Why Nihan Lobo Huerta’s mission to protect community ties is reshaping how we think about housing.
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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Adam Torres interviews student entrepreneur Nihan Lobo Huerta, who pitched her innovative housing app, HAFE (Housing Accessible For Everyone), during a competition at Grant Cardone’s headquarters. Drawing from community stories and personal passion for public service, Nihan’s mission is to help marginalized families stay close to their roots by improving housing access.
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Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I’m at Grant Cardone headquarters in Florida. Let me tell you, I just got done watching a pitch competition.
It was absolutely amazing, and my next guest was part of it. So Nihan, welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you for having me. All right, so neon, how are you feeling being part of the competition, being part of all this? Like, like talk to me. Honestly, I feel like the entire time I was so nervous. Like, even though I didn’t become like one of the top like finalists mm-hmm.
Or being able to win, I was so nervous the entire time. But I feel really grateful for it because I feel like I’ve learned so much. Mm. Like this, like today, on the final day, I was able to pitch for one minute. Mm-hmm. And I’ve like grown so much because in the beginning, beforehand I was stuttering so much, but like on this day I didn’t stutter.
Like I only sat her like once. Mm. So I, I feel like I really encourage people to do pitching. That’s amazing. And so what are some of the other, some of the things you learned in the process in general, just along the way? I think one thing I’ve learned is like, well, you have just, you just keep on going.
Mm-hmm. I feel like sometimes when people like get nervous, they just pause. Mm-hmm. But I just kept on going, like, you have to keep the ball rolling. Yeah. I think also like one advice I’ve learned, like. I, we had so many people, like successful businessmen, like talk to us and women as well. Mm-hmm. And one like that really stuck out to me.
I don’t think they said in Cordone, I believe it was during our visit to Chanel, where they said, your first, no. Whatever, just forget about it. Just keep on going. Just there is no, no. Yeah. Unless you make it a no. Yeah. I, I like that. And, um, I want you to spend a little bit of time as well talking about your business, so your business and your concept.
Yeah. So basically I was creating Hafe. Mm-hmm. Which stands for house accessible for everyone. Mm-hmm. And essentially I would make an app. Where users would be able to find like a house that’s within their community because gentrification holds a lot of like ground. Mm-hmm. A lot of people are being displaced.
Children are being not being able to continue with their education. Mm-hmm. Because they’re constantly being able to move. Yeah. Having to move. And cultures are also being lost. So last year I did an like internship with an assembly member. Mm-hmm. And that is where I was able to learn so many of these concerns were actually happening in my own community.
Yeah. Like I saw so many people like turn telling me like a lot of like. Older generation, but they were telling me these concerns that they were trying to like find a home, but they couldn’t even from the lottery system. Mm-hmm. Even though they lived there for 40 years. Yeah. Or even like 50 years, like way older than my parents.
They weren’t like the first priority. It’s often people who just came from like different states and it is good to have like new cultures from like Georgia or Albany. It doesn’t really matter. Mm-hmm. But we should also like take part of like the people who are residing within our community. Mm-hmm. So that is why I created the app.
I wanted to make people who are within the community find tenants close to them. Yeah. Especially for people who are marginalized, communities who really need that support. Mm-hmm. People who really could really use that. Especially like public housing. Yeah. So tell, talk to me about what it was like to work with the, uh, grant Cardone Foundation.
How was that? It was really fun. I thought, I mean, we had like the morning, like in the morning and they were like all singing and dancing. It was crazy. But I actually really like that. Mm-hmm. Because I feel like I’m like someone who like wants to like think ahead. Mm-hmm. And I know for someone like in like business, I wanna be like in a job where everyone is just happy with each other.
Yeah. Like not really much drama. So just them like clapping and being like success. Yeah. Like it is good. I feel like, yeah, they said like they hold each other accountable and that’s something I really want too. Mm. I wanna hold people accountable. Especially for like myself individually. Right. Not like others.
That sounds kind of bad. Yeah. But no. Yeah. I really wanna hold myself accountable and like keep on progressing. Mm-hmm. Because that’s what like a Field Cardone is. It’s telling you to keep on progressing. Like just ’cause you did this amount of sales. You can do triple there like the next day. Yeah. You are 10 x like behind us.
Come on 10. There you go. Gotta throw up the 10 x. Um, talk about the accelerator too. You were part of an accelerator. Uh, sorry, what? You mean the accelerator that you were part of? Like the program? Yeah. Oh, GSU. Yeah. So it’s a girls startup business mm-hmm. Program. And that’s where we like. It was started in May, but the interview process was pretty intensive, I would say.
But essentially afterwards you get all the like nerves and like interview process. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get to like pitch your own like business plan to like A BMO capital. Mm-hmm. And then that’s how we decided like to factor like the top 20 and all that. Mm-hmm. It was really fun. I honestly. Throughout my entire life, I feel like since I was in third grade, I’ve been focused on political science.
Mm-hmm. So it’s go going into international, um, relations and poly science was, those two majors were something I was gonna do. Yeah. Essentially. But I wanted to take a, like a dive and just take like business. Mm-hmm. Because my brother’s doing business and I thought that I wanted to see like how much isn’t.
Mm-hmm. And just wanted to try it out. So I took this program and it was such like life changing. Yeah. Because even though I didn’t win today, I feel like in a way I did win because I’m not gonna like stop here. I’m gonna keep on going. Mm. That’s where I’m like doing the pitch. Like even though I didn’t win.
I’ll sign up like to my local, like cities or just continuing pitching because I think business is something I really wanna pursue and continue. Mm, love it. Nihan, last thing I want you to do, look into the camera. How can people follow you? How can they connect? How can they learn more? Hi. So you can follow my LinkedIn.
It’s capital N-I-H-A-N, and then space LOBO, which should be my last name. Mm-hmm. But if not, I’m gonna do my email, which is also. Ni, N-I-H-A-N-L-O-B-O 20, [email protected]. Mm-hmm. And you say like, Nija Lovo, that’s like, if anyone’s like, curious. But yeah. Um, I hope in the future we can really make hafe like an accessible, um, platform.
Mm-hmm. But I think for right now, we’re just gonna like, take a step back and make it a lot more smaller. So if you are like really curious and wanna be part of the team, please feel free forward. Uh, feel free to contact me. Amazing. And, uh, for everybody at home, just so you know, we’ll definitely put some links in the show notes so you can just click on it and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully. New inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Nihan, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having me.
