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The Exit - Presented By Flippa

The Hustler’s Playbook: Peter Korbel’s Journey from Food Trucks to a Tech Acquisition

The Exit - Presented By Flippa

The Exit - Presented By Flippa

Technology

5.0420 Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

-- Want a quick estimate of how much your business is worth? With our free valuation calculator, answer a few questions about your business, and you’ll get an immediate estimate of the value of your business. You might be surprised by how much you can get for it: https://flippa.com/exit -- In this episode of The Exit, serial entrepreneur Peter Korbel shares how a decade of reinvention, from running a colorful D.C. food truck to founding a Manhattan coworking space, ultimately led him to build and sell StoreMe, an on-demand luggage storage startup acquired by London-based Stasher. Peter reveals how StoreMe began with a simple frustration: nowhere to drop off his gym bag or Airbnb guests’ luggage. Armed with hustle and $500K in seed funding, he personally signed up 100 stores on foot, grew to over 600 partner locations across the U.S., and turned a profit within a year. But when COVID-19 hit, travel stopped overnight. Rather than quit, Peter rebuilt, and positioned StoreMe for acquisition by a competitor he’d nurtured a relationship with for years. His exit story blends sharp business instincts with deep personal reflection, including the loss of his father and the importance of staying organized, transparent, and resilient. Today, Peter channels those lessons into 135 Madison, his consulting firm helping founders raise capital, and his new Substack, Startup Anatomy. His advice: “It’s all a hustle. Every lesson compounds if you just keep going.” -- Peter Korbel is a seasoned business consultant and tech founder with over 15 years of startup experience, known for turning bold ideas into thriving ventures. With one successful exit to his name, he’s launched and led companies including Washington D.C.’s first food-truck operation, one of the world’s earliest on-demand luggage storage platforms, and Blender Workspace, a high-end co-working hub for entrepreneurs in New York City. A Columbia University graduate with an MBA from The George Washington University, Peter now advises founders and investors across Manhattan and the Bay Area, blending sharp strategy, creative execution, and an unmatched entrepreneurial network. Website - https://www.135madison.com/ -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Before we get into the exit today, I want to talk about the certified M&A advisors that are on

0:05.7

Flippa. If you are an operator right now running a business and you're thinking about exiting,

0:10.8

you are going to want to get a free online business valuation on the exit landing page.

0:16.7

Without a doubt, it is the smartest thing you can do to start a process and get yourself organized.

0:23.0

So you're going to go to the URL, flippa.com, slash exit, to check out more, and let's jump into

0:28.1

the interview.

0:29.3

Below and welcome to the exit presented by Flipup, the number one platform to buy and sell online

0:34.2

businesses.

0:35.2

Flipa manages over a billion in deal value annually and combines

0:39.4

expert buy and sell side advisory with its market leading valuation tool, deal room,

0:43.9

off market offering, market insights, an AI-based deal-by-deal matching engine. Now for the exit.

0:50.9

The exit is a 30-minute podcast featuring awesome entrepreneurs who have been there and they

0:54.8

have done it. The exit talks to operators who have bought and sold businesses of all different sizes.

1:00.3

You learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits. It's a world

1:05.1

occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. On this episode of the exit, I sit down with

1:10.3

Peter Corbell.

1:11.6

He's a fantastic entrepreneur that's doing a lot of consulting

1:14.9

with startups of all kinds now.

1:18.2

And my favorite part of this conversation is when we unpack his whole journey through Stormy.

1:25.8

This is a business that effectively allowed people to store their

1:29.4

luggage in shops that were in New York City. And the story of this is really fantastic, where it

1:36.6

solves a clear pain point, people that are traveling, they have luggage, they want to enjoy the

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