Aparkalo (A), (B) & (C) - Teaching Note

Aparkalo was born as the brainchild of Luis París and Ivan Rodriguez, who developed the initial business plan for the venture as part of an IESE EMBA course on entrepreneurship. Their simple yet appealing idea was to introduce the concepts of reservations and dynamic pricing as a business model innovation to parking lots, so that clients could reserve spots in advance, and parking lot managers could charge more during peak times (e.g., concerts or football games). After winning a startup weekend competition, Luis quit his day job to pursue the project full-time, whereas Ivan continued to work in order to save money to invest in the venture. The (A)-case ("Dynamising A Sleepy Industry") presents a short introduction to the project, as well as the first business plan. The (B)-case ("Revised Business Plan September 2011") presents the revised business plan that was used for fundraising. Case (C) ("Normal Crisis or Sudden Death?") describes a situation that brought the new venture to the brink of collapse.