Carleton Entrepreneurs: Student Builds Online Food Ordering Business
A Carleton University student was inspired to start his own business and help others on a tight timeline – just by standing in line at the university dining hall.
“I was constantly experiencing long lineups, and I was busy,” says Myles Foster, a fourth-year business student. “I knew there were a whole bunch of people in my situation, so I thought, how can I tell the food court ahead of time that I’m coming?”
As he waited in line, he came up with the idea of Fast2Eat – an easy-to-use online ordering service where customers can order and pay for their food in advance.
Users just register on the Fast2Eat website. Then they can log in on social media websites like Facebook. The service shows the customer what their food options are on campus, and items that the restaurant sells. Students can pick what they want to eat, including toppings and sizes, and indicate what time they will pick up their meal. Users can even include information like food allergies and restrictions.
Once the customer finishes up and pre-pays, the restaurant receives the information and can start on the order – minimizing long lineups.
“We can provide food courts more value, and process more diners because of our system,” Foster says.
Fast2Eat started when Foster took an entrepreneurship course at Carleton and had to come up with 50 new business ideas with his group. The group narrowed it down to the food ordering business, and were invited to pitch their idea to Startup Weekend Ottawa – an event that allows budding entrepreneurs to receive feedback from veterans. Foster’s team won second place, which helped build the business.
Foster joined forces with his co-founders, Carleton alums Susana Macedo and Mauricio Abreu. About a year ago, the team connected with Carleton University and is looking forward to launching the service with Aramark on campus in January 2014.
“I didn’t care about the glory of starting a company,” Foster says. “I just wanted to solve a problem and saw a real opportunity to try something new.”
His advice to budding entrepreneurs? Do extensive research and learn what options are available for help. Foster, for example, enrolled in VentureStart – a program that helps budding entrepreneurs in the science, technology, engineering and math fields with training, mentoring and seed financing to help grow their companies.
“It’s all about the little details and refining everything to get to the next level,” Foster says. “And it’s all about networking. There are mentors and networks in the city that you can tap into. Use your resources – you can’t do it by yourself.”
For more information on Fast2Eat, visit: fast2eat.com
This article originally appeared at Carleton Newsroom