Akhil Damani was walking into the airport with his family during his freshman year of college when he noticed the amount of space airport parking lots take up. In one lot, there were hundreds of cars paying $30 a day to leave their cars there while on vacation. In the other lot, there were hundreds of rental cars waiting for visitors to rent.
That’s when an idea hit him: What if there was a way to condense this process by allowing people to park their car for free, make money off parking their car and rent a car while saving money?
Damani, now a senior computer and information science major at Cornell University, just launched his parking service online website and app Hermit in August 2024. By using the coding skills he learned at school, he and a few friends created an app that allows people to park their cars at a Hermit location for free. Others can then rent that car out to drive around while on vacation. Meanwhile, the owners of the cars being rented are making money in the process.
Damani just launched his first Hermit location at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, Conn. He said his goal is to keep expanding and help as many people as possible save money while traveling. He said he especially hopes that this app will help college students that are struggling financially.
“The way I want it to be in the future is if you go on a trip, your trip is paid for by using the platform. If you are making $40 a day, and you’re saving $30 a day for parking, that’s like, basically a net $70. So, if you’re gone for a week, you make $490, and that’s great, right? So, I think that it’s super valuable if you’re going on a trip or spring break,” said Damani.
Damani explained that there are a few different ways you can use the app. He stated that when someone is looking to park their car for free, they can sign up on the app and scan their driver’s license. Scanning drivers license allows the app to run background checks to ensure that people feel safe leaving their cars. You must be at least 18 years old to do this.
“We make sure that anyone on the platform is a safe driver. We make sure that they don’t have a criminal background or anything, so that people feel safe leaving their cars. So, it’s like a safe community,” Damani said.
To register a car to host, Damani explained that users must enter their vehicle identification number on the app and take and upload pictures of their car.
Once the car is registered, users can then select the day they want to drop off and pick up their car, according to Damani. Users of the app do not have to be traveling to drop their cars off at Hermit locations.
According to Damani, Hermit locations are located at off-site locations of the airports, and once there, users get instructions on how to drop off their cars. Once their car is dropped off, users will be provided a shuttle to the airport.
“When you show up, you get instructions on how to drop off the car, but everything’s done to the app. It’s very straightforward. Once you’re there, you drop off your keys into our dropbox. You will be given a code, and inside the building that we have, there’s a little dropbox. You enter the code into it, and then it’ll open up a slot where you put your keys in. It will then close, and then you’re good to go. Then a shuttle will take you to the airport,” said Damani.
As for those renting out a car, it is the same process, just backwards, according to Damani. However, those looking to rent a car must be at least 21 years old.
“They take a shuttle, they pick up the keys from the dropbox with the app, they take the car and then they’re good to go,” Damani said.
As for those worried about the safety of their cars, Damani emphasized that the whole process is insured, so if anything happens to a person’s car while being driven, everything is protected.
“We wanted to get something that was really good for consumers and great for people who are leaving their cars, because otherwise, I wouldn’t want to leave my car if it wasn’t protected,” Damani said.
When starting this app, Damani stated his goal was to create something that was sustainable and something that genuinely helps people save and make money. Now over two years into the process, Damani said he is excited about continuing to help others and reach as many people as possible.
“We have a few 100 users that are on the platform and have signed up. We have a lot of renters coming in and people interested. I think the next thing is getting the word out. We’ve sort of tested it out. We know it works. Now everything is going great. So now it’s just pushing it out,” Damani said.