The three-month program was super intense. Without needing to give up a piece of the company or pay the money back, Lightspeed grants founders $25,000. The cofounders joined an accelerator-Lighthouse-to develop a fintech platform. "Operations are super complex, involving between seven to 10 different programs to manage their businesses," she said. You might think that their needs are simple because food trucks are small. It wasn't just consumers who had pain points the operators did, too. "Truck owners loved the service but wanted more," said Abdulrazaaq. By 2019, they were ready to launch Goodfynd and commit to working full time. In 2018, while still working day jobs, they built an app so consumers could find their favorite food trucks, which frequently changed locations. They paid for things like hosting out of their own pockets. They didn't have friends and family who could afford to give or invest in the startup, which would have sped up the development process. They raised money in what might seem atypical compared to how some people with Ivy league networks and family resources do who don't have to bootstrap it.įor the first couple of years, the triumvirate funded the business themselves. Goodfynd's value proposition made things easier, more convenient, and more technologically efficient."Īs people of color, raising money without a referral from their network was difficult, so they didn't even try early on. Consumers must be outside when they pick up food, so timing is everything. "They could go into neighborhoods where consumers lived, to parks and parking lots," said Abdulrazaaq. Most businesses can't just pick up and go, but food trucks can. This challenge was an opportunity for food truck entrepreneurs to meet consumers where they were now located.
With so many Americans working from home, mobile food vendors were no longer within proximity of consumers. "The pandemic propelled our business forward."īefore the pandemic, many food trucks were located on city streets-close to offices and retail businesses.
"Our business accelerated rapidly," said Abdulrazaaq. It was clear that food trucks fit squarely into those regulations. However, within a couple of weeks, regulations started to come out about what and how consumer-facing businesses could do. We just wasted six months developing something that now has no merit." "People weren't even going out to get take out. "Everybody went home and were like our business is over," said Abdulrazaaq.
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