Twin brothers, David Cabello and Aaron Cabello, founded Black and Mobile, the first food delivery startup in Philadelphia in 2019. And by 2020, they had expanded their offerings to Baltimore and Atlanta. Their food delivery app connects users to local, Black-owned restaurants.
Prior to founding their company, David Cabello worked as a driver for foodservice apps like Postmates and Caviar. This inspired them to establish a similar startup in a bid to change the way Philadelphians support Black-owned businesses.
When they first launched in 2019, they worked with developers JumpButton Studio on a custom app but they later parted ways and started working with another group of developers who were to fix bugs in the company’s app, according to Technical.ly.
They recorded massive losses in sales because the bugs weren’t fixed for months. The dip in sales caused David and Aaron to take a break for about two months so as to allow them to regroup. During this period, they discovered a third-party online ordering platform while building their own custom app.
“Dealing with these issues made it hard to stay in business. We lost trust from our customers, restaurant partnerships, our drivers,” David told Technical.ly.
After two months off, the Cabellos re-launched in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Atlanta last month, and launched for the first time in Los Angeles and New York City. The entrepreneurs are also set to expand to larger cities. So far, 10 to 15 restaurants have signed up in New York and Los Angelos.
“We are thrilled to bring Black and Mobile to the two most populous cities in the country,” David said. “We started Black and Mobile to give exposure to Black-Owned restaurants by supporting black food entrepreneurs and connecting their culture to the surrounding community, and these two new cities will allow us to continue doing so at scale.”
The company is also planning to raise $250,000 via equity crowd funding which to support its operations.
