Like college students everywhere, Brooke Dominiak ’23 had a craving for pizza one night.<\/p>\n
Two years later, that craving has morphed into a business start-up aimed at delivering food to hungry students who would rather the food come to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really wanted pizza, so I picked up the phone and ordered Domino\u2019s from a food app,\u201d said Dominiak.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then l got angry calls from my mother asking why she was paying $16 for pizza when she pays for (Furman\u2019s) meal plan,\u201d she added. \u201cI thought there had to be another way to get food on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result is To-Go Bros, a business that employs students to deliver food from vendors to other students who order on an app that Dominiak is designing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe drivers who deliver the food will be called Bros,\u201d she said. \u201cOur slogan is \u2018Want food to go? Call a Bro.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Dominiak, 20, was a communication studies major when she created her own design-innovation major with the help of The Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n
\u201cInnovative and entrepreneurially minded students like Brooke are leveraging the platform and resources to act on their ideas,” said Anthony Herrera, Furman\u2019s chief innovation officer and executive director of institute.\u00a0“The Hill Institute is providing mentorship and coaching from over 50 Leadership Council members, education and training through our Business Innovation Accelerator, and funding and space awarded through the Paladin Pitch Competition. This is The Furman Advantage through the lens of innovation and entrepreneurship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dominiak was new to Furman when she ordered that fateful pizza.<\/p>\n
She is planning to conduct a test-run of her idea in the fall with two restaurants. Students will pay a $3.99 delivery fee in the test, but she hopes that can be included in their meal plans in the future.<\/p>\n
Dominiak also hopes to deliver from Furman\u2019s food service vendor and other campus merchants, and eventually, to expand to colleges across the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dream job is to have my own company as a design thinking consultant who works with companies \u2026 when they have big problems and come up with various solutions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
To fund the test run, she is using her $10,000 winnings from Furman\u2019s Paladin Pitch Competition<\/a>. She also recently won a $10,000 prize as the winner of the inaugural Southern Conference Entrepreneurship Challenge<\/a> for her idea.<\/p>\n Alec Taylor \u201975, a lawyer, corporate titan and Furman trustee, saw her at the Paladin Pitch Competition and was so impressed, he decided to become an investor.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was smart enough to see an opportunity there,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s a very bright young woman. She\u2019s got star written all over her.\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor helped her with some legal issues, like protecting her intellectual property and networking. He also gave her some business advice \u2013 such as to be persistent and always control more than 50 percent of your company.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd stay optimistic,\u201d he said. \u201cVery few paths to success are paved with a straight line.\u201d<\/p>\n Because she\u2019s handling most aspects of the business herself, she says she\u2019s able to apply what she\u2019s learning in class to the project \u2013 everything from developing a marketing plan to making schedules and signing contracts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot, especially as a student. And sometimes it\u2019s hard,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s super fun \u2026 and it\u2019s cool that it\u2019s actually coming to life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like college students everywhere, Brooke Dominiak ’23 had a craving for pizza one night. Two years later, that craving has morphed into a business start-up aimed at delivering food to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":9795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,3,51,81,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-alumni","category-communication-studies","category-innovation-and-entrepreneurship","category-top-four-news-4th-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}