Wade Nodine, Emmanuel Ventouris, Teresa Callen, Christina Inserillo, and Frank Dinucci Are Grooming Youngsters in Their Community for Success
SAN FRANCISCO, August 10, 2017 (Newswire.com) - Dino Cave. Memorize this name, as it will soon become the biggest rage in America. Five successful entrepreneurs from San Francisco who hail from different walks of life have come together to launch an innovative new service that promises to provide the best mix of the multiculture cuisine and entrepreneurship to their local community. The brains behind this idea are Emmanuel Ventouris, Teresa Callen, Christina Inserillo, Frank Dinucci, and Wade Nodine. The idea, simply put, is community-run food trucks. It is a new concept which seeks to give an opportunity to youngsters to get a taste of entrepreneurship while simultaneously strengthening the camaraderie within the community.
Ventouris explains the idea saying, “We provide the truck and the equipment for a particular apartment complex. For a small fee, we allow any student under the age of 21 from that locality to use it to sell food items of their choice to others in the building complex. Kids who lack cooking skills have the option of striking up a food-for-cash deal with their parents or neighborhood women. They can then sell their product for a profit using our truck. It’s a great way to teach youngsters from an early age how to be self- sufficient and not rely too much on others. Tending the food truck involves not only selling a food product, but rather your service as well. It requires skills like negotiation, team work, work-ethic, out-of-the-box thinking, and communication, all of which is essential if one desires to become a successful entrepreneur. By whetting their appetite, we hope they can take their curiosity to the next level and strive to solve the problems of the society.”
Ventouris and Nodine, who have both sold their tech-startups in the recent past to Fortune 500 companies, are responsible for the technical side of the service which includes creating a decentralized supply chain management software using Blockchain technologies. Nodine adds, “We provide a transparent way to automate the entire logistics process so that the young kids don’t feel overwhelmed by the burden of different responsibilities. This way they can stick to sharpening their skills on the product and selling side, and if need be, they’re welcome to connect with us to learn how the supply side works in the real world. We also want everyone to have a fair shot at learning these critical skills, so we have mechanisms in place to ensure our vision successfully comes through. For instance, we allocate a maximum of 3 hours of booth time per day to allow for maximum efficiency. Who gets to tend at prime hours such as post-office hours is based on a voting system where candidates list their dishes or food items on our web portal and the entire residential block votes through a mobile app to decide what item they want at what hour. Voting is anonymous, and by food pics, so it eliminates any popularity bias.”
Inserillo and Callen control the marketing side of things and they argue that the diverse multicultural community of San Francisco improves their service even further. Inserillo says, “There are people from various religions, backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities here, and the one thing you know that guarantees is a whole lot of different cuisine options. What better than to have people cook authentic food that comes from a different place in the world altogether, right in your own backyard! It’s convenient, it’s with the people from your residential complex, and it’s giving a chance to the younger generation to pick up a few tricks. We are providing a chance for people to know and connect with their neighbors, and be more friendly, nicer, and more responsible towards each other.” Callen has a couple of stories to share from her time doing market research for the group’s new venture. “We got such a great reception for our project from parents, and teenagers. This one kid told me how he plans to use his dog’s charm and tricks to get extra tips from customers for the ‘cute factor’. We also came to know through social media that one of the kids who tends our food trucks makes beautiful art designs on rocks and stones, and he has started using a portion of the space on the counter to showcase his collections in order to make some extra pocket money to buy better art utilities. Our entire gang was thrilled, especially Christina and Emmanuel who have an avid interest in painting.”
Dinucci fulfills all accounting related roles for the group, and is known for his magnanimity. “It’s not just me, all of us take a grand total of zero dollars out of this service. Touch-wood we are all doing well financially so we don’t need to make this a revenue stream. It is our gift to the community for opening their hearts to us over the years. We wanted to treat Dino Cave as a 501 (c) 3 non profit but then there were some legal issues in the gray area and we decided to let it be. We managed a workaround to ensure that while we followed all rules and regulations, none of the youngsters learning through our service were burdened with legal issues or broke the law unknowingly.” Dinucci also revealed an interesting tidbit about their business’ name. “Dino Cave is sort of a mix of the first two letters of all of our last names put together. Dinnuci, Inserillo, Nodine, Callen, and Ventouris. We loved it because it also had a very kid-like vibe about it, which was necessary since we did not want to put off our target demographic by appearing to be too ‘formal.’ Kids learn best when they have fun and we wanted to keep that aspect to our service.”
Rajan Krishnamoorthy is a high school sophomore who has sold ethnic Indian food that his mother makes for a neat little profit through Dino Cave. “I’ve learnt a lot from just the three times that I’ve had the opportunity to use Dino Cave. The South Indian food you get here in restaurants is so commercialized and Americanized that it lacks the punch of authentic recipes from the motherland. So many people took my phone number to get in touch with me after eating my mother’s homemade masala dosa and idli. My mom is a housewife and it’s a common occurrence to see the work of housewives not get the appreciation it deserves. My mom was thrilled to hear the reviews and it really lifted her confidence. I’ve discussed it with her and we both think we make a good team. We plan on starting our very own mini food business as soon as I graduate high school!” It’s truly breathtaking to see the impact Dino Cave and their ‘humans’ are making in San Francisco. It indeed epitomizes the spirit of America, and long may it inspire others!
Source: Emmanuel Ventouris, Teresa Callen, Christina Inserillo, Frank Dinucci, and Wade Nodine
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