Sometimes, great ideas spring from mundane situations--such as watching a delivery person show up multiple times to the same building within a half-hour timeframe.
"While I was working in a corporate setting, there was one day where I saw a delivery driver from a restaurant five blocks away come to our office building five times within about 20 minutes," says Ben Cattoor (see photo at left), "I just thought to myself: there has to be a better system than that."
The idea sparked
Foodsby, a startup launched last May that allows restaurants to streamline their deliveries. The company focused on wooing eateries that were smaller, and didn't have delivery service already in place, since Foodsby tends to work best for that type of restaurant.
The app works by allowing restaurants to choose their delivery times and locations. Users can go to the Foodsby site and place orders, relieving the restaurant from taking time to jot down individual orders and deliver them separately.
Because of the efficiencies realized by the app, many customers are finding that they don't have to hire delivery drivers, and can depend on existing employees. For example, if a restaurant decides to deliver to just one certain nearby office building on Fridays, an employee can zip over in less than 15 minutes with all the orders.
Currently, about 20 restaurants use the system, and Cattoor says Foodsby is using Minneapolis as a test market with the hope of going nationwide at some point. "We really think this model is useful, and it gives restaurants much more control," he says. "We're excited to see where it can go from here."
Source: Ben Cattoor, Foodsby
Writer: Elizabeth Millard