David Cabello didn’t win “most likely to succeed” in high school but it doesn’t matter now. Cabello is the Founder of Black and Mobile, a delivery service catering to Black owned restaurants. The company is attracting a great deal of attention of late, with profiles from BET and various other outlets. It started out with a simple question: why couldn’t he work for his own community?

David was kicked out of several schools as a kid. He was kicked out of the 6th grade. He had the interesting distinction of getting kicked out of two schools in just one year, in fact. He was ultimately expelled from the entire district. He didn’t believe he was smart or cut out for school. A confluence of circumstances gradually turned him around. His grandmother came to his school crying one day, grieved by his performance. David’s father had been in jail all of his life and his grandmother saw a similar fate for him. He also woke up to find that he was in the same grade with his brother, who was two years younger. He had to make a change.

David entered a College Connection program that helped him apply to and gain admission into college. In his sophomore year, however, he dropped out after Trump was elected. David began working at a fledgling Black owned bookstore. David helped to turn the store around and in the meantime, taught himself ecommerce on Shopify. He was also working as a delivery person for other delivery services for several months. He was pretty good at that, too. In fact, in one 40 hour period he managed to make well over $1,000 and that’s when the light went off — he wanted to bring that service to the community.

Throughout 2018 David committed himself to research and developing a website. He was moving towards a launch but had a setback — an ankle injury put him on the shelf for 50 days. As soon as he recovered, however, he launch in February of 2019. It was tough at first — not many business owners were interested. David’s fate shifted when one popular restaurant in Philly — Country Cookin — gave him a shot. Since that time, business has been much easier. Black and Mobile is on the verge of hiring 30-50 people in the next few weeks and is preparing to crowdfund $100,000 to help expand to other markets. They will also be participating in the “Pitch Black” competition at this year’s We Buy Black Convention, August 23-25.