Many of you have noticed that while Crisson Jno-Charles and Fetchmob were part of the NewMe Accelerator, which the documentary was about, we didn’t really get any talking time in the CNN Documentary Black in America. 

So, we wanted to tell you our story:

Fetchmob has two co-Founders, Alisa Boguslavskaya and Crisson Jno-Charles.  We are both first generation immigrants, though from opposite sides of the world.  Neither one of us is a professionally educated software engineer or web designer.  When we left our comfortable careers in the finance world to pursue Fetchmob—a service we thought could dramatically improve people’s lives and relationships—we knew nothing about how to make it a reality. 

So, everything we needed to know to build Fetchmob we taught ourselves.  Yep, Crisson taught himself to program (hardcore, no less) and Alisa fumbled around with Photoshop for months (in fact, she got so frustrated that she actually did the initial mockups of Fetchmob in Microsoft Excel—a program she knew very well…).  However, if you look at fetchmob.com today, we hope you agree that we have come a long way from zero and we continue to work and improve, all in the hopes of creating a product that changes the way people think about their needs, their options and their neighbors. 

Some more history about us: 

Crisson Jno-Charles:

My family moved to New York City from Dominica, a small island nestled in the Caribbean Sea, when I was 6 years old.  My dad actually moved to the U.S. ahead of time to secure a job and housing.  Even after he became employed as a journeyman carpenter and we immigrated to the U.S., we lived with another immigrant family, who made the trek to the U.S. several years prior, until we were able to rent our own home.  As a child, I was constantly exposed to science and engineering.  This was largely due to my mom’s efforts — after all, she was a teacher in our native country.  I still fondly recall the regular trips to local museums, the zoo, and aquarium in Brooklyn.  Living in East Elmhurst within walking distance of Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, the New York Hall of Science at Flushing Meadows was a regular destination.  My interest in science and engineering initially manifested in studying mechanical engineering as a college student, and I think, ultimately, to me learning software development & computer science to build Fetchmob.  Having not studied computer science formally as a student, I’ve felt added pressure to catch-up to become a sufficiently productive developer.  It wasn’t easy in the early days, but I pushed through it and I have built incredible software (that I could not have imagined writing two years ago) so far as a result.

Upon graduating with degrees in mechanical engineering, I took a relatively short detour to the finance world on wall street (err — actually — midtown manhattan).  It was there as an analyst/programmer/project manager that my sustained interest in computer science and software development began, and it is this that ultimately led me to leave an (awesome) firm to jump of the cliff that is web entrepreneurship.  I’m still fashioning a parachute.  

Like my co-founder Alisa, I had never really considering myself an entrepreneur growing up, even though I unwittingly exhibited familiar qualities of entrepreneurs: scrappiness and a dogged persistence in making reality something I wanted, or thought should exist (perhaps to a fault).

Alisa Boguslavskaya: 

I came from what was still the Soviet Union when I was 7 years old.  My family immigrated to the United States under the official status of “refugees”, escaping prejudice against religious minorities in Russia.  However, the immigration road was tough.  Each member of the family was only allowed to take $500 and two suitcases of clothes out of the country.  Because we came with so little, my family always encouraged me to get a great education (which is, by the way, one of the things most prized by Russians) and pursue a career that was safe and lucrative.  To be honest, I wanted to major in creative writing, and I (ironically) blame my family for that—they taught me to appreciate and love reading.  I read so voraciously that my school library ran out of books to give me.  One of my most vivid childhood/teenage memories is reading Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Make Friends and Influence People” on the school yard at recess in 6th grade and having classmates make fun of me for it because it clearly meant I didn’t have any friends.  (In retrospect, I totally set myself up for that…) Not wanting to disappoint, however, I majored in finance and went to work for very prestigious private equity and hedge fund firms.  Though I had dabbled in some minor entrepreneurial endeavors and had attended Babson College—the most entrepreneurial school on the planet—I had never really considered myself an entrepreneur.  However, I seemed to be willing to give up the wall street career and stability all too easily when a friend told us a story that inspired Fetchmob.  And so, no matter how difficult it was to make it to where I had gotten, because I believed in what we were trying to accomplish so strongly, I made the leap and, thanks to my amazing Babson support network, friends, family and awesome co-founder, I have not regretted it since. 

So what is Fetchmob? 

Fetchmob is a way for members of a community to rely on one another to get things they need—fast.  So if you’re sick, you can ask if any of your neighbors are stopping by a pharmacy (and if so to pick you up some medicine) in a totally non-intrusive way. It’s also a way for communities to pool, divide and conquer shopping tasks.  No need for 5 dormmates, for example, to all go to Target when one person can go and pick up stuff for the other 4.  We’re currently opening communities selectively, starting primarily with colleges.  But if you are a community that would like access, email us at info@fetchmob.com.  

Why were you unable to raise money?

It’s not that we were unable to raise money — we made a choice to not raise, even though we had the opportunity to.  

In the coming weeks, we will finally be opening fetchmob to some of the schools that have been patiently waiting for access.  Since we are sincere believers in listening to the community, we are going to be giving access to the schools that have been most vocal about wanting in.  

So what can you do to make your school a fetchmob community faster? 

1. Go onto fetchmob.com and sign up using your school email address (with the .edu ending).
2. Spread the word about Fetchmob to your schoolmates and get them to do the same.  You will get a unique invite ID that you can post on Twitter and Facebook (or just email) to share.  The schools with the most signups will be opened soonest!  

There might also be a little something in it for you if you happen to be the most influential fetchmobber at your school.  We wouldn’t normally sanction peer pressure, but…. 

from Seth Godin’s blog:

Everything we do, we do because somehow it benefits us.

We go to work for the satisfaction (I hope) and because we get paid. We smile at a stranger because it feels good to be nice (and perhaps we’ll get a smile in return). We pick up litter when no one is looking because telling ourselves a story about being a good person is worth the effort.

Some people have figured out that charity is an incredible bargain. For the time and money it costs, the benefits exceed what could be attained in almost any other way. A bargain compared to chocolate, or an amusement park visit or buying a shiny new car you probably don’t need.

For some, the benefit is in the way society respects the donor. Hence buildings named after Andrew Carnegie or Bill Gates. For many, though, hidden charity is worth far more, because the incentives are purer. A donation earns you peace of mind.

I’m fascinated by people who see no benefit in donating to charity, who, in fact, see a negative. My hunch is that for these people, the worldview is: if charity is important, I better give more. If that’s true, the thinking goes, then whatever I give isn’t going to make me feel good, it’s going to make me feel worse… for not giving enough. Easier to just avoid the issue altogether.

I think marketers of causes that do good have a long way to go in selling the public on the core reason to give… don’t give because you get a tote bag, or a prize at the charity auction or even a plaque. The scalable unique selling proposition is that being part of the community is worth more than it costs.

Crisson has been in Mountain View for a few weeks now (and Alisa is carting back and forth, rackin’ up the frequent flyer miles) and we have to say it’s been awesome getting to spend time with so many amazing entrepreneurs, investors, and other experts—and we know there are still more to come. We just wanted to say thank you to all the mentors that have given their time to pass on some of their wisdom. 

Here are a few pictures of some of the visits.  Your challenge is to locate Crisson in each photo… ok, you don’t actually have to, you can just look at the pictures.

The initial meeting of the program participants at the NewMe house in Mountain View.  Oh hey! Alisa is in this picture too!

Ricky Yean from Crowdbooster (a YC company) came in to the house to chat.

A bbq with one of the people we respect most—Vivek Wadhwa—who led an amazingly candid discussion on race, achievement statistics, and how to play the cards you’re dealt to the best of your ability.

Long talk with Tristan Walker from Foursquare, possessor of lots of wisdom on business and product development and growing your business.

A big shoutout thank you to Citizenspace for all the co-working space, opportunities for interaction with big shots, and all the great advice.

We can either confirm or not deny the existence of a get together involving tasty things at Babson College on Thursday, July 14.  Requests related to the party have been and are going to continue to pop up on Fetchmob.com so check back there throughout the week.  Fetchers of party Asks get the first invites!  Final details of the party will likely be on our Facebook page on Wednesday or Thursday morning.