[THE INVESTOR] As smartphones and subsequent applications are widely used these days, ‘on demand’ service is considered as one of the most promising future businesses. On demand service transformed previous market structure into a more efficient one, enabling suppliers to provide their goods whenever consumers demand them.
Tesla Motors, the biggest electric automotive manufacturer and seller in America, also captured such trend, and applied it into valet service. In fact, Tesla Motors publically initiated on demand valet parking service along with other supplementary services, such as car recharging, car cleaning and valet driving, in New York and San Francisco last month.
However, in order for Tesla Motors to offer such service, Luxe, an on demand valet parking specialized start-up venture, had to cooperate. Although Luxe was established in 2013, it showed dramatic growth and solidified its position as the leading enterprise in the on demand valet economy, attracting over $70 million funds from multiple Venture Capitals and individual investors. The man who brought up Luxe to the current position was Curtis Lee, the co-founder and CEO of Luxe.
Born in Los Angeles, Lee was raised under his Korean parents who came to the United States to attend university in Glendale, California. He gained diploma in studying both economics and business at the University of California, Berkley, and earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the Ivy Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Before his life as an entrepreneur, he built a brilliant career in various industries: a mergers and acquisition analyst for Broadview International, product marketing manager for Google, and director of product management for social gaming venture, Zynga. He even served as the vice president of consumer products for Groupon, which was the first social commerce enterprise in the world.
The motivation that drove Lee into the life of entrepreneurship was the notorious traffic and parking issues of San Francisco, in which Silicon Valley is located. He found out that most people living in metropolitan cities struggle from a lack of parking space, including himself. “It takes 27 minutes in average to find a proper parking space in San Francisco according to a study. Especially in 2013, approximately 70,000 cars were towed for illegal parking in San Francisco,” Lee told Forbes during an interview. The solution he found out was the on demand valet parking service.
After conceiving such business plan, Lee recruited his former fellow employee, Craig Martin, as chief technology officer and eventually established Luxe in 2013. From 2014, Luxe started to acquire its own parking lots and valets and officially launched app-based valet parking service.
The operating process is simple. After downloading the Luxe app, a customer requests for a valet parking service indicating his current location. Then, a Luxe valet with blue jacket comes over and parks the car at Luxe’s fully insured parking lot. When the customer needs the car back, he simply has to request for a return 15 minutes in advance, and the valet brings the car to the customer.
It did not take a long time for Luxe to gain huge popularity from both customers and employees. Luxe offered refueling and cleaning service along with valet parking, and the company branched out to other metropolitan cities like New York, Chicago and Boston.
Furthermore, Luxe differentiated itself from other on demand valet parking enterprises by hiring employees in accordance with its strict criterion. Valets need to have no criminal records at all with a minimum seven years of accident-free driving history and are required to have an interview at the Luxe headquarters.
Luxe’s growth potential was highly acclaimed by the investors, and Luxe was able to induce $75.5 million from Google Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and global rent-a-car enterprise, Hertz. Moreover, individual investors like Mark Pincus, founder of Zinga, and Dave Morin, founder of Path social network, also invested in Luxe. Lee’s capability as an entrepreneur was highly appraised for attracting such investments, being selected as one of ‘Top 100 entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley.’
“Luxe grows faster and faster as the service is extended in new cities…Luxe is on its right path,” Lee revealed his confidence with Luxe during an interview.
