traffic. And so we've seen a lot
of success and just creating win win solutions, and I
(16:28):
think that's really the key is sitting down with stakeholders
and identifying what's the right recipe to solve everybody's problems here.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
And to that point, you.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Know, our technology is really, as I've mentioned, really just
the means to implement policies and prices. Like what those
policies and prices are. It boils down to what the
city is the business improvement districts the stakeholders want and
can agree on.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
That solves everybody's problems.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
All right, well, let's do this. I'd love to hear
about how the company is growing. Obviously sustainability is paramount,
but also growth is important too in a lot of companies.
You can talk about that. But right now, as you
cast your net, how many different markets are you working
with and are you just domestic or are you already
working internationally as well or is that the plan?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, we work primarily in North America, the US and Canada.
Today we work with about thirty different cities and a
handful of airports.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Today.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
We've grown about five times over the last year, really
through expansion within a lot of cities as well as
expanding to a great number of new markets. We work
primarily in larger cities today in the US, so cities
like Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Houston, and array of others.
(17:42):
Or we're helping to automate current management and downtown cores
and beyond to reduce as mentioned, just like the safety
hazards and the traffic that all these cities are seeing.
And we're really now breaking into the airport market to
help solve a lot of similar problems, but really focused
on airport terminals and what's going on there around congestion
(18:02):
and just alleviating some of the rush hour challenges they see.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
But still a lot of opportunity for growth. There's a
wide array of.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Challenges that small towns and other jurisdictions are facing around
really just operational capacity where cities are in a lot
of more rural or less urban areas having police officers
write parking tickets where they're walking around chalking tires and
it doesn't necessarily make sense to have somebody who you're
(18:31):
paying one hundred thousand dollars a year with benefits, that's carrying.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
A firearm to go out and issue parking tickets.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
So we're seeing a wide array of growth in different areas,
but generally in those three primary customer segments of larger
cities airports are now smaller towns as well.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I know technology is moving very quickly, Jordan, It's fluid,
and I'm sure you're keeping an eyeing everything as you
work on your patent technology with your co founder and
your team. With that said, where do you think things
are going to go with the industry, but specifically with
you do over the next five or ten years, because
cars aren't going away. I know, we're getting more into
the automated car and driverless cars and things are going
(19:09):
on there. But there's always going to be drivers, there's
always going to be deliveries. And you know, to your point,
your technology, it's just getting busier out there in all
these major markets. Where is the industry growing and how
do you see fitting into it.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
The interesting thing about our industry is it's really at
this point constrained by policy. Most every jurisdiction has an
ordinance or maybe a state code that says this is
how cities can manage the public right of way, this
is how they can charge for parking, this is how
they can do X, Y or Z, and a lot
(19:42):
of times it's pretty restrictive. Most cities update their parking
ordinances every five to ten years at maximum. Some haven't
been touched in sixty or seventy years, which is crazy.
But the reason why city's structure for parking is to
manage demand well and any it was tuls Oklahoma was
theversity to come out with parking meters almost a century ago.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Now people were you.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Know, there was an uproar people were up in arms,
like why are you charging for this?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
They should be free?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
But obviously, like the reason why we all know charging
for parking makes sense is there's more demand for the
curve than there is supply, and so you have to
assign a rate to curtailed demand.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And then by doing that, you dose traffic, you do
safety hazards, all of these things.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
And today commercial activity, which makes it more than half
of parking and cities, is largely unpriced, unmanaged, and is
creating quite a bit of chaos. And it's not by
you know, any malicious you know acts from the commercial sector.
It's just, you know, there hasn't been any policies or
technologies that have kept up with demand. Commercial activity is
(20:48):
expected to continue to ramp. Autonomous vehicles will be pretty
abundant across most cities over the next decade, and policy
going to have to catch up.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
That's the most important piece. Both from a state and
local perspective.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
We've seen a lot of good examples of cities taking
the lead on that, passing local ordinances that allow them
to manage these types of things, as well as state legislation.
That's a key element from us from a technological perspective.
We've seen a lot of cities that have implemented these
types of policies then use technology as it means to
(21:26):
manage the policies and rates, and that's been very effective.
And so for us, we'll continue to play an integral
role in helping cities advance these efforts. But technology alone
is not a silver bullet. It requires the legislative and
policy framework to really manage all of this stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Understood, well, you talked about some of the challenges. I
love to hear a good story, and I'm sure you
have handfuls of stories about agencies, as cities or an
airport that you work with. Is there something you can
share with us, and you don't have to get specific
if you don't want to, but is there something that
really turned out really cool for either a downtown or
an airport or one of your clients said with you
and your co founder team, this is why we get
(22:02):
up every day because something cool happened and we changed
lives here. Can you share one with us?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I mean there's been a lot of success, really led
by all of our city partners that have taken the
bold action of implementing the policies that make it happen.
But Philadelphia is a great case study where they implemented
smart curbs across their downtown and Center City, really their
densest part of the city that has some of the
worst traffic, and by just automating curb management, automating deplying
(22:30):
smart curbs, smart loading zones, to deployed curve pass charge
vehicles by the minute, they've been able to reduce double
parking by about forty percent downtown. One of their primary
goals though, was reducing traffic during rush hour, and they've
seen traffic speeds increase by eighteen to fifty percent during
rush hour downtown, which if you live in Center City
(22:50):
Philadelphia or you drive through there, that's a big difference.
As well as they've also seen a big increase in turnover,
which for the layman basically means more vehicles in and
out of the same space, which is key to what
we do.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
It's key to current management.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
It's one of the primary indicators that your policies are working.
Where you have limited space, now you're able to get
fifty percent more vehicles.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
In and out.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
That means that that real estate is working for you
and for your constituents a lot better.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
So that's been a great success story.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
And yeah, really big supporter of all the great work
that City of Philadelphia is doing because they're on the
cutting edge.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I realize it. I'm sure you can agree. There are
no guarantees on how anything works, but it's really got
to put a smile on your face with you, your
co founder, your team that it's working that well in Philly.
I mean, that sounds very impressive. Did it even surprise
you those numbers in that data?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
No, I mean the first time it did.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
You know, We've had a few other really good outcomes,
like in Pittsburgh they were able to reduce double parking
ninety seven percent by wow, automating payment and enforcement for
commercial activity and bike lay in violations and things like that.
They've also been able to reduce traffic and increase turnover
and all of these other things. And so we've seen
(24:06):
what happens when cities implement policies. Technology is not a
silver bullet, as I mentioned, it's really just a me
and so help cities implement good policies to manage this
kind of stuff, and so we know what will happen.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It's just a matter of doing it right. There's varying degrees.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
It's always a balance too, because you think you're charging
for something that maybe is free, or you're automating enforcement.
Enforcement can be kind of a dirty word, and so there,
you know, is always a political balance of what do
constituents want, what do the politicians want, and what is
good policy and figuring out, you know, where everybody meets
in the middle is usually what ends up happening. But
(24:44):
regardless of what you do, you'll get better outcomes because
today most cities are doing almost nothing.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, that's a good point. I'm talking to you today
from Washington, DC and the DMV. I think I'm going
to put a good word in for all the local
city centers and what you do, because my goodness week
to use it out here. I'm sure you know.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
About that though I'm familiar.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, I bet you are. Well. Listen, I before I
let you go, I want to talk about leadership. And
one of the cool things about the series is the
you know, several years ago you were at LMU with
your co founder and going to school, probably not knowing
what exactly what you want to do, and then you
came up with this incredible idea and then you executed it.
We have a lot of kids and future entrepreneurs who
listen to the series and want to know how did
(25:27):
they do it, why did they do it, how did
they move forward? What's a cost? What am I going
to have to give up? I realized that your journey
is very specific to yours, Jordan. But when it comes
to starting a company and then executing that company with
leadership and culture and team and all the things that
you and you partner and your co founder had to do,
can you talk a little bit about that for everybody?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
And I think to your point, Dennis, everybody's journey is
a little bit different. We were very fortunate and we
started it when we were twenty two years old. We
didn't have families, we didn't have a mortgage. That's always
a big help, but we did have our share of obstacles.
It's never a straight line. But when you're a twenty
two year old kid with a gov tech business trying
to manufacture hardware, you don't necessarily have a laundry list
(26:12):
of investors that are reaching out to you to help
fund your business.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
You don't have the credibility. You're entering a hard market.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
We had our fair share of obstacles getting off the ground,
but the key element was to our success and we
still have a long way to go, but what's really
helped us be successful to date is being very persistent
one which is just incredibly important, but persistent with an
open mind and that always trying to listen to our
customers first understand what their problems are, what we can
(26:39):
do to solve them, and being open minded just broadly
around what kind of feedback we're getting from not just
our customers, but also, you know, as it's relevant, from
the investors community. Although like when you're building a business,
your customer is really the only thing that matters, but
when you need capital, you also need capital. And then
(26:59):
ensuring that as we are scaling and building these solutions
for these cities, empowering our team to have ownership over
not just their role, but really the company's success, and
that's been key to building a fantastic team that's helped
us get to the point where we are today, because
innovation is a team sport and the only way that
(27:19):
you're really going to win is having a great team.
So there's a bit of I covered a bit of
ground there, but we've been fortunate to have a lot
of support over the years, and we wouldn't be where
we are today without it.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
No, it's great, and it could be its own conversation
because when it comes to leadership and team and culture
and starting companies, it is very specific, but it's you know,
I think the message that I've gotten from a lot
of leaders like you is that you have to be
really passionate about your project and own it one hundred percent.
It's like a sports athlete at the pro level, or
maybe a celebrity that's a movie actor or a singer,
(27:54):
that if you don't put all of it into it,
you're probably not going to win, and you're going to
have a lot of people say no to you. And
if you can't take rejection, it ain't for the faint.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Of heart, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah, well, listen, let's do this. Let's give the website,
and if you've got an app, let's talk about that,
any social media platforms, and if you're hiring people, listen
to this wonderful series about that too. Jordan's so just
some final thoughts, and let's give all the information that
people were already probably starting to look up, but let's
give it to him anyway.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, thanks Dennis.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Check us out at automotives dot ai. We are hiring,
so if you're looking for a job and go to
market or engineering, please reach out and otherwise make sure
you register for Curve Pass and hopefully you'll see us
soon in a city near you.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Well, Jordan Listen, I talked to a lot of cool
people in this series. But when you're changing almost everybody's
life because almost everybody drives, I think it's cool. And
I know you guys think that that it was a
cool idea. You've implemented and executed. You're growing, and you're sustainable,
and it's just wonderful what you, your co founder and your
team are doing. So I wish you nothing but the best.
I think it's just a wonderful idea what you have,
(29:00):
and I think great things are going to happen to
you guys. So I'm really excited for you and the team,
and I'm really glad that we could feature you on
CEOs you should Know. Thank you so much and continue success.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Thanks for having me Dennis. Good chat today.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Our community partner M and T Bank supports CEOs you
should Know is part of their ongoing commitment to building
strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses within them.
As a bank for communities, M and T believes in
dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local businesses thrive
because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed
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