Concordia finance student tackles Montreal parking woes with new platform

Group projects at the John Molson School of Business are designed to help students brainstorm, fine-tune and execute new ideas. And sometimes, the seed of that idea takes root.

Following his coursework last fall in Global Business Environment (COMM 211), third-year Finance student Benjamin Grenier sought to ease one of Montreal drivers’ biggest woes: finding parking. After learning about the financial aspects of starting a business — from marketing to entrepreneurship — Grenier, who shares a condo with a roommate and has access to an unused parking spot, had an “a-ha” moment.

“Here’s this spot we don’t need, and it’s hard to pay our bills, so I thought: Wouldn't it be great if people could earn passive income by renting out their personal spots to the public?” he recalls.

After some online research, Grenier realized he’d found an untapped market in the parking industry. Over the past six months, he has built PullinParkingStationnement, a platform that connects people who have unused parking spaces with those who need one. 

“In just a few months, we’ve incorporated the business, launched the website, acquired a growing number of users and parking-space listings across Montreal, and helped residents earn passive income from unused spaces,” he explains.

Everything from reservations to payment is handled digitally through Stripe, a secure payment platform.

“It’s been an exciting journey, doing everything myself — from marketing and outreach to tech and back-end operations.”

Grenier says lessons from Philippe Colas, full-time marketing lecturer and COMM 211 teacher, became the foundation for his business.

“He taught me how crucial it is to understand local regulations and the value we must put on ethics and sustainability. This helped me make my platform fair and reliable by being transparent with users, ensuring secure payments and promoting responsible use of parking spaces,” he says.

Here’s how it works: Users create a free account on the website. People who want to rent out a parking space must upload proof of ownership. Renters can search for spots by neighbourhood, price, vehicle size or length of time — hourly, daily, weekly or monthly.

Prices are set by the parking space owner and are more affordable than other types of parking spots. Grenier earns a 25 per cent commission from parking spot owners and charges renters a six per cent fee to cover credit card payment fees.

About 60 spots are available on Grenier’s website. He estimates that he spends three to four hours each day working on the business.

“I feel like I'm spending 20 hours a day on it, because I’m always taking photos of random parking spots as I'm walking down the street and thinking of new marketing ideas,” he laughs.

“I'm having fun and learning a lot. My goal is to just create something that helps people; I'm not in it for the financial gains. Concordia gave me the foundation and the push to turn what I learned during a school project into a real-world venture.”

Colas says he is not surprised Grenier was inspired to create a business after working on a business plan and marketing strategy in class.

“The assignment was to focus on the customer and understand the context in which people buy,” he says.

“Ben’s approach was to try to understand people who drive cars. I always hope students will use a course to start thinking of a business to put in place. I thought, ‘This is great’, because his website comes from something people have concerns about. I’m happy he’s doing this, and I think it's an excellent idea. It’s just wonderful.”

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