Ever really want to order from food delivery options like UberEats or GrubHub, only to be put off at the last minute by delivery fees and decent tips? Or, say you power through, hungry enough to ignore the charge, only to discover your bank account significantly depleted by habitually ordering in?
If so, you're not alone. Rhode Island School of Design graduate Tae Lee found himself balking at the amount he was spending to get his lunch delivered repeatedly to the studio he worked at.
"If I was to purchase a $10 pad Thai, I ended up paying $17 dollars," he said. "That accumulates a lot; I really hated that."
"We don’t target mega-cities; we focus on smaller cities, like Providence."
In an effort to curb his own spending habits and to help out his colleagues, eventually Lee graduated to a new system. He'd take their orders, call ahead to different restaurants and pick up the meals with his own ride.
It wasn't long before he realized he had a great idea on his hands, and in January 2017, Lee decided to formally pursue turning his lunch runs into a startup.
The result was ToGoBox, a resource for busy workers to order from local restaurants without the exorbitant fees (or tips. Just a $1 add-on).
It works like this: Each day, users choose from a curated menu; they have until 11:30 to make their choice. Then, the ToGoBox team sends orders over to the participating restaurants, which get going making the meals. Customers then receive their lunches upon delivery around 12:30, at a pre-selected ToGoBox drop-off area at their company.
The logistical model is one that Lee says works rather well, especially considering that the team has only had "significant delays" (those lasting longer than 15 minutes) three times in the company's history — one that began with Lee's idea, gestated as a Facebook page and ultimately became an official company with a website in July 2017.
Growth has been organic. Lee teamed up with some of the other ToGoBox leaders after meeting them playing pick-up basketball, and one of the company's main clients, VirginPulse, partnered with the company after Lee reached out to Rajiv Kumar, the company's president and chief medical officer.
Bootstrapped financials have helped spur that growth, although the team is currently in the middle of an equity crowdfunding round. Lee and the team are also receiving insight and mentorship from the likes of Matt Tortora, co-founder and CEO of Crave Food Systems, and the Venture Mentoring Service of Rhode Island, which was born out of MIT.
Looking ahead, ToGoBox hopes to grow in different areas within Massachusetts and Connecticut.
"We don’t target mega-cities; we focus on smaller cities, like Providence," Lee said. "[Like] Framingham, Taunton or Mansfield; [or cities] in Connecticut, as well."
He added that continually updating the company's technology "to reduce friction" is also something on the docket — as, after all, ToGoBox is a tech startup.
"We could be billed as a regular delivery company," Lee said. "But we try to analyze the habits of regular corporate employees, what items are popular, on what days what items are popular."
It will ultimately allow the company better establish the menu to "maximize its potential" and allow ToGoBox to continue to "deliver the value" to its users.
