One Quarter at a Time

Earlier this week,?Passport announced?my transition to Board Observer and Strategic Advisor and the appointment of its new Chief Revenue Officer, Doug Rogers.?

What follows is an open letter of gratitude for the most incredible "tour of duty" I could have imagined. Although, of course, it was a tour of duty that was seldom "easy," but quite the opposite in fact, almost laughably tricky at every turn. I'm grateful for the tuition paid that will reap dividends for the rest of my career and that of folks with whom I'll partner in the future.

A decade ago, I left my investment banking career and packed up my NYC apartment to join Bob Youakim here in Charlotte to build a business and "disrupt the parking industry." For context, I'm a second-generation American charged with supporting my family and those who helped position me for success, like many in my cohort. I remember the day I called my parents and explained to them that I was quitting my lucrative job on the proverbial Wall Street to build a business that would make money by earning roughly a "quarter at a time" for each parking transaction. I'm grateful to Bob, who subsequently became a mentor in addition to a business partner. Likewise, I'm thankful to my parents, who supported me though they couldn't wrap their heads around the "What" or the "Why."

Eight years ago, we were starting to look like a legitimate business. We had product/market fit, deployed software with significant competitive advantages, and began serving communities across the country across several product lines in the parking ecosystem. We weren't working out of a house anymore, and when Don Rainey (Grotech/DC) visited our freshly painted new office space when South End Charlotte wasn't a thing, he told us he "was investing in the Jockeys, not the Horse." I'm grateful to those first twenty-five team members who believed in us when we worked 18 hours a day in a ranch on the east side of Charlotte. Those folks knew in their hearts that we would "make it" one day even though we pivoted more in a week than that scene from "Friends". Likewise, I'm thankful to the VCs that invest in Humans and pour every ounce of effort into making them stronger Operators.

Five years ago, there was no question that we were a leader in the parking industry. We launched our apps in the City of Chicago to improve the parking experience and secured a contract with the City of Toronto to do the same. We hired forty more team members that were better than ourselves to pour fuel on the fire and help accelerate growth. I learned at that time that "iron sharpens iron." We moved offices for the second time and piqued the interest of Bret Maxwell (MK Capital/Chicago), who couldn't help but tout the improvements in his own parking experiences in his hometown. He drilled us on "Scale" and made it clear that we were onto something more significant than even we realized.

Four years ago, we met Bain Capital Ventures, Matt Harris (BCV/NYC), and some of the greatest minds in FinTech. Some of those people joined our team. We expanded the aperture of our approach and pushed the industry to look at parking in the context of transportation, mobility, and the broader municipal experience. The industry talks about things this way to this day. We learned that 'Futureton' operated very differently from 'Townsville' and built an enterprise engagement model to ensure each customer had the right touchpoints with our growing teams. We hired one hundred more people and moved to the penthouse floors of a skyscraper in Uptown Charlotte. I'm grateful for sleepless nights of being?so incredibly uncomfortable?with the legitimate weight of the world on our backs and then getting right back into the office to work side by side with the most intelligent and most motivated people I've ever met.

Two years ago, we realized that we were stepping into the next horizon for our business and that the real value we were bringing to cities was the platform connectivity we were delivering. So we shifted the company from "pirates to navy" and continued hiring operators who had "seen the movie before" as we worked toward Scale. We hired another hundred team members. In addition, we were fortunate to partner with world-class PE/Growth teams who made it clear that they were more focused on the "realization of upside" than the "protection of downside"; they believed in the team, vision, product, and customer testimonials. I'm grateful for the brilliant minds that have sat around the proverbial tables over the last few years who have made me a better person, leader, operator and team member.?

And now, I pass the reigns. I'm sticking around as a Strategic Advisor because someone once told me that 'once you get into the parking industry, you never leave.' Hence, I'm happy to keep that person honest and honored for the opportunity to continue serving this rocket ship even from a side room in the control center. I'm incredibly grateful for the people who've changed my life throughout this journey and for the team in place and prepared to drive this business to the next level—"one quarter at a time."

As for me, I'm already in the trenches on my next Go and building a world-class team to make it happen. More to come.

-KG