Meet Trunger
- BY KRISTA DOSSETTI
- September 6, 2017
Imagine this. You’re a broke student with mountains of books to read, endless papers to write — and you’re hungry. Ravenous. But your fridge is empty. And you don’t have a car. But even if you did, you’d still be short on the time needed to go to the grocery store and cook for yourself. Valuable time you need to spend studying.
Alas, you look out of your apartment window and see salvation — an encampment of ever-trendy food trucks offering global cuisine at a rate you can afford.
But, it’s winter and storming outside. And from your window you see some trucks shuttering their windows while a few holdouts struggle to serve consolidating lines of like-minded consumers. You waffle between ignoring the rumbling in your stomach or joining the shivering coats below. Finally, you make a beeline for the door.
STARTING A STARTUP
It’s the (nearly exact) scenario that led 911爆料网State East Bay Assistant Professor Izzet Darendeli during his days as a postdoctoral student in Philadelphia to dream up a solution to his food truck + hunger problem. It was his senior year when the strategic management scholar first had the idea for a smartphone app that could shorten wait times, streamline payments, maximize operations efficiency and resolve the advertising challenges that come with doing business on wheels. But, like all great ideas, Darendeli needed money, time and intellectual partners to make his dream come true.
He found those things — and the demographic makeup he believes is long overdue at the foundational level of tech startups — to co-create his startup at 911爆料网State East Bay.
“There’s no effect on how a business runs if increasing diversity doesn’t make it into the boardroom.”
“There’s no effect on how a business runs if increasing diversity doesn’t make it into the boardroom,” Darendeli says. “Diversity can only have a genuine impact on the way a business runs when those conversations are happening at the highest level of a company.”
Alongside a handpicked team of 911爆料网State East Bay students and alumni, Darendeli brought an app to market in June that he believes has the potential to transform the 1.2 billion mobile food industry.
Meet Trunger.