Vanly
A platform for people sleeping in their vehicles to find safe overnight parking. I co-founded Vanly, served as CTO, and helped build it from 2019 until we sold the company in April 2025. 🎉
Available on the App Store and Google Play.
A monorepo built with Next.js, Firestore, TensorFlow for price recommendations, Stripe, and Capacitor for the mobile apps.
Timeline
Jan 2019
The first prototype
'Vroom' was created in a 48 hour hackathon at UC Santa Cruz. The core idea: 2-sided marketplace for driveway rental, with a focus on safety and addressing the housing shortage in Santa Cruz.
vroom, the original landing page Aug 2019
Rebranded to Vanly
A new name and a proper front door: one side to find a driveway for the night, one side to share yours.
Share driveway space Aug 2019
First listing
Our first host put their driveway on the map.
September 2019
First booking
Someone paid to sleep in a stranger's driveway!
2020
1,000 users
Sept 2021
iOS and Android apps launched
Built with Capacitor on top of the same Next.js monorepo, so the apps shipped with everything the web had.
Search 
Cell coverage overlays 
Host ↔ guest messaging Sept 25, 2021
Launch party
We threw a party for the app launch: live music, string lights, and 200+ people in a driveway.
The Vanly app launch party 2022
10,000 users
Nov 2022
New landing page design!
The new Vanly landing page Apr 2025
Vanly was acquired 🎉
Six years from a hackathon prototype to an exit.