Today we’d like to introduce you to Philip Hodges.
Philip, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My life completely revolves around sustainability, seven days a week. I attribute this to my awareness that almost every living system on this planet is in decline, on top of a lot of social problems globally – both of which are in a feedback loop. Since I was introduced to the concept of sustainability, my passion in the field has expanded, especially in areas related to the natural sciences.
What interests me most is creating scientific solutions to combat the unprecedented global problems that my generation will have to solve. And while the science is important, I’m also driven to understand business, especially entrepreneurship, in the sense of what it takes to create a product that does social good, bring that product to market, and scale. So right now, that’s where I am.
“To me, sustainability in many ways is about respect – think about that. It’s about inclusion and diversity, and it’s about need vs want. It forces you to think in systems instead of linearly. It’s a long-term approach.”
But, I’m just getting started, as high school was not that long ago. While I lack life experience in the sense that I’m not 40, I make up for some of it with a relentless drive to explore and learn. And what just happened to me concerning the incredible opportunity I fell into with KOBEYO – learning about all aspects of business through a challenging and fast-paced startup, extreme mentorship from the CEO, and most importantly being part of a company focused on sustainability and social responsibility – is the result of a lot of luck, but also my hard work and interests from the past few years.
I moved around a lot when I was younger and when I was 17 my family moved from North Carolina to Salina, Kansas. Enrolled in boarding school, I used to frequently map out business plans in my dorm room and rally people to work with me. Those that were complex never got off the ground as I lacked resources, but I did launch a small car wash business in Kansas. I will never forget the feeling of securing my first customer.
Surrounded by agriculture in Kansas, I began exploring food production. I closed up my carwash business when I was offered an internship at The Land Institute. This internship was the most profound experience of my teens and solidified my love for the natural sciences. As I prepared to move to Denver for college, I was struggling to figure out how I was going to pursue my passions in sustainability, science, and business.
Everything happened really fast once I arrived in Denver. I was enrolled as a freshman at the University of Denver, studying Ecology & Chemistry. One day while in the library I saw KOBEYO employees signing up students on the app. Curious, I walked over and started talking with the promoters. I immediately saw the value of the app, in a million ways, as it was not only a different approach than any other job app or website I’ve ever seen but also a win-win for everyone – a rare feat.
It wasn’t a company, it was more like a social movement with a growing community. At that moment, I realized this was a project I wanted to work on – the fusion of my passions in a tech startup. I grabbed some contact info and emailed the company. The CEO was the one who replied and we set a time to meet. I learned he was a serial entrepreneur for the past 15 years, lived and conducted business in multiple countries and held an MBA in Sustainable Management. I’m certain he saw himself in the same position as myself when he was my age, and therefore offered me a few hours a week as long as I promised to prioritize school.
It only took a few months of working at KOBEYO before I decided I wanted to focus on something tangible instead of academics. So, I asked the CEO if I could join full-time. We discussed the risks of dropping out of college and joining a startup. Confident, I assured him I wanted the startup life and was offered a salary. My parents were not happy but I think they now understand since the company is growing at such a rapid pace and producing tremendous positive impacts in the communities it’s serving.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
No road is smooth, but it seems smoother the better you become at adapting to change. Dropping out of college was one of the biggest decisions of my life. Not only was I migrating away from the standard trajectory of graduating with a college degree and then joining the workforce in an entry-level position, but I was also moving out of the standard social life of someone my age. It was because I wanted something much more than what school offered that I left. KOBEYO was my first major opportunity to help make the world a better place and I was willing to sacrifice my comfortable, predictable path to embark on a big idea.
It’s harder now to relate to my peers after sustaining a lifestyle of such high intensity and at such a young age. I work seven days a week and way over 40 hours. I’m on the ground with our customers, work closely with our development team and am deeply involved with our marketing efforts. I’m exposed to a really big picture view of the company and my actions are extremely impactful. Where I am now professionally, and it’s only been a short time, has vastly changed my personal life. I’ve learned that not everyone can buy into your vision or understand your path. It’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time and finally concluded that staying true to yourself and trusting intuition are essential. As I leave behind old networks, I find and create new ones – the possibilities continue to present themselves.
To build a company there are a lot of inconsistencies and risks but there is one constant, which is employing the standard operating procedure for discovery to help determine what works, and what direction is best to move in. For example, for our method of product development, we’ll check in with ten customers to get feedback and six of them will hint at something we might build into a product feature, so we make a hypothesis about this feature. We then go out and ask more customers to test our hypothesis and if we feel confident that building the feature would be valuable, we meet with our design team to come up with solutions.
From there we iterate on designs, get more customer feedback and then commit to developing the feature into the app. After development, we go through a lot of testing to make sure we don’t release software with bugs, as we are big on quality and our customers having a flawless experience with KOBEYO. All of this is a ton of work, takes a large team, and a lot of time and money. Then the day of recognizing arrives – when you go live with the feature.
I’ll tell you first hand that there is nothing more disappointing than launching a feature that is not as well-received as anticipated. But logically, you acknowledge its part of the process. So we go back and gather feedback, create a new hypothesis, talk to customers and repeat. Getting product development right the first time is really difficult to accomplish, especially consistently. You have to iterate fast and find simple yet powerful solutions with limited resources. It can be turbulent and chaotic, and this can bring a lot of pressure.
If you become emotional, you will fail – I learned this the hard way. It has been really important to react first with logic and then apply emotion, instead of the other way around. You can’t think straight when you’re emotional and it creates a lot of risks not only for the business decisions you need to make and the relationships you’re developing, but it can also jeopardize your mental health.
And the emotional stress – especially during the downsides – I don’t think it’s talked about as frequently as the gossip surrounding billion-dollar valuations. What founders and startup teams go through is really insane. Working for weeks on a new product feature and then scrapping it, spending a month planning a new sales strategy and having it flop, and hiring and investing in vendors and then firing them when they overpromise and under deliver – it’s all part of the process and it pulls you in a lot of directions.
For the record, we’ve hired and fired over six marketing firms, in a little over a year, until we found the right one. The startup game is only for those that are absolutely relentless and I’m constantly being challenged, failing, picking myself back up and learning. I wouldn’t want it any other way. When you want to create something meaningful it takes time, sacrifice, and focus. It’s much easier said than done, but you have to be all in, and you have to be willing to fail a lot and keep pushing forward.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with KOBEYO – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
KOBEYO is the only app that matches full-time and part-time job seekers with perfect jobs in the food and beverage service industry, and we’re really proud to offer our service for free to everyone.
Anyone employed or looking for employment in the food and beverage service industry can enter the pay and schedule they want, as well as any skills, into the app. They’re then notified when a job matches and can chat directly with hiring managers through the app – it’s that simple. This takes out all of the hassles of applying online or going door to door because perfect jobs find the individual instead. Profiles take five minutes to make and job matches include fast food to fine dining positions.
Imagine the power this transparency accomplishes. Employees never have to waste their time searching for jobs that align with their schedule or needed wage, and they don’t waste hiring managers’ time by applying for jobs that they would never take once they found out it didn’t match their schedule and wage. In fact, employees can’t apply to jobs unless they match because KOBEYO is not a job board. The managers’ jobs are never publicly posted – everything is done privately. So when a manager needs an employee the only people who can see the opportunity are the job seekers that match. This ensures managers keep their hiring private, while also eliminating the need to sort through a bunch of resumes or speak with unqualified candidates.
We also prioritize connecting job seekers with jobs in areas they specify. So, if someone wants a job near their home or near where they are going to school, KOBEYO will prioritize sending jobs nearby. This not only saves time commuting, but saves money on the expense of commuting, and also, albeit small (although everything helps) contributes to reducing emissions.
But all of the above doesn’t compare to our personal experiences with our users. When we were getting our pilot off the ground, the CEO and myself literally combed the streets of downtown Denver for the rushes of foodservice employees commuting to, and leaving, work. So we’d get downtown and ride around on Razors from 5 am-8 am, and then we’d be out from about 9 pm-1:30 am. We came across all walks of life. You know, like meeting the dishwashers at some of the highest-end restaurants that make minimum wage and sleep on the streets. That was eye-opening. We introduced KOBEYO to them and told them to ask for a higher wage. We’d be rolling around on our Razors and we’d see people we spoke with weeks later who told us they got another job on the app that paid them more. Totally life-changing.
And we have so many stories like that. One time we were at this event and this woman found out that one of the people at our table was the CEO. He told her his story about his incessant hard work over the past two years to get KOBEYO off the ground and how he was dead focused on helping people. Well, she was a mom who worked a lot to support her family. She told him that she had been working two jobs. That she had to leave in the morning before her kids got up for school and had far commutes between her jobs. She said she arrived home late in the evenings and didn’t have much time to spend with her family.
She signed up for KOBEYO and that changed everything. She was matched with a job that paid her not only more money but was located near the school her kids attended. On top of that, it offered hours that allowed her to start work after she took her kids to school and leave when they were out. Two jobs into one, better hours, more pay, and more time to raise her family. Isn’t that what we all want? And I’ll bet you this woman is definitely not quitting, so we know the restaurant is happy also. Anyway, she was in tears and hugged our CEO – it was a beautiful moment.
There are also tons of student stories. One student told us he was commuting an hour to get to his job and also driving for a rideshare company, which wasn’t allowing him enough time to study and not paying him enough money to afford his tuition and living expenses. He said he was about to drop out and obviously discontent. He downloaded the KOBEYO app and said two days later he was matched with a job that not only was right next to his school and accommodated his class schedule perfectly but also paid him so much money that it covered everything he needed and more. He quit his other two jobs after getting hired.
The work that we do – listening to our community and finding solutions to their issues is really inspiring. And it’s more rewarding because KOBEYO has the opportunity to connect communities and groups that have unlocked potential with job opportunities. During our pilot, we were honored to be invited to join the Colorado Department of Corrections Business Advisory Committee, helping to reduce recidivism in the state of Colorado through programs to re-educate, thereby providing returning citizens the best chance of success when re-integrating.
KOBEYO is really a community whose purpose is to help people improve their quality of life and therefore create a better society for everyone. By empowering employees so they can get what they need, they show up more consistently to interviews and turnover less frequently, which is also a huge benefit to restaurants hiring. We’re kind of a for-profit company that acts like a nonprofit.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
While we do have a ton of new features in our pipeline, we can’t discuss it because other vendors don’t offer them. What I can say is that 2020 is going to be massive for KOBEYO. Our product has been tried and tested thoroughly since our pilot last year, and we are now speaking with some really big national brands. So, you can expect to see more of us.
Our real focus though is linking up with a lot more partners – whether they’re communities, organizations or individuals, we are going to continue to connect with people that share our mission.
We look forward to learning more from the hard-working people at Focus Points Family Resource Center. It would be wonderful to see their model of supporting communities expand further. In addition, we will continue to spread the word about Emily Griffith’s Culinary Quick Start Program. It’s a free multi-week training program in cooking and an amazing opportunity for anyone wanting to cook in professional kitchens. Lastly, we look forward to supporting those who have believed in us from the beginning including Chef Elan, owner of Element Knife Company, Jensen Cummings with his Best Served podcast, and the very talented Chef Will Coonradt @theculinary_cowboieeee.
Some new content on social media will soon be released also. It’ll include testimonials from our users, chef takeovers and giveaways. We’re trying to provide more exposure to people in the KOBEYO community doing things that would inspire other KOBEYO community members. This includes bringing to the forefront individuals excelling in the culinary or hospitality industry, while also featuring non-service industry-related activities. Not everyone is going to be in the service industry for their entire career. So if someone has been a server for the past few years but had an interest in mechanics and finally decided to take the leap and start their own mechanics business, we would help promote them in our community. We do this to not only get the word out about their services but to really help tell their story so it can inspire others to be the best they can be, or at least live how they want.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kobeyo.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @kobeyoapp
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kobeyoapp/
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