Local high schoolers launch Grindstone job pairing app

Grindstone, cofounded by Ajuria and Design Tech High School senior Aiden Appleby, is a high school hiring platform the builders hope will help companies find energetic young workers looking for new opportunities.

Additionally, Ajuria said he is optimistic the app will broaden the horizons for high schoolers looking to find their passion and potentially build a career, while also capitalizing on the sudden abundance of free time offered through remote learning requirements.

“I really do believe when you are a student, you have this time where you do not have a lot of responsibilities, you don’t have kids, you don’t have rent you have to pay for — it’s that time when you can experiment with things that you are passionate about,” he said.

In the few months the app has been live, Ajuria said Grindstone has effectively paired many of his friends and classmates with jobs. The initiative has been so successful in fact, that the Grindstone team recently moved from the bedrooms of its founders to a new WeWork space in the top floor of The Crossroads office buildings in San Mateo, overlooking the intersection of Highway 101 and State Route 92.

Over the year, the app has grown to 1,000 users and funding for growth is being collected from friends and family. But the early success has been enough for the founders to take a gap year after graduating from high school and focus on further expansion.

In the small office space housing a couple desks for computers and a couch, the Grindstone team of Ajuria, Appleby along with d.tech students engineer Sam Mendelson and communications specialist Samantha Campbell work to build the platform and expand its reach.

But it’s not all business all the time for the Grindstone team.

Because all involved are still in remote learning, the Grindstone office serves both as a startup space as well as a classroom where all the students can finish their school year.

“It’s a really interesting dynamic,” said Ajuria.

The arrangement is preferable for Ajuria, who has visited the Carlmont campus once students were allowed to return and found the in-person option underwhelming.

Because teachers are offering simultaneous instruction to those in the classroom and online, Ajuria said small groups of students behind plastic partitions are asked to watch lessons through Zoom while the instructor in the same classroom teaches into a screen for those at home.

“It’s been weird,” said Ajuria, admitting that the end of his junior and senior years were much different than he had hoped.

But in the search for a silver lining, he admitted that both the responsibility of running a company while also shaping his own education through remote learning has taught him responsibility and time management skills that would otherwise be difficult for a high schooler to master.

Appleby concurred, and credited the authority granted to students by d.tech for empowering his team to move the Grindstone vision forward.

“They are going to be as supportive as possible but they want you to pursue it, and that’s the biggest thing — just having that environment where if you want something you’ve got to go get it and you’ve got to pursue it. That’s been huge for me,” he said.

Applying that approach to his company, Appleby said the independence granted to d.tech students has been critical in getting Grindstone up and rolling.

“You can’t find a blueprint for or essay that says 'once you are done with this, do this.' So it’s that self-directed skill and that drive that you need," he said.

What's more, Appleby noted the students are building an app accommodating their peers, which gives them a competitive advantage in the work pairing space.

“The fact that we are students makes it all the more meaningful. And we understand the problem, so we can pursue it with a little bit of empathy,” he said.

austin@smdailyjournal.com