Students waiting to get on the Caboose back in the fall.
Photo: Serena Dai
MyCat Enterprise’s bus to the Deuce officially stopped running. Alessio Manti says he was just ready to move on, but according to former employees, that’s not the whole story. From deteriorated student relations to internal conflict, former MyCat execs tell all about the problems with MyCat.
For the past year, the Deuce Caboose offered Northwestern students a cheap alternative to cab rides to the Mark II Lounge, the bar on the Chicago-Evanston border fondly called the Deuce. On May 11, Alessio Manti—this year’s runner-up for ASG’s presidency, and the owner of MyCat Enterprises, the company that operates the service—wrote the Caboose Facebook group to inform ‘Boosers (as he calls the service’s patrons) of MyCat’s intentions to “shutter the doors” of the transportation service.
The news contrasts starkly with a prophetic statement made by Kelsey Kenady, a vice president at MyCat, in an article we ran at the beginning of winter quarter on the company’s planned expansion: “Over the course of a year, who knows what can happen,” she says, then laughs. “Though I’m pretty sure the Deuce Caboose will stay around for a while.”
Manti paints a pretty picture, saying he and his coworkers were ready to move on. But other students formerly affiliated with MyCat say it’s no surprise the transportation service closed. A lack of business experience or focus and a varying monetary situation may have been the Caboose’s real downfall.
The Caboose was the group’s first venture. Recalling the company’s infancy, Manti says that the founders knew there was no easy, affordable way to get to the Keg or Deuce. The idea of providing a weekly shuttle seemed simple—almost too good to be true.
“It was one of those times when you think, ‘Why hasn’t someone thought of this before?’” Manti says.
A person with close ties to MyCat, Weinberg sophomore “Alex” (she asked to be anonymous for the article*), recalls the beginning of MyCat fondly. “I got so excited about it,” she says. She thought the Caboose was a great idea. “There was so much creativity and excitement and energy.”
The popularity of the Caboose’s first Thursday last April cemented the plausibility of continuing to offer the service. From there, it ran every Thursday for the remainder of spring quarter.
Sam describes the leadership in the company, specifically Manti, as charismatic and enthusiastic. “But those are just words,” she says. “It’s not really backed by anything.”
Fast forward three months to the start of fall quarter this year, and the once promising company started to show signs of problems and conflicts—both internal and with patrons. Students complained that the Caboose did not run as regularly as it did before. But when asked, Manti says he can only recall three or four times in the past year when the weekly shuttle service was not offered, excluding the weeks of his campaign for ASG president.
As for internal problems, Alex says MyCat—not just the Caboose—saw a large number of its managers leave in November 2009, some for personal reasons, others because they didn’t see the company as a workable venture anymore. Another former MyCat employee—we’ll call her “Sam” for the purposes of this article—was one of those managers. Sam, a Weinberg senior, says she left at the end of fall quarter after realizing the company was falling apart and her specific branch was making no progress.
Former employees say the company had a lack of focus, and tasks were executed poorly due to a lack of leadership. Sam describes the leadership in the company, specifically Manti, as charismatic and enthusiastic. “But those are just words,” she says. “It’s not really backed by anything.” For instance, Manti had assured her that she she’d be compensated for her work. After working on the new branch of MyCat for a month and half, she didn’t get anything. But in our conversation, it wasn’t that Sam sounded bitter—she sounded amazed that this was allowed to happen at all.
Weinberg sophomore “Taylor,” another former MyCat employee who worked specifically with the Deuce Caboose during fall quarter but asked to remain anonymous in regards to this article, agrees about the lack of solid leadership. She also describes Alessio as passionate and enthusiastic, but said he struggled to deliver bad news and would instead focus mainly on the positive aspects of the company. So after a night with the Caboose, instead of discussing how much profit was made, Alessio would focus on the hundreds of dollars in revenue, Taylor says. But oftentimes, when the costs of the bus were subtracted, the profit wasn’t as high. “The number starts to get small,” she says. “I think people weren’t fully aware of what the costs were.”
“Sometimes we’d lose money, sometimes we’d make money,” Alex says of the Caboose. “It really varied week to week.”
Even with good intentions, a company can’t run without a clear business model or any real business experience, which Alex says the company lacked. Aside from Sam, the company was run mostly by freshmen and sophomores. So how did it manage to survive at all? Alex says things were always “a little shaky.”
Taylor chalks it up to MyCat’s overall lack of focus. It was different than other student groups on campus because the initial mission was to service Northwestern students rather than to amass a large profit. But the altruistic goals became blurred when it tried to expand, Taylor says. “In order to expand you need money, which means you have to profit, which means you have to focus on profit,” she says with a sigh. “Our direction wasn’t so clear cut, and that’s part of what led to things not working out.”
And in the end, the former employees say the Caboose just wasn’t making that much money. Taylor, who dealt directly with the venture’s finances in the fall, describes the numbers as “bleak” and the business as “barely profitable.”
Other former employees shared similar views. “Sometimes we’d lose money, sometimes we’d make money,” Alex says. “It really varied week to week.”
Manti disagrees, saying the company was profitable. He describes the amount of money being made last year as “a crap ton.” (He does lament, however, that the company was lucky to still be making money this year.) The person who’s actually losing money is Manti—he provided all the start-up capital for the company. Kelsey Kenady told us in the winter that “Alessio’s taking the most financial risk. He has the biggest financial stake in the company because most of our base money has come from him.” Rather, Manti got the money from people who are “not expecting to get paid back for awhile.” Manti wouldn’t give out the specific amount he (or his mysterious financiers) put up for MyCat. All he would say was “I’ll say we have enough capital to do what we want.”
In spite of the personal investment, Manti says money wasn’t the reason he and his coworkers at MyCat decided to close the Deuce Caboose. “For me, honestly it came down to the fact that emotionally I was ready to move on,” Manti says. Additionally, Manti says there was no clear choice of who to pass the business onto. The hours of the Caboose operation, 11 p.m.-3 a.m. every Thursday, made it difficult for Manti to get regular assistance from anyone outside the executive board. Still, in the Facebook message, Manti mentioned leaving the group open for anyone who wants to revive the Caboose. Even after the closing of the Deuce Caboose, arguably MyCat’s flagship enterprise, Manti says the company will continue to exist, but he doesn’t know what new ventures they will pursue. With the year coming to a close, he says the executive board will work on ideas over the summer and begin to try and implement them during fall quarter.
Walking seems like an affordable way to get to the Keg.
this is a weak article. i’m curious to know more of alessio’s perspective instead of the gossipy weinberg sophomore girls.
alessio, stop commenting on articles.
haha i’m not alessio, though i’d love to hear his side of the story. i’m just a freshman who is frustrated with how articles like this pin people unfairly