The MBJ Launchpad Competition is organised by MBJ Integrated Technologies, a London-based firm specialised in the architecture, design, development and marketing of digital products. It promotes great ideas from all over the world in the form of a video pitch. RSM’s Full-time International MBA participants Shashank Batra, Scott Moran and Karan Bagai are in the race for the GPB£100k equity-free business starter package for their start-up concept BeepBeep Parking.
Solutions for community and environment
BeepBeep Parking helps people find parking spaces in big cities. “The core of our pitch is solving a problem that everyone has: the time and expenses spent on looking for parking in places such as Amsterdam, New York City and London,” says Scott Moran, an American participant of the RSM MBA who came up with the idea, and is leading the branding and overall strategy of BeepBeep Parking. “We’re creating value for the community and the environment in general.”
BeepBeep Parking
The MBA students believe their diverse work experience prior to the RSM MBA contributes to their success. Moran has a background in transportation engineering, Batra worked in IT and mobile application design, and Bagai has experience with finance and investments.
The idea for BeepBeep Parking came to life at the RSM MBA Startup Bootcamp held by the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship earlier this year. By connecting people, mobile application BeepBeep Parking offers the ability to share information and directions to make the process much easier. Every time people in cities look for a parking space, this means increased fuel costs, lost time, annoyance and an impact to the environment and existing infrastructure.
Connecting users
Shashank Batra, an MBA student from India is leading the technology and mobile experience aspects of BeepBeep Parking. He says he realises that there are similar applications in the market catering to parking issues. “What makes us unique is that we are connecting more and more users, and interview them in person to really understand their problem,” he said. “Discussing the potential solutions with them gives us a good idea about if the application will work or not in reality.”
Revolutionary idea
“We discovered the scalability and the convenience it could provide to many drivers living in busy cities,” says Canadian MBA participant Karan Bagai, who will be driving the business plan and working with investors to help get the project running. “We want to tell the world about this revolutionary idea.”
Initiator Scott Moran is also passionate about the idea. “I love the concepts of Uber and Airbnb, so for me living in a busy city in Philadelphia, it seemed like an opportunity to do the same with parking.” Moran is excited about being a part of the MBJ Launchpad Competition: “We are getting the chance to meet and collaborate with other start-ups and companies who are trying to do similar things. It’s a giant learning curve for all three of us.”
Online voting
Out of the 20 selected concepts in the competition, the four ideas with the most votes on 3 September will advance to finals, which will take place at the Google Campus in central London on 22 October 2015.
Voting in the online competition is open to the public.
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) is a top-tier European business school and ranked among the top three for research. RSM provides ground-breaking research and education furthering excellence in all aspects of management and is based in the international port city of Rotterdam – a vital nexus of business, logistics and trade. RSM’s primary focus is on developing business leaders with international careers who carry their innovative mindset into a sustainable future thanks to a first-class range of bachelor, master, MBA, PhD and executive programmes. RSM also has offices in the Amsterdam Zuidas business district and in Taipei, Taiwan. www.rsm.nl
For more information on RSM or on this release, please contact Marianne Schouten, Media & Public Relations Manager for RSM, on +31 10 408 2877 or by email at mschouten@rsm.nl.
