Meet Luis Gonzalez

Today we’d like to introduce you to Luis Gonzalez.

Hi Luis, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve always wanted to create something that provides meaningful value to the food truck industry and taqueros. I grew up eating at those places. It was during a time where street food vendors weren’t allowed to sell food, so I vividly remember seeing police officers dump their food in trash cans. I’m glad that today I’m able to give a little back to them. The idea has been in the back of my head for a while but given that I don’t have any coding knowledge, jumpstarting it was one of the most difficult challenges. I found a way to have it live on a website as a web app and so I did that meanwhile, I used the web app as a demo to showcase to developers and accelerators that would be interested in helping me out. One said yes, and so the story begins.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Many difficult tasks to overcome. One being the fact that I have no coding knowledge to start an app. Also, with full reason many food truck owners and taqueros have a lot of skepticism when it comes to tech and people approaching their business, so I’m taking it upon myself to build close relationships with each and everyone to make the process as educational and easy as possible. I knew that this would be a big step coming in and I know it’ll be one of the bigger hurdles to overcome.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I started my creative career as a young kid in public school as a graffiti artist trying to make a name for himself. The art school teacher at that school knew I was the one that was tagging around the neighborhood and she told me since promotion was my thing, I should get into advertising. It was then that I discovered a career I never even knew existed. I pursued it by attending a portfolio school: Miami Ad School, and got to where I’m at today. Throughout my career, I’ve always created side hustles and businesses that combine my hobbies with my creative passion, but wasn’t until Antojo that I ran into an idea in which I told myself “This is the one.”

We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
Yes, COVID accelerated greatly the production of Antojo. Food trucks and other street food vendors were especially hit pretty hard. Speaking with all these small business owners gave me solid insights as to what are truly some of their necessities when developing this idea.

Contact Info:

• Email: Hello@antojo.co
• Website: Antojo.co
• Instagram: @antojoapp