---
title: "Building a product around location data"
description: "A founder journey exploring how location data, mobile technology and partnerships could make parking easier."
url: https://roe.ie/work/parkya/
updated: 2026-10-28
---

# Building a product around location data

Source: https://roe.ie/work/parkya/

_Co founder and CTO · ParkYa and Predict Insight_

> A founder journey exploring how location data, mobile technology and partnerships could make parking easier.

## The idea

ParkYa explored how mobile technology and location data could make finding and paying for parking easier.

I helped build the business with Kirk Donohoe and Paul Flood, bringing a technical perspective to the founding team.

Predict Insight provided the broader setting for our work on location data and its commercial applications.

## My role

As a founder and CTO, my responsibilities extended beyond technology.

I worked on the product, explored commercial opportunities and helped translate ideas into something that could be tested with users and discussed with partners.

It was an environment where product decisions, customer learning and business development were closely connected.

## Building the business

The company became part of Dublin’s startup community, with support and learning through programmes including New Frontiers and the NDRC environment.

We worked on the relationship between parking information, mobile products and the organisations already involved in providing parking services.

That experience gave me a direct understanding of how much a product can depend on partnerships, distribution and the systems around it.

## What stayed with me

Founder experience changes how you look at a product.

You learn that technical progress and business progress are not always the same thing. You have to decide which assumptions matter most and find practical ways to test them.

You also learn to take responsibility across boundaries. If something important is not being done, the fact that it sits outside your original role does not make it less important.

Those lessons remain relevant in my work today.