This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the fifteen student startups who are participating in our Terp Startup summer accelerator at the College Park WeWork. Participating student entrepreneurs received a stipend up to $5,000 that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over eight weeks in the summer.

Hangry

Co-founder: Shehan Weeraman ’20, Neurobiology and Physiology & Economics major
Co-founder: Nick Adimi ’18, Neurobiology and Physiology major

DC: Tell us about your startup. What problem are you solving and for whom?

Hangry is a fast-casual food delivery service that is operated via drones. The traditional car and driver method has three major issues: high prices (delivery fee, service fee, surge fee — sometimes, and tip), long wait times, and more often than not driver errors will arise. These three major pain points for customers make delivery an unpleasant experience, especially when people are paying high fees. We have proved that by using drones we are able to provide a food delivery service that not only gives customers an exciting experience, but entirely eliminates these three major pain points.

DC: How did you first come up with your idea?

We were constantly ordering food for delivery because honestly we got pretty lazy. We stopped cooking, going grocery shopping, AND actually going to places to pick up the food, so naturally we just ordered food on the various food delivery platforms. This led us to experience all of the pain points and we thought there had to be a better way. We were into drones as a hobby at the time, and we did some research into the commercial applications and realized that a service like this can exist.

DC: What are some major milestones you’ve achieved so far?

We have our main drone built, and we have been doing pretty intense testing for the past year and a half. We have partnered with a few establishments to conduct deliveries for them in the near future. Currently, we are in the process of raising funds and working on getting the necessary approvals we need to operate a drone commercially.

DC: What drives you to keep going?

I think the thing that drives us the most is being able to build something together, and work on something we are passionate about. We never really thought we would be at the point we are at now, so it’s really cool to look back and see how we just started from an idea that has no blossomed into something really cool.

DC: How do you feel about working in a cohort with fellow student entrepreneurs

It’s definitely a really awesome experience working in a cohort with fellow students. Everyone is super passionate, hard-working and extremely dedicated to their project. I’ve really enjoyed learning about what everyone is working on, and I’ve met some really cool people.

DC: What are you hoping to achieve during Terp Startup this summer?

This summer we’re hoping to put the finishing touches on all of our hardware and various systems. Now that we’ve done advanced tests, and proved our service works we have to work on getting commercial approval from the FAA. Other than that, we were hoping to achieve a lot of networking during this summer.