September 18, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode, we talk with with Jordan Justus, CEO and Co-founder of Automotus. Automotus is a first-of-its-kind automated curb management solution that helps cities reduce emissions.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M and T Bank Prison CEOs. You should know Howard
by iHeartMedia. 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
(00:22):
at the curb by automating tasks like payment for parking
and loading, enforcing curb regulations, and optimizing loading zones. Before
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 2 (00:35):
I grew up in southern California, Ventura County, ended up
going to Loyle at Marymount University in Los Angeles for college,
and I've 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 of things
that we've learned about you before this interview is that
we do find a lot of lifers that's day in
one area and create their company and excel and grow
and go through all the groin pains of starting a company.
And the other thing that you have in common with
a lot of our guests, Jordan, is that sometimes great
(01:10):
ideas are 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 2 (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. He studied computer science, I studied entrepreneurship, and
we were 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
(01:44):
various internships. And at the time we had come across
this study done by a really famous urban planning.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Professor out of UCLA who unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Passed away this past year, Donald Shup, that found roughly
thirty percent of traffic in all cities across the globe
is drivers searching for parking.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Cars that are already at their destination.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
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
put cameras up automate this, share parking data, and generally
help produce traffic.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I ended up cold calling probably.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
About ten thousand people in cities across the country over
the next six months, and we found the further we
dug into this problem, the more there was to it.
In the last ten to fifteen years, cities have seen
a pretty dramatic shift in how.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
The public right of way is being used, how our
streets are being used. There's been a lot more commercial activity.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Amazon ups doorda uber lift that really changed how the
curb is used, a lot more vehicles trying to get
in and.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Get out to drop off packages, pick up.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
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 a lot of folks, we realize there's a
lot of white space and a lot of problems that
(03:13):
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 2 (03:57):
It only takes a couple hundred bucks to start a company.
You really just have to in a few forms to
the state, and so you know, anything could be a
company to some extent, did we know we would be
able to solve problems.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
At scale for cities like we're doing today. We had
a hunch.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
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 we are today. 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
(04:32):
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 were with the squeeze
and how hard it is to get there.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
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 for us?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It's always, i think helpful to start 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 3 (05:33):
That's one example.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
But also if you look at generally just what's happening
in cities nowadays.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
There's a ton of safety.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
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 of really preventable safety hazards. And so for us,
(06:01):
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. So there's a wide array of different values
(06:24):
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. All right, are you ready? All right? How'd
you come up with a company name?
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Nothing groundbreaking here.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
We use an auto name 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.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
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 autogeneration. But you know, whatever works, you know,
I just 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 to
(07:17):
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
in our podcast right now, about what the company does
in that thirty thousand foot view, what would you tell
me that you exactly do.
Speaker 2 (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. I'll start with the city landscape in cities.
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
(07:51):
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 right hailing.
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
(08:13):
a few years back spent a little bit north of
thirty four million dollars in parking tickets in New York City.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
That is government fine, not tax deductible.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
It's just the cost of doing business because they can't
access the curb reliably.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
What we do is deploy a product called caur Pass.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
It's like easy Pass for the curb with cameras mounted
on street lights, where we automate payment for curb access
to help cities reduce double parking by ensuring that.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
The curbs are available.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
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. But generally all of these
activities are very preventable through just assigning better rates and
better policies. Those cities have massive abundance of off street parking,
(09:03):
but because on street parking is oftentimes cheaper or in
some cases free, a lot of people that don't need
to park on the street will do so. And then
you've got these bigger commercial vehicles that have to stop
in the middle of the traffic land. So we help
cities apply 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 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
So we started at LMU just.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Putting up a few cameras to understand parking and traffic
data and start to automate some 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 Toronto, Italy, which got us our first
city project. Trying to sell into cities is not always
(10:18):
super straightforward, and we were first starting out, the first
question everybody would ask.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Us was what other cities are you working with?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So by being able to launch through this accelerator program
in to Reno in March of twenty twenty, it was
interesting times. We went out there for this 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 everybody else was working
(10:46):
from home, and we were able to get our first
city project up really analyzing parking traffic data.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
That unlocked a lot of opportunity for us.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
We then worked on a small project in Paris and
then came back to the US where we had enough
credibility in the municipal market now to really start to
expand we then launched zero missions owned projects with Los
Angeles and Santa Monica and smart cab projects with Pittsburgh,
and that unlocked the North American market force where we're
really able to show the impact not just in understanding
(11:16):
what's happening, but then by helping these cities implement policies,
implement rates, show how in Pittsburgh we were able to
reduce double parking downtown and partnership of the city by
ninety seven percent.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
In other cities, we've been able to increase.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Turnover and economic activity, sales tax by as much as
thirty percent, also reducing traffic during rush hour, and a
wide array of other benefits really by just helping these
cities implement policies that they've wanted to for a long
time but not necessarily had the means to do.
Speaker 3 (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 fortuitive or not,
but do you still kept on driving forward and moving along.
But it must have been a strange time.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Of early stage startups.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
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 people are going to conferences and spending hundreds of
thousands of dollars to look like they're the most credible
(12:35):
company in the space. But now all of a sudden,
all you can do is zoom calls, and my zoom
call looks the same.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
As your zoom call.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
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 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 more, and a lot of
things that we're already happening to some degree accelerated. That
(13:06):
created more 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 2 (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 a lot of.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Folks natural definition.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
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 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,
(14:00):
because a lot of these things, I've gotten a lot
easier to build quickly and.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Scale quickly as a result of Nvidia.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Really making quite a bit of cash off of their
business and reinvesting in all of their customers like us,
which has been very helpful.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I wanted to ask about that because I think you
and I watch 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,
(14:35):
as 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, the nice thing about what we do is it's
really a win win win, especially in the city market.
The airport market really just a win win because it's
primarily two stakeholders there.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
But for the city is it's.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
A win for 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,
certainly in the block. And it's also a win for
the fleets and the drivers where they're able to now
reliably access the curve, 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 produce 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 3 (16:36):
And to that point, you.
Speaker 2 (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 3 (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 2 (17:12):
Yeah, we work primarily in North America, the US and Canada.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Today.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
We work with about thirty different cities and a handful
of airports.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Today. We've grown about five times over the.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Last year, really through expansion within a lot of cities
as well as expanding to a great number of new markets.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
We work primarily in larger.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Cities today in the US, so cities like Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Houston, and.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Array of others.
Speaker 2 (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 traffic that all these cities are seeing. And
we're really now breaking into the airport market to helped
solve a lot of similar problems, but really focused on
airport terminals and what's going on there around congestion and
(18:02):
just alleviating some of the rush hour challenges they see,
but still a lot of opportunity for growth. There's a
wide array of 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
(18:23):
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 paying one hundred thousand dollars a year
with benefits that's carrying a firearm.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
To go out and issue parking tickets.
Speaker 2 (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 eye 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 driver less cars and things are
(19:09):
going 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 2 (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 structure for parking is to
manage demand. Well, and I think it was Tulsa, Oklahoma
was theversity to come out with parking meters almost a
(20:03):
century ago. Now people were you know, there was an uproar,
people were.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Up in arms, like why are you charging for this?
They should be free?
Speaker 2 (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, and then by.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Doing that you reduce traffic, you do safety hazards, all
of these things.
Speaker 2 (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 and cross most cities over the next decade, and
policy is going to have to catch up.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
That's the most important piece. Both from a state and
local perspective.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
That's a key.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
But technology alone is not a silver bullet.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
It requires the legislative and policy framework to really manage
all of this stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
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 and said with
you and your co founder team, this is why we
(22:02):
get up every day because something cool happened and we
changed lives here. Can you share one with us?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (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 deploying
(22:30):
smart curbs, smart loading zones to deploy 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 3 (23:04):
It's key to current management.
Speaker 2 (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 in and out. That means that
that real estate is working for you and for your constituents.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
A lot better. So that's been a great success story.
Speaker 2 (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. That did it even
surprise you those numbers in that data.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
No, I mean the first time it did.
Speaker 2 (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 an enforcement
for commercial activity and bike lay in violations and.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Things like that.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
They've also been able to.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Reduce traffic and increase turnover and all of these other things.
And so we've seen 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. It's just a matter of doing
it right, there's varying degrees. It's always a balance too,
(24:24):
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 regardless of what you do,
(24:45):
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
use it out here. I'm sure you know about that,
though I'm familiar. 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
(25:11):
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 they do it, why did they do it,
how did they move forward? What's a cost? What am
(25:32):
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 3 (25:47):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And I think to your point, Dennis, everybody's journey is
a little bit different. We were very fortunate 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 to
help fund your business. You don't have the credibility. You're
entering a hard market. 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,
(26:32):
but persistent with an open mind and that always trying
to listen to our customers first understand what their problems are,
what we can do to solve them, and being open
minded just broadly around what kind of feedback we're getting
from not just their customers, but also as it's relevant,
from the investors community. Although when you're building business, your
(26:53):
customer is really the only thing that matters, but when
you need capital, you also need capital. And then 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
(27:14):
get to the point where we are today, because innovation
is a team sport and the only way that you're
really going to.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Win is having a great team.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
So there's a bit 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 a 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 3 (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, Jordans. 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 3 (28:21):
Yeah, thanks Sennis. Check us out at automotives dot Ai.
We are hiring, so if you're looking for a job
and go to market or engineering.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
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
(28:59):
you have, 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 3 (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. You should know Howard
by iHeartMedia. 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
(00:22):
at the curb by automating tasks like payment for parking
and loading, enforcing curb regulations, and optimizing loading zones. Before
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 2 (00:35):
I grew up in southern California, Ventura County, ended up
going to Loyle at Marymount University in Los Angeles for college,
and I've 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 of things
that we've learned about you before this interview is that
we do find a lot of lifers that's day in
one area and create their company and excel and grow
and go through all the groin pains of starting a company.
And the other thing that you have in common with
a lot of our guests, Jordan, is that sometimes great
(01:10):
ideas are 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 2 (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. He studied computer science, I studied entrepreneurship, and
we were 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
(01:44):
various internships. And at the time we had come across
this study done by a really famous urban planning.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Professor out of UCLA who unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Passed away this past year, Donald Shup, that found roughly
thirty percent of traffic in all cities across the globe
is drivers searching for parking.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Cars that are already at their destination.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
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
put cameras up automate this, share parking data, and generally
help produce traffic.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I ended up cold calling probably.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
About ten thousand people in cities across the country over
the next six months, and we found the further we
dug into this problem, the more there was to it.
In the last ten to fifteen years, cities have seen
a pretty dramatic shift in how.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
The public right of way is being used, how our
streets are being used. There's been a lot more commercial activity.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Amazon ups doorda uber lift that really changed how the
curb is used, a lot more vehicles trying to get
in and.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Get out to drop off packages, pick up.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
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 a lot of folks, we realize there's a
lot of white space and a lot of problems that
(03:13):
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 2 (03:57):
It only takes a couple hundred bucks to start a company.
You really just have to in a few forms to
the state, and so you know, anything could be a
company to some extent, did we know we would be
able to solve problems.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
At scale for cities like we're doing today. We had
a hunch.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
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 we are today. 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
(04:32):
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 were with the squeeze
and how hard it is to get there.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
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 for us?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It's always, i think helpful to start 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 3 (05:33):
That's one example.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
But also if you look at generally just what's happening
in cities nowadays.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
There's a ton of safety.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
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 of really preventable safety hazards. And so for us,
(06:01):
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. So there's a wide array of different values
(06:24):
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. All right, are you ready? All right? How'd
you come up with a company name?
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Nothing groundbreaking here.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
We use an auto name 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.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
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 autogeneration. But you know, whatever works, you know,
I just 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 to
(07:17):
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
in our podcast right now, about what the company does
in that thirty thousand foot view, what would you tell
me that you exactly do.
Speaker 2 (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. I'll start with the city landscape in cities.
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
(07:51):
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 right hailing.
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
(08:13):
a few years back spent a little bit north of
thirty four million dollars in parking tickets in New York City.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
That is government fine, not tax deductible.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
It's just the cost of doing business because they can't
access the curb reliably.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
What we do is deploy a product called caur Pass.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
It's like easy Pass for the curb with cameras mounted
on street lights, where we automate payment for curb access
to help cities reduce double parking by ensuring that.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
The curbs are available.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
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. But generally all of these
activities are very preventable through just assigning better rates and
better policies. Those cities have massive abundance of off street parking,
(09:03):
but because on street parking is oftentimes cheaper or in
some cases free, a lot of people that don't need
to park on the street will do so. And then
you've got these bigger commercial vehicles that have to stop
in the middle of the traffic land. So we help
cities apply 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 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
So we started at LMU just.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Putting up a few cameras to understand parking and traffic
data and start to automate some 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 Toronto, Italy, which got us our first
city project. Trying to sell into cities is not always
(10:18):
super straightforward, and we were first starting out, the first
question everybody would ask.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Us was what other cities are you working with?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So by being able to launch through this accelerator program
in to Reno in March of twenty twenty, it was
interesting times. We went out there for this 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 everybody else was working
(10:46):
from home, and we were able to get our first
city project up really analyzing parking traffic data.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
That unlocked a lot of opportunity for us.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
We then worked on a small project in Paris and
then came back to the US where we had enough
credibility in the municipal market now to really start to
expand we then launched zero missions owned projects with Los
Angeles and Santa Monica and smart cab projects with Pittsburgh,
and that unlocked the North American market force where we're
really able to show the impact not just in understanding
(11:16):
what's happening, but then by helping these cities implement policies,
implement rates, show how in Pittsburgh we were able to
reduce double parking downtown and partnership of the city by
ninety seven percent.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
In other cities, we've been able to increase.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Turnover and economic activity, sales tax by as much as
thirty percent, also reducing traffic during rush hour, and a
wide array of other benefits really by just helping these
cities implement policies that they've wanted to for a long
time but not necessarily had the means to do.
Speaker 3 (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 fortuitive or not,
but do you still kept on driving forward and moving along.
But it must have been a strange time.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Of early stage startups.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
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 people are going to conferences and spending hundreds of
thousands of dollars to look like they're the most credible
(12:35):
company in the space. But now all of a sudden,
all you can do is zoom calls, and my zoom
call looks the same.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
As your zoom call.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
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 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 more, and a lot of
things that we're already happening to some degree accelerated. That
(13:06):
created more 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 2 (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 a lot of.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Folks natural definition.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
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 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,
(14:00):
because a lot of these things, I've gotten a lot
easier to build quickly and.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Scale quickly as a result of Nvidia.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Really making quite a bit of cash off of their
business and reinvesting in all of their customers like us,
which has been very helpful.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I wanted to ask about that because I think you
and I watch 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,
(14:35):
as 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, the nice thing about what we do is it's
really a win win win, especially in the city market.
The airport market really just a win win because it's
primarily two stakeholders there.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
But for the city is it's.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
A win for 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,
certainly in the block. And it's also a win for
the fleets and the drivers where they're able to now
reliably access the curve, 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 produce 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 3 (16:36):
And to that point, you.
Speaker 2 (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 3 (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 2 (17:12):
Yeah, we work primarily in North America, the US and Canada.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Today.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
We work with about thirty different cities and a handful
of airports.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Today. We've grown about five times over the.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Last year, really through expansion within a lot of cities
as well as expanding to a great number of new markets.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
We work primarily in larger.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Cities today in the US, so cities like Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Houston, and.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Array of others.
Speaker 2 (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 traffic that all these cities are seeing. And
we're really now breaking into the airport market to helped
solve a lot of similar problems, but really focused on
airport terminals and what's going on there around congestion and
(18:02):
just alleviating some of the rush hour challenges they see,
but still a lot of opportunity for growth. There's a
wide array of 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
(18:23):
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 paying one hundred thousand dollars a year
with benefits that's carrying a firearm.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
To go out and issue parking tickets.
Speaker 2 (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 eye 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 driver less cars and things are
(19:09):
going 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 2 (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 structure for parking is to
manage demand. Well, and I think it was Tulsa, Oklahoma
was theversity to come out with parking meters almost a
(20:03):
century ago. Now people were you know, there was an uproar,
people were.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Up in arms, like why are you charging for this?
They should be free?
Speaker 2 (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, and then by.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Doing that you reduce traffic, you do safety hazards, all
of these things.
Speaker 2 (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 and cross most cities over the next decade, and
policy is going to have to catch up.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
That's the most important piece. Both from a state and
local perspective.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
That's a key.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
But technology alone is not a silver bullet.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
It requires the legislative and policy framework to really manage
all of this stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
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 and said with
you and your co founder team, this is why we
(22:02):
get up every day because something cool happened and we
changed lives here. Can you share one with us?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (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 deploying
(22:30):
smart curbs, smart loading zones to deploy 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 3 (23:04):
It's key to current management.
Speaker 2 (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 in and out. That means that
that real estate is working for you and for your constituents.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
A lot better. So that's been a great success story.
Speaker 2 (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. That did it even
surprise you those numbers in that data.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
No, I mean the first time it did.
Speaker 2 (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 an enforcement
for commercial activity and bike lay in violations and.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Things like that.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
They've also been able to.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Reduce traffic and increase turnover and all of these other things.
And so we've seen 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. It's just a matter of doing
it right, there's varying degrees. It's always a balance too,
(24:24):
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 regardless of what you do,
(24:45):
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
use it out here. I'm sure you know about that,
though I'm familiar. 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
(25:11):
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 they do it, why did they do it,
how did they move forward? What's a cost? What am
(25:32):
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 3 (25:47):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And I think to your point, Dennis, everybody's journey is
a little bit different. We were very fortunate 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 to
help fund your business. You don't have the credibility. You're
entering a hard market. 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,
(26:32):
but persistent with an open mind and that always trying
to listen to our customers first understand what their problems are,
what we can do to solve them, and being open
minded just broadly around what kind of feedback we're getting
from not just their customers, but also as it's relevant,
from the investors community. Although when you're building business, your
(26:53):
customer is really the only thing that matters, but when
you need capital, you also need capital. And then 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
(27:14):
get to the point where we are today, because innovation
is a team sport and the only way that you're
really going to.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Win is having a great team.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
So there's a bit 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 a 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 3 (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, Jordans. 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 3 (28:21):
Yeah, thanks Sennis. Check us out at automotives dot Ai.
We are hiring, so if you're looking for a job
and go to market or engineering.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
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
(28:59):
you have, 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 3 (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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