Jana Younggren knows finding handicap accessible hotels is a problem because she’s been living it for seven years.

“The hotel can tell you, ‘Oh yeah we’re handicap accessible,'” Jana said. “But just because they put a bar by the toilet doesn’t mean it’s what you need.”

Like her mother before her, Jana has multiple sclerosis (MS). The debilitating disease put her in a wheelchair, but it hasn’t dampened her desire to travel. It has, however, made finding handicap accessible hotel rooms a painstaking process, she said.

Popular travel websites like Travelocity or Hotels.com don’t make it easy to find handicap-friendly rooms, Jana said. She and her husband Loren usually spend hours making phone calls, and even then they’re not sure the room will work.

“If you don’t get a handicap room, you can’t shower. You have to plan around getting in an out of the hotel,” she said. “It makes life different.”

Seven years of frustration lead to Jana thinking of some solutions.

“In this day and age… there should be an app for this,'” she said. “I want to push a button and see what hotels would welcome me. Because I can’t just pull up to a hotel and expect to get a room.”

From idea to reality

The idea for this app existed only in her head until she told a friend about it, who told her daughter (who was also crowned Miss North Dakota), who told Jana about Startup Weekend Grand Forks. The 54 hour event allows participants to pitch their ideas for a startup, build a team, compete for a prize and perhaps even launch the business.

“I was hemming and hawing about should I sign up,” Jana said. “Finally my husband and I said, ‘Well ok we’ll give it a try. If they don’t like our idea we’ll call it a loss and go about our lives.'”

They took first place. Now, the Younggrens are in preparation to launch B. Able, a mobile website being designed by Myriad Mobile.

The app will be like Priceline for those who are handicapped, Jana said. It will list handicap accessible rooms at a variety of hotels, with ratings from handicap customers who have stayed in those rooms.

“If we can help people out, that’s our main goal,” Jana said. “I figured I can’t be the only one who was having these experiences.”

After attending multiple MS and handicap conferences to share her idea, Jana found she is not alone in her frustration. In fact, at a recent MS conference she attended in Minneapolis, the President got up and read Jana’s e-mail about B.Able in front of over a thousand attendees.

“I just keep saying, I’m overwhelmed,” Jana said. “This just blows my mind.”

B.Able coming soon

Thanks to Startup Weekend Grand Forks, B.Able is off to a strong start. They have a solid team, a designer logo, $1,000 in funds and virtual office space at the Center for Innovation. The Younggrens say its slotted to release by Fall of 2016.

Jana, who is 51 years old, has maintained her work at a local insurance company, and her husband Loren is a full-time photographer.

“My real job gets in the way once in a while,” Jana said with a laugh. “Eventually if this takes off, maybe there would be a chance to work part-time. We’ll have to see what happens.”

“We definitely will be traveling a lot more,” she added.