Q&A with Declan Sander: The Burrito Businessman
Author: Dani Kellner
On Monday November 17, CU Doorstep, the “student-run food delivery service focused on getting Chipotle into the hands of Students ASAP,” broke Cornell’s Internet. When the site launched, social media exploded like an overstuffed burrito. Not only did CU Doorstep answer all of Slope Media’s burrito prayers, but also LA-born freshman Computer Science major Declan Sander, the co-founder and CTO of CU Doorstep answered all of our questions about the new company. Here’s everything the burrito business man had to say:
Dani Kellner: What’s in your burrito?
Declan Sander: I get my burrito with chicken, pinto beans, corn salsa, cilantro-lime rice, cheese, and guac.
DK: Where did the idea for CU Doorstep come from?
DS: Coming from Los Angeles, I’ve been eating very authentic Mexican food for years, but when I got to Cornell, it was something I really missed. Upon arriving at Cornell, I heard that there was a Chipotle in town and that really excited me because Chipotle has always been one of my favorite fast food restaurants. When I realized that it was all the way on the other side of Ithaca, I was disappointed because I knew that getting to it without a car was difficult at best and required pre-planning if I wanted a really good burrito. That’s when [my co-founder George Li and I] realized that there was a hole in the Chipotle market that [we] could fill.
DK: Why do you think Cornellians (and just people in general) are so obsessed with Chipotle?
DS: I think people are drawn to Chipotle for a couple reasons. First off, most of the country, especially the Northeast, has never really been exposed to good Mexican Food, so it’s new and it’s extremely high quality. Also, Chipotle tastes generally way fresher than other fast food places like Burger King and Taco Bell, so we’re drawn to it. Also, Chipotle is pretty reasonably priced, so you can get solid food without breaking the bank.
DK: Why just Chipotle? What about other fast-food favorites like Five Guys or Panera? Actually, if you decide to include Five Guys or Panera, I want a cut of those profits for giving you the idea!
DS: We started with Chipotle because that’s where the demand clearly was. We are definitely looking at expanding our food options once we have our supply chain fully functional and we hope to start offering more food options on other days soon (Five Guys Fridays, etc.).
DK: Why Tuesdays?
DS: Chipotle right now doesn’t have the staff to handle our volume of orders every day, so they are only able to offer us one day per week right now. We chose Tuesdays because that happened to fit our schedules the best.
DK: Now for a question of etiquette: Are you expecting tips?
DS: We do not expect or accept tips because due to Cornell rules, we cannot accept cash on campus. All tips are included in the $2 delivery fee.
DK: How do you expect to get from the Engineering Quad to RPCC to the Arts Quad to the Ag quad so quickly and efficiently? What will happen if someone misses their delivery?
DS: We actually are cutting down on our locations this week from 4 to 2 or 3 and spreading out our delivery times more, so that should help us with efficiency as well as hiring more delivery people. If someone misses their delivery, they can pick up their food at the same location later if there are any deliveries left or they can pick it up before 4:00 on North Campus.
DK: Why can’t I order a margarita?
DS: We wish we could get you a margarita, but we’re students, so we can’t even get margaritas for ourselves!
DK: Do you charge extra for guac?
DS: We do charge extra for guac, but we charge the same amount as Chipotle does, so we don’t make any money on it.
DK: Does “Ithaca-To-Go” or “GrubHub” know about you? Do they hate you?
DS: We haven’t heard from Ithaca-To-Go or GrubHub yet, so it’s hard to say what they think of us. GrubHub is a pretty big company, so they probably won’t talk to us, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear from Ithaca-To-Go at some point once we start picking up some momentum.
DK: Do you accept BRB’s? Cornell Card? City bucks?
DS: Right now, we accept Credit Cards and Paypal, but we can’t accept BRBs, Cornell Card or City bucks because Chipotle doesn’t accept them yet.
DK: Your site basically went viral amongst Cornellians via social media. Tell us about that. Were you expecting that type of attention?
DS: I expected some reaction to it since we were offering a service with such high demand, but the number of unique hits and orders we got in the first few hours was staggering to say the least. I think the key to the website going viral was that people started tagging [their] friends, and then the hits grew pretty exponentially. Over 70% of our hits so far have been Facebook referrals, so it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that most of our success was due to Facebook.
DK: How did the first day of business operations go?
DS: Our first day of operations was a mixed bag as we worked out the kinks of our delivery system (like we expected); we had some delays in the deliveries and some of the orders were messed up. We made sure to refund anybody who didn’t get their order or was unsatisfied with our service and to improve our customer service, we are figuring out ways to keep the burritos warm, spreading out our deliveries more, hiring more delivery people and reducing our number of delivery locations. We think next week is going to be dramatically more successful since we brought in a COO, Niki Agrawal, to help us handle the delivery logistics.
DK: I see that you “Sold Out” of all your “inventory.” What was the maximum order capacity?
DS: Out of our 3 delivery blocks, we maxed out 2 of them, which I consider a successful day. We had to close the third delivery block because Chipotle needed the first order form by the night before. We’re also cutting our maximum order capacity by about a third this week to increase our efficiency and provide better customer service.
DK: What can we expect for the future of CU Doorstep?
DS: Taking over the world, duh! But actually, we hope to have the business operating at full efficiency pretty soon and then we’ll probably try to expand our days of operation and the number of restaurants that we can offer.
DK: Can I have a free burrito for writing this? (Just thought I’d ask)
DS: If Chipotle ever accidentally gives us an extra burrito, I’ll make sure to let you know!
burrito, Chipotle, delivery, Food
