Meet Robert Amerson of Spotter: The Parking App (Amerson, LLC)

Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert Amerson.

Hi Robert, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I’m a foundational Black American, born and raised in Los Angeles, and I’ve lived two lives that turned out to be the same one.

My twin sister Libby and I grew up with two music-fanatic parents: my mom on DeBarge, the Jackson 5 and the Bee Gees, my dad on Prince, Luther and Christopher Cross. Libby went for ’90s R&B. I went for movie soundtracks. I remember staying up all night recording the entire Grease soundtrack to cassette, then overdubbing my own synth parts onto a second tape with the little RadioShack keyboard Mom bought us.

At 12, my dad scraped his savings together for my first electric guitar, and later brought home Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?” That changed everything. A few teachers turned me down for lessons, so I taught myself. I played right-handed for five uncomfortable months before flipping the guitar upside down, Hendrix-style, and suddenly it all clicked. I learned by ear from Hendrix, Prince, the Brothers Johnson, Barry White and Santana. Meanwhile Libby played cello and I played trumpet in the school orchestra, so Miles Davis and Beethoven were in the house too. I even sold candy in middle school to buy GTA: Vice City, just so I could sit in free mode listening to its ’80s radio stations for hours.

In high school I watched Prince play the Super Bowl and started a band the very next day. We called ourselves The Experiment, a nod to Jimi, and played weddings and battles of the bands around Hawthorne. My bandmate Heber Polanco put me onto Wes Montgomery and Charlie Christian, and I started listening to KJazz on a 99-cent clip-on radio I had to replace every week. I studied jazz standards under the brilliant, tough Casey Hopson and earned a spot in USC’s Studio/Jazz Guitar program, where I minored in Entrepreneurship, headlined the Roxy in 2013, and discovered my real niche: composing and arranging.

After school I worked LA’s scene, from jazz and blues clubs to churches to studios. I toured London, then spent a chapter in Atlanta recording with artists like the OMG Girlz and Tiny Harris. Through Encompass Music Partners I’ve played on film and TV sets. On CBS’s “Strange Angel” (season 1, episode 3), I played in a 1930s big-band scene. On “Dolemite Is My Name” with Eddie Murphy, I was cast as a bar musician next to the great Blind Mississippi Morris, and the director had us make up a blues tune on the spot. Most recently, I recorded the guitar for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights promo and appeared on camera as a character from “Sinners.”

The business side was always running in the background. I started an eBay store at 18, took my first startup, SuGuardian, to the patent stage during college, and later ran short-term rentals in Las Vegas. It all lives under Amerson, LLC, my company for music, film and tech.

Spotter started at USC, too. On game days I’d rent driveways from neighborhood residents and sell those spots to Trojan fans. The parking already existed; it just wasn’t connected to the people who needed it. Years later, as a dad circling Santa Monica and Koreatown blocks, I decided to build that connection properly. That became Spotter: The Parking App, which lets you secure parking before you arrive. Drivers who are leaving hand off their street spot, and homeowners list driveways and garages. We launched on the App Store and Google Play in 2026, bootstrapped and self-funded.

And through all of it, my most important role is dad. I’m an active PTA member at my son’s school, and I’m leading an effort to get more dads involved on campus.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It’s been anything but a smooth road, and I’ve come to love that. It started with teachers who wouldn’t take me on, so I learned the guitar by ear, upside down, one record at a time. That taught me the lesson I still lean on: if the door’s closed, I build my own way in.

As an artist, I’ve usually been my own manager, booker and promoter, wearing every hat at once. I professionally recorded my first single, “Petty Betty,” on a Squier bass and guitar worth less than $250 combined, paid for entirely out of my own earnings. I also learned that not everything I play or create will make the final cut. Scenes get trimmed and parts get re-recorded, so I give my best on the day and let it go. And finding peace of mind to create in a city as big and fast as LA has always been a balancing act for me.

Spotter brought those same challenges at a bigger scale. I’m building a tech company without a technical co-founder or outside investors, so every dollar and every decision is mine. I taught myself enough about servers, payments and app stores to take full ownership of my product, including late nights reading code I never expected to read. Before launch, a bug quietly stopped some iPhone users from adding a payment card. A parking app nobody can pay through is just a map, so fixing that was a turning point for me. LA parking is also heavily regulated, so I’ve spent real time with city codes to make sure Spotter grows the right way.

And I do all of this as a family man and a father. The hardest part isn’t the work. It’s protecting time for the people the work is for.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I built Spotter to sell the “after”: arriving calm and on time, with no laps, no circling, and no $80 ticket on the windshield. It’s a peer-to-peer parking app. A driver who’s leaving can hand their street spot to someone on the way, and homeowners can rent out driveways and garages to commuters and event-goers. My users can even resell a spot they’ve booked.

What sets us apart is focus. The big players do garages and lots. I built Spotter for the parking that already exists in neighborhoods: the curb outside a busy spot in Koreatown, or an empty driveway near the Coliseum on game day. I know that second one works, because I was doing it by hand as a USC student.

I’m most proud that it’s real: live on both app stores, built from scratch by me, a Santa Monica dad and working musician. I build it the way I write songs, arranging every piece until the whole thing just feels right.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
My dad, for the guitar he saved up for when I was 12, and for bringing Hendrix home. My mom, for filling our house with music and buying that RadioShack keyboard. My twin sister Libby, my cello-playing orchestra partner then and my most trusted sounding board now. Casey Hopson, who got me ready for USC. Heber Polanco, who opened my ears to jazz. Diondre Jermaine, who’s shared countless gigs and deep conversations with me, and has been a beacon of opportunity for me and so many musicians in our LA community. My family, for believing in Spotter before there was anything to believe in. And the team at Encompass Music Partners, who’ve opened doors to sets I never would have walked onto on my own.

Pricing:

• Spotter is free to download on iOS and Android
• Spot prices are set by hosts

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.getspotter.io
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertamerson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robertamerson
• Twitter: https://x.com/robertamerson
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@robertamerson
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/robertamerson
• Other: TikTok: tiktok.com/@robertamerson | Spotter Instagram: instagram.com/getspotter.io | Spotter TikTok: tiktok.com/@getspotter.io | IMDb: imdb.com/name/nm5445333

Image Credits
Dario Griffin, Suzanne Sallaj