Building Our First Startup — We’re Ready To Fail!
We interviewed ourselves for our first blog post! We’re currently under the wings of the CUNY Startup Accelerator, a program dedicated to helping students pursue their entrepreneurial ventures.
What’s your startup idea?
Our startup idea is called Grabba. Grabba is a platform that allows homeowners to rent out their unused parking space to drivers in NYC.*
Finding a parking spot in New York is not easy. We noticed that a lot of drivers would circle around the block to find free parking than pay for expensive parking lots. Our assumption is that, by opening up an untapped supply of private garages and driveways, we can offer a cheaper and more convenient parking to drivers around the New York area.
Why did you start this blog?
Aside from SEO purposes, we realized that the best way we can document our startup journey is through blogging. Writing about our thought process, research, design, success and failures, and everything else would hopefully help us understand what it takes to build a startup.
Aren’t you afraid that someone might steal your idea?
That’s what we used to think! But as we learned from our mentors and other startup founders, ideas are worth nothing if you can’t turn it into an actual product. And even if you successfully build a product, does your product fit the market? This has really changed our way of thinking when it comes to our own startup ideas. Lastly, our idea isn’t original nor it is the first to market. If you google “ garage sharing app” you’ll see that there’s already a bunch of apps out there! It’s all about the execution!
So why are you building this?
For one, the “garage sharing” apps in the market right now are not focused in NYC. There are not enough parking spaces listed around the area that will make it enticing for drivers to use. On the other hand, the apps that provide an abundant amount of parking spaces are expensive commercial lots and garages.
Moreover, we wanted to build our own startup so we can create a great product and improve ourselves. We know that 90% of startups fail, but we believe we have a great idea and an opportunity to turn that idea into a great product. Even though there are many challenges that come into play when creating your own startup, the opportunity to take an idea and actually turn it into a business is a goal that The Grabba team wanted to pursue and accomplish.
Who’s on the Grabba Team?
Vince Parulan (Developer, Designer, Designated Passenger)
DDD™ for short. Vince is a CIS Major at Baruch College. He’s a generalist mainly because he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. An avid but frustrated Knicks fan (who isn’t?!). He enjoys learning and building things that he gets to see.
Jamal Chapman(Developer, Designated Community Developer)
Jamal is a recent grad at Baruch College. He is a Brooklynite and everywhere he goes he makes it known “Brooklyn All Day”. Through all the various attempts at finding his niche (ex. Accounting, Broadcasting) one thing he knew he loved to do was solves problems. Today he is a web developer who solve problems through code.
Valicio Palha (Product Development, Design Thinker, Designated Innovator)
Val is probably easier to pronounce, let’s go with that. Val graduated from Baruch College with a major in CIS. He’s a visionary always imagining of ways to better the world with his futuristic thoughts and ideas. Today Val works in Product Management for Mobile applications.
Bobby Kropkowski (Financial Strategist, Marketing Coordinator, Designated Pitch-Man)
A student of Finance at Baruch College, Bobby is an active, outgoing Westchester-ite who could be found either behind an excel sheet or on the golf links in his spare time. An avid fan of investing and a self-proclaimed “disciple” of financiers like Peter Thiel and Seth Klarman, Bobby brings with him a differentiated perspective to the Grabba team and quantifies our future goals and aspirations.
What is your goal for the Accelerator?
Our main goal for this Accelerator is to have an MVP prototype that we can show and get feedback from our target market. We also want to improve our value proposition and have a cohesive story by the end of this program. We definitely want our idea to evolve into a product that people would actually use. And the only way to do that is if we include our target market in the product creation. So if you’re interested in becoming one of our early adopters, join our waitlist below!
*That’s our 1-sentence pitch and is subject to change :)
