Meet Joshua Macalinao | Designer & Entrepreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joshua Macalinao and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joshua, how did you come up with the idea for your business?
Take a journey with me through time and space. The year is 2011. The place is Miami, Florida. This was the summer I graduated high school. I had just been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called psoriasis, a skin disease marked by red, itchy, scaly patches. At that point the disease posed very little concern to my teenage mind. I was told by my doctor that the disease was incurable and was genetic. I decided to ignore its effect on me until it was too late. After 18 months 50% of the skin on my legs, arms, and torso was covered in red, itchy, scaly patches. I had spent my first year in college, stressed out, eating junk food, binge drinking, and sleeping late nights with very little exercise in between. These habits exacerbated my psoriasis and by 2015 70% of my skin was covered in red, itchy, scaly patches. The pain was unbearable. I made a decision to not use any pharmaceutical intervention because I didn’t have health insurance at the time, and I feared the cost would take too large of a financial burden on me and my family. Due to that constraint I realized I had to get creative. I began researching what I could do to naturally heal my self from within without the aid of pharmaceuticals. I soon learned that we can control about 5% of what happens to us based on our daily habits, the rest of the 95% is left to fate. So I focused in on that 5% that I could control which involved transforming my lifestyle and habits. I learned that there’s 3 key pillars of health that I have the power to control through sheer will and discipline:

1. Sleep.

2. Diet.

3. Exercise.

I can’t control my own genetics but I sure can control the quality and quantity of my sleep, what I put in my mouth, and how often I exercise. This is called “stacking the conditions in your favor” to help optimize your bodies natural healing mechanism. I didn’t cure my disease this way but I primed my body to be as healthy as possible so when I finally decided to use pharmaceuticals I was able to attain a semblance of normalcy at break neck speed.

With my new found habits I began to change my life for the better. I began to get better quality sleep, which cut down cravings for sugars and carbs. I began to eat fresh nutritious food like protein and leafy green vegetables on a daily basis, which kept me satiated with appropriate portions. I began to exercise on my free time, which helped me get better sleep. These habits created a virtuous cycle that helped me reach a point were I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Soon I developed the habit of shopping at my local Publix supermarket to buy leafy greens for my green smoothies every week. One day I was standing at the produce aisle and I looked at the back of the package of my leafy greens and realized that what I’ve been eating had been shipped thousands of miles away from California all the way to Miami, Florida! This astounded me, I thought to myself, “why am I eating vegetables from another state that traveled across the country, when I live in Florida!” I learned that the nutrient content of fruits and vegetables degrades the longer it stays in cold-storage. By the time I would get the leafy greens for my smoothies the nutrient content was at a fraction of what it was when it was freshly picked. On top of that the lack of transparency in my food supply chain began to bother me. I had no idea how many people handled my food before it got to my hands! Most people don’t even think about this but dozens of people handle our food before it reaches our plates. I lived in an apartment building down the street from that supermarket, that night I was sitting on my balcony and noticed an empty lot next to my apartment. As I peered over my balcony at the site, “I thought to myself that would be the perfect spot for a local community farm.” I called up my best friend that night and we decided to build a local farm!

But, after 6-months of growing local microgreens in my best friend’s garage we had to shut down our operation, and he decided to leave the company. I began doing more research during this time period and realized that there were many urban farms starting up in cities all over the world, and around my city. This insight was the seed of the idea to build an online marketplace for locally grown food and local farms.

Like many during the first COVID-19 lockdown I had a lot of spare time on my schedule. So, I built a product called FarmFinder which is a simple online directory that allows you to enter a zip code and the nearest local farm’s contact info will pop up on a Google map including the farms address, email, phone number, and even a website if they have one. After a couple months of onboarding users and gaining a little bit of traction I started talking to some of our users and one user named Gina said that she had a personal problem that she was trying to solve. Her husband was over 50 and her son was epileptic, and she was a low-income earner on food stamps but had to shop at Whole Foods because of the high quality nutritious food that they had. I discovered this could be a huge gap in the market that I could help serve. So, recently I partnered with a third-party logistics provider called Otter that uses on-demand delivery apps like DoorDash, UberEats, Postmates, and GrubHub to offer last-mile delivery for customers like Gina!

What should our readers know about your business?
I started this company because I was trying to solve a personal problem, I wanted to eat the freshest most nutrient rich food possible, and be more connected to the people growing my food while reducing my impact on the planet. So with that in mind I was driven to build a team and business around this passion for food and sustainability. I formed Nabu Market Inc. But, founding a team is much easier said then done.

One of the key insights that I realized was that I had to work alone for the initial startup phase of this business. I attempted twice to form a founding team of 3 people with no avail. The people that left the company were not intrinsically motivated to work on this startup idea therefore they didn’t execute any tasks.

I found it much easier to hire or strategically partner with those who are highly aligned with the vision for nabumarket.com. I decided to focus more obsessively on my users and customers needs and pain points. So, today we have two pickup and delivery locations in Miami available on DoorDash, UberEats, Postmates, and GrubHub. I’m constantly working on increasing our delivery radius and selection of products for customers. I was also able to build an online Google map directory called FarmFinder with over 100 local farms and growing! Nabu Market’s mission is to democratize locally grown food for the city of tomorrow, but since it’s inception I have expanded our selection of products on our marketplace to include not just local food but even imported organic and artisanal products like rare fresh truffles and truffle products from Bologna, Italy.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I like to dedicate this shoutout to my mother, Cristina Mitchell, who raised me as a single mother and whose love for the culinary arts instilled in me a passion for food that I want to share with my family, friends, and community at large. Despite all the ups and downs of life, I personally feel my mom was able to actualize the “American Dream” for me.

Website: nabumarket.com

Instagram: nabumarket

Image Credits
First and second image: Vanessa and Javier