Meet Jonathan Swindell | Founder of The HBCU HUB App

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

Hi Jonathan, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I am from Los Angeles, California and when leaving high school, I had a D1 scholarship to play football at Tulsa University. As fate would have it, I ended up blowing my knee before my season as a senior. That led to me going to Grambling State University, and once there I learned about what an HBCU actually is, and how much they have meant to our culture.

Vice President Kamla Harris, Dr.Martin Luther King Jr., and even the iconic Oprah Winfrey are all products of an HBCU. But it is a hassle to connect with these subset of colleges, furthermore, it’s even harder to gain high-quality information on them as well.

While working for IBM a group of us realized we had to create a solution to this problem. Thus the HBCU HUB App was born out of a Grambling State University dorm room. We are the world’s first app to connect students to admissions recruiters at HBCUs!

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Starting in the dorm room of Grambling State University, we are now ranked the #92 educational app in the world. That’s #92 out of 75,000!

Our app is completely free because our mission is simple, “Build technology that closes the opportunity gap”.

Building a business out of your dorm room is not easy at all. But the journey has been fun, as the group of team members we have is passionate about helping each coming generation! We overcome some of our struggles with being coachable, we make it a point to be able to receive proper feedback from those who have walked the path before us.

The biggest lesson we’ve learned along the way is to have faith and trust the long game. We are doing work that is bigger than us and it’s a pride we take in that. You can’t lose sight of your end goal in the middle of the storm. No matter the ups or downs at the end of the day we are a group of current and former HBCU students, looking to help students into HBCUs.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If a friend of mine was coming to Los Angeles it was going something like this:

Morning hike at Runyon Canyon

Breakfast at Roscoes Chicken

Trip to Malibu to visit a private beach

Visit Leimert Park on the weekends for their vendor pop-ups

It’s a must we go to a Long Beach Sesh festival

Plus you can’t visit LA without going to the Santa Monica Pier

Lastly, we’d get THE BEST chicken in LA – “C’s Hot Stuff”, they are located in Gardena and it’s my go-to, for good food and good portions!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The strong team members of this company are Jeff Wiafe, Jena Brown, Dr. Angela N. Mauldin, Jessica Brown, James Gilmer, Yimara McCartney-Ross, Antoinette Anderson, Breahna Sutton, Cameron McGlothen, Dr.Darrius Brooks, Keith Shannon and Jonathan Swindell.

Website: hbcuhub.us

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hbcuhub/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hbcu-hub/

Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/hbcuhub

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAIiZi-c-79O_QK8CybIgJw