Today we’d like to introduce you to Mario L Castellanos
Hi Mario, 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 a native Floridian with life long business experience. I “founded” my first business at 5. I would go out, hustle lawn jobs, then get my dad to cut them because I was too small. Sort of child abuse – in reverse. Since then, I’ve risen the corporate ladder, been a multiple business founder, co-founder, advisor, and turn-around specialist for several start-up and legacy enterprise and non-profit organizations within dynamic technology and non-tech sectors. I’m also Founder & CEO of Mystery on Main Street, a start-up, B2B2C mobile game application on a mission to bring business back to local brick and mortar “mom ‘n pops” so they can keep their doors open and put food on their tables and their employees too. My formal education includes Industrial Technology and Criminology at Florida International University, and Miami-Dade Community College, respectively. On a more personal note, whatever I do, I do for my family. They are my reason.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I wasn’t born into privilege. My dad and mom were immigrants from Cuba who found jobs at factories, thus we encountered the financial struggles that typically comes with that but our family did the best we could with what we had. This also caused us to move a few times. We were never very religious and didn’t belong to any clubs. You combine all this, and I didn’t have that “social fabric” as society terms it now to rely on in the future.
My formal education came from a community college and a State university, all paid by me with help from my parents when they could. Because I wasn’t accustomed to that social coalition element, fraternities were not something I placed any interest in.
When I entered the adult career world, I already had a few jobs on my personal résumé. You would think that’s a huge advantage but in actuality, it created an opposite effect. Just as it is now, many employers sought out the college neophyte who knew little of the “real” world and could be molded. That wasn’t me. This essentially reduced the employment pool to whatever I could get. That on way too many occasions my experience allowed me to comprehend and quickly solve issues that had been plaguing my new employer, did not endear me to my direct supervisors, particularly if their supervisors took note. I suppose that still holds true to day in many operations.
Promotions to a higher position also hit walls. Unlike today’s environment of openly seeking diversity, companies of yesteryear routinely passed over the Sanchez’s, Garcia’s and Castellanos’, for Smith’s, Johnson’s, and Williams’. Ironically during that same period of time, a fellow named Roberto Goizueta, of Cuban heritage was in the process of exponentially increasing the value of then and now, one of the most well-known brands on the planet, Coca-Cola, as Chairman and CEO. I don’t recall any other Fortune 500 company that at the time, was headed by the typical white Anglo-saxon male.
All this led me to go back to working on my own and bootstrapping my own companies. Some have turned out well. Some not so much. Now that I’m older and arguably wiser, the age factor comes in. “Diversity in the workplace” seems to still be grappling with that.
So, have I encountered some obstacles and challenges? Yes, I have. Quite a few. I understand there are many who can say mine have been nothing compared to theirs. I admire those. The ones who still have not overcome medical and health related barriers but continue on. The ones who experience financial hardship as a way of life but somehow, overcome the odds. Those that have come from broken homes or no home at all and instead, use that misfortune as a form of strength to excel. I’ve encountered all those in my life. They are ones I rely on. they are the that get things done. When I’m asked who in the business world do I admire most? It’s all these nameless ones.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Mystery on Main Street?
Local small business, the kind every community has, are tired of seeing their sales slip to Amazon, eBay, and every other e-commerce site. They see “Going Out of Business” signs and mass retailers heading to bankruptcy, the effects of pandemics, and are just plain feeling the squeeze. Compounding these external challenges are their relevant internal challenges – a lack of time and resources created by an incessant work environment to properly market and advertise their business. They rely on word-of-mouth and limited promotional methods that cannot and do not provide equitable data necessary to determine if these routines are proving valuable. Their revenue is a product of these efforts, producing a “Catch-22” – a problematic situation created by the solution. We can help change that, making it fun and exciting and sustaining local communities in the process. In other words, we want to keep the doors open and help put food on the table of every “mom and pop”, and their employees everywhere.
Mystery on Main Street is creating a unique interactive, big data marketing and advertising mobile application platform utilizing several technologies including AI (artificial intelligence), AR (augmented reality) and gamification to promote patronization of local B2C walk-in traffic “mom ‘n pops” and events. Each “gameplay” uses “whodunit” storylines written by one of our local and many times, award winning writers to take players into locations they’ve chosen to receive clues and solve a mystery. Players must enter these locations with no interaction with location personnel and employees required. Our data uncovers the all-important “ghost shoppers” (the “just looking” crowd) while players and participating merchants mutually gain with no membership or subscription required. The first player to solve the mystery receives a valuable prize. Think of this as Groupon meets scavenger hunt and Pokémon Go.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
This is a tough.
I was born and raised in Miami. About the time I was 11 or so, a friend of my dad got him a job in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Unlike our previous moves which were just to another city or part of the county, this one was way north… to another State… where they had snow… and we were moving in the dead of winter! I recall shortly after arriving, pulling my trusty bike out of the U-Haul trailer and yelling to my parents, I was off on a mission to discover.
As I rode around our new neighborhood, I came a upon a hill. Actually, it was a highly inclined street but for this Miami boy who was accustomed to slightly above sea level flatlands with the only semblance of a hill was the on-ramp to the expressway, this was a wahoo moment! That it was covered by this marvelous deep foam of white, topped by a slippery, shinny glaze of grayish glass made it all the better. As I quickly peddled down the hill, increasing speed to what surely must have been beyond mach 1, I slowly began to see the makings of – a traffic light – with its bright red beam looking back at me. Naturally, I braked. It was at that moment I discovered, ice has little respect for brakes. And so I continued my path as I quickly approached that intersection, the one with green lights on left and right sides of the traffic signal, reaching mach 2. In those few moments, I reflected on my life. These 11 years had surely been good to me. Loving parents, a great older sister I could always rely on, and I would leave it all now, because I was about to die.
I didn’t close my eyes. I rapidly looked to my left and right, as I crossed the intersection which to my very pleasant surprise, bared no oncoming traffic. What I didn’t see was the concrete border that typically frames a street along the side. I hit it with jarring force. As I flipped my bike and flew through the air to land in the deep snow covered grass of the public park that abutted the street, it was then I realized – I was the incarnation of a cat, and lucky for me, I had five more left. I had just used up two more lives. The first two are other stories.
Pricing:
- Once we’re in revenue phase, gameplays per business location is UD$100.00.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mysteryonmainstreet.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mysteryonmainstreet/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ILikeAMystery
- Twitter: https://x.com/MysteryonMainS
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MysteryonMainStreet
- Other: https://www.alignable.com/heathrow-fl/mystery-on-main-street
