Meet our Team: Mike

Andrew J. Steen
Nov 7 · 6 min read

Thanks for coming back for our second team member feature article! We hope you read last week’s article about Ashwin, if not you can find it here. As mentioned in that article, we want to be able to point to our passionate team members who have built this company up from the very foundation, boot-strapping funds and working countless hours all the while completing their educations at Ohio State.

Today, we’re proud to introduce another founder, one of the creators of the concept, the man credited with the name and logo, and another great friend of ours: Mike Gargasz.

Mike Gargasz: Co-Founder & COO of NXTSTOR Inc.

I draw a lot of motivation from our team and the goals we set for ourselves.

Mike is a humble guy, but you wouldn’t be able to obtain that from his resume. Another Co-Founder, Mike has been absolutely crucial in the development of the concept of NXTSTOR towards solving a lot of the problems seen in the self-storage industry. He leads multiple aspects of the company as COO and Head of Product Development. In a typical workday with NXTSTOR, Mike can be found pushing UI/UX changes to the web app, or accompanying Brandon on-stage at some event giving a pitch, or collaborating with the marketing to ensure we can get in front of as many potential users as possible, and everywhere in between. Mike is yet another example of a d*mn good team player, and an even better leader.

Origins

Mike at the booth at yet another expo floor.

The story of NXTSTOR begins with Mike and Brandon, in their freshman year no less. A lot can be said for people who are able to back up an interesting idea with considerable action.

Humble Beginnings

The next day (or maybe a few days later), Mike and Brandon founded the company, and started building. Multiple iterations of name, logo, and scope were worked through for months, eventually landing on NXTSTOR and our current logo with the stacked triangles. Mike is personally credited with company up with both the current name and logo for the company.

An example of an original proposed logo.

In a lot of ways, this self-starting energy that Mike and Brandon began with defined and continues to define the working ideals of our team and our motivations & strategies for moving forward. We choose our own direction as a company in real-time and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Peer-to-Peer Storage: A Concept

In the beginning and since, the main ideals that Mike and the team stressed in the generation of the NXTSTOR marketplace are as follows:

  1. Localization

The universal ability for people in any location to have access to nearby storage solutions with neighbors. The hope is to eliminate the need for long treks outside the city to access cheaper storage facilities. The average city has millions of square feet of unused space in residences, commercial spaces, and beyond.

2. Centralization

Self-storage is a very fragmented industry. Prices, features, security, quality, and availability differ significantly from place to place. There are few large storage providers with a large enough local, region, or national reach to ensure those variables stay fixed for the large majority of the American population. The hope, then, is to provide a marketplace that fills those gaps by encouraging quality and economically friendly local storage spaces for everyone from urban professionals to rural small business owners and everyone else in-between.

3. Democratization

With the above variables stated, it was clear that enabling the marketplace of hosts & renters total control of prices and features was the best way to enable a positive competition place in which both supply & demand benefit both sides of the marketplace. For example, hosts can vary prices based on demand and competition, renters can choose cheaper, less feature-packed spaces based on needs. This hands-off approach will ensure a dynamic economy of storage solutions that will work for everyone.

Mike advocated early and often for the customer, and it shows in the way that he engages with current and potential hosts & renters. He is the guy that the team goes to for issues regarding customer journey and experience.

What’s next?

In the meantime, Mike will continue to be an aggressive force of nature on this small and tight-knit team. Danke für alles, was du tust, Mike!


Check back next week for our next team member bio, in the meantime — check out our social channels to stay updated in real time on what we’re up to:

Instagram: @store_with_nxtstor

Twitter: NXTSTOR

Facebook: NXTSTOR Inc.

To get in touch, email us at info@nxtstor.com

Nxtstor Inc.

The official Medium page for NXTSTOR Inc., the latest innovation in peer-to-peer storage. We are not your everyday storage company.

Andrew J. Steen

Written by

Professional space romanticist. Lover of radical concepts such as equitable human justice and prosperity. Purveyor of exquisite mediocrity.

Nxtstor Inc.

The official Medium page for NXTSTOR Inc., the latest innovation in peer-to-peer storage. We are not your everyday storage company.

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