Today we’d like to introduce you to Krishna Chatpar.
Hi Krishna, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m originally from a small town called Burhar in India but grew up in Long Island, NY. My ties to Florida began when I was a young boy. I had been coming to Boca Raton, Florida since, I was young for vacation since my grandparents used to live here. I like to think that who I am today was formed by how I grew up. I was adopted from India when I was young to my parents here in the US, who are half Indian half French-Canadian. My Mom, who’s French-Canadian was an engineer and my dad, who’s Indian ran a telecommunications company in Long Island, NY. Growing up, I spent my summers working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in a plant genetics lab and building robots through my high school’s FIRST robotics team.
More importantly, I grew up in a household where cultures were mixing since my parents come from very different parts of the world, we mixed the French-Canadian and Indian cultures, especially with our food. For example, during Christmas time, we like to have an Indian meal while listening to Rigdon (Quebecois music)! I decided to go to the University at Buffalo, where I once again found myself mixing two very different domains and ended up studying computer science and biology. Throughout my college years, I kept up the research and ended up publishing two papers, one on CRISPR(gene editing) and one on diabetic retinopathy(blindness due to excessive sugar). After college, I decided to leave the United States for my first job and explore my French-Canadian roots. I was hired by the Montreal Neurological Institute to help advance their open science mission. Before heading to Montreal, I had connected, through a mutual friend, with Jose Manuel Perrone, who was at the time looking for support on adding a genetics infrastructure to an incentivized health platform he was building, and while I was in Montreal, we continued working together.
After a pivotal moment, I decided to return to Florida to unite with Jose and officially become co-founders of Cura Market. As we were building the incentivized health platform, we learned that people were most excited about the food portion of our app and loved the feeling of having a personal chef without actually needing to commit to one. We then set out to find more chefs to list on the app, and we came across an entire group of sellers using Instagram to sell food. After speaking and working more with chefs, we learned they were all struggling in managing their business and had a few key pain points we could clearly help solve. We also realized they helped solve our problem of helping make quality and nutritious food easily available to our friends and family. We then decided to build a marketplace to serve both our seller’s and our buyer’s needs which you can find at gocura.co.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
No, it hasn’t been easy. Growing up my father suffered from a heart attack while building his company and that’s when I realized that life is short so we must take advantage of every moment. Thankfully he learned that he could wean himself off his medication by changing his diet. Both Jose and I’s father’s health issues are inspirations to building Cura. Building Cura hasn’t been an easy journey. Everyday we face new challenges, and I’m eternally grateful to everyone who has helped Cura get to where it is today.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m the Co-Founder and COO of Cura Market we are an online marketplace where buyers and sellers can buy and sell food made by local artisanal brands. We like to say we are an “Etsy for food.” We provide a meaningful space for chefs, restaurateurs, and other food creators to turn their creative passions into opportunities. We enable buyers to discover unique food made with care. We treat our community with respect and support its local sellers because we believe it makes the world a better place.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Great question. I personally believe that I wouldn’t be here without the mentors in my life! Before seeking out a mentor, I like to ask them for advice. I generally like to ask people for advice through email and I follow a few steps before asking for advice. The first step is to research the person and their work as much as you can, meaning listen to their past interviews, read their articles, and even their Twitter. The second step is to write down a few questions about them or their experience which you can’t find the answers to about their work or them and don’t be afraid to ask really tough questions. Step three is to write a good concise email. David Tisch of the Box Group has a great video on communication and personalized emails to get a response. You can find his video here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBadd-61g2I&t=629 Last piece of advice is a quote I love by Wayne Gretzky “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” that being said, don’t be afraid to email people who you think are out of your reach you never know who will respond to you!
Contact Info:
- Email: krishna@curalongevity.com
- Website: gocura.co
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/curamarket/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoCuraMarket
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lifeofkchops
