It’s the night before your final and you’re not only hungry but your calculator has just died and it’s too late to run to a convenience store. But there’s no need for panic, Ugo, a food delivery service, will solve all of your problems in 20 minutes or less.
Ugo offers hundreds of typical convenience store items. They offer things like snacks, candy, beverages, ice cream and frozen foods to electronic accessories, health and beauty supplies, home essentials, and school and office supplies. The bonus is that when you spend $15 you don’t have to pay the $2 shipping fee, and they’re open every day from noon to 3am, with varying hours on game day.
The Best Mystery
For those nights when you’re not cramming for a final, you can still choose from lots of items for any specific needs like batteries or cold medicine, or get a “Mystery Pack” if you can’t decide what you want. A Mystery Box is a $20 box that includes handpicked selections from the warehouse inventory and even some things not offered on the website. This can be a solid deal too since the contents of the box can sometimes equal over $20. If you follow them on Instagram, Ugo offers Mystery Box giveaways by just tagging a friend in the comments so both you and your friend get one.
Where do Ugo?
Right now Ugo’s food delivery service currently only delivers to all student housing developments, downtown, on-campus at the University of Alabama and Shelton as well as most neighborhoods in central Tuscaloosa. If you’re not sure if you’re in their delivery radius they have a map on their website.
Whogo?
This idea wasn’t developed by some bigwig company or chain store, but by college students, three of them students here at the University of Alabama. Jay Newman, the founder of Ugo was a communications major at the University of Alabama and had known for years that he had wanted to start his own business. The summer before Ugo started, Newman and one of his co-founders and Chief Marketing Officer, Matthew Tietz, read business and entrepreneur books all summer trying to learn about the process and maybe come up with an idea too.
The idea for this food delivery service came to Newman when sitting in his room in his fraternity house and his secret stash bin of food had gone empty. It was when another one of his friends walked into his room asking if anybody had batteries for his Xbox controller that Newman came up with the idea of an app that was “a convenience store in the palm of your hand.” By using The Edge entrepreneurship center at the University of Alabama Newman was able to set up his app and they officially launched in November 2015. Tietz, a Division One baseball player studying at a college in Florida dropped out and moved himself, his girlfriend and his dog up to Tuscaloosa to help run Ugo with Newman. William Randle a 2016 graduate of Alabama and Chief Operating Officer who’d been alongside Newman since the beginning and taught him everything he’d learned from business school, and Robert Hoehl, Vice President of Warehouse operations, joined the team as well and thus the company set off.
Not Going Back To The Future
Now that the company has been around for over two years, Ugo is in the process of expanding their service nationwide to colleges across the country in mid-to-late 2018. They’re also in the works of updating their app to give more discounts and award loyal customers who order frequently, almost on a day-to-day to basis.
Tobbac-no?
Ugo is also taking action against outdated laws of selling tobacco, which doesn’t clearly outline rules for selling online or in e-commerce businesses. By doing this Newman hopes to begin selling tobacco on his app, and when the business launches across the country, alcohol too. Newman’s goal by selling tobacco and alcohol is that it “keeps college students off the road late at night.”
So whether or not you’re craving a late night snack or are too sick to get out of bed to get medicine, Ugo has you covered. You can order either on their website or the app and follow them on Instagram and Twitter for deals and giveaways.