Let's Order Now: An Appetite for Success

Let's Order Now! An Appetite for Success

Blog Date: 12/05/11

Author: Eric Haslbauer, Accounting Major

Lets Order Now, affectionately referred to as LON, is a start-up company taking leaps and bounds in the small business industry. Lets Order Now^TM officially went live on 11/11/11, making the company less than a month old. Despite its nascency, LON is generating big press. M. ‘Wazi'hullah, Professor, Director: Molloy College, Entrepreneurship & Small Business Institute, is the creator and CEO of Lets Order Now. He appeared in a full page article in Long Island Business News explaining his new company. Verizon Fios Channel 1 News also aired a segment on Lets Order Now, describing the goals and ideas behind the company. So what is Lets Order Now? What are the goals of LON? And what kind of company is it?

Lets Order Now is an online social ordering system. From the perspective of a user (someone ordering from LON), this website eliminates lunch frustration. After creating a free personal account on the site, it automatically keeps track of the user's address, tastes, payments, and favorites. There are two options for ordering lunch: 1) Cuisine Calendar and 2) I Wanna Choose. Cuisine Calendar offers a certain restaurant that is specifically delivering to the user's building. I Wanna Choose is for those who do not want to order lunch from the Cuisine Calendar, enabling them to select any type of food from any restaurant that delivers to that building. Now here's the fun part! When ordering through Cuisine Calendar, the price of a meal goes down as more co-workers order. Essentially, the more people you have ordering from Cuisine Calendar, the cheaper it is for everyone! Lets Order Now's slogan "Simple Social Ordering"^TM clearly summarizes the main elements of the company. It's a quick and easy way to order cheap lunch with friends and co-workers.

On the other hand, Lets Order Now is great for restaurants too. From their perspective, this website lowers preparation and delivery fees, benefitting the restaurant. By informing the restaurant owner of a large order (30 to 40 people), the restaurant can deliver a sizable amount of meals to one location. Instead of delivering two or three orders at ten stops, the restaurant can make one trip delivering to 30 or so people. This process greatly decreases the restaurants fulfillment costs while at the same time enabling them to sell to a wider market segment. This is the magic of the whole company! In essence, it's the best of both worlds! The customers are happy because they are paying less, and the restaurant owners are happy because they are selling more. What is there to lose?

An additional aspect to Let's Order Now is that a group of about 16 students, graduates and undergraduates, are working as the Customer Order Representatives (COR). The CORs serve as the agents who promote the company. They are the people who go to the restaurants and the users, presenting Let's Order Now. Their goal is twofold. First, they are trying to convert the restaurants by assisting them in registering onto the website. Second, they are attempting to attract large buildings by convincing a collection of co-workers to order lunch together through LON. M. ‘Wazi'hullah, by assisting the students working on his company, is teaching them vital characteristics of a successful business: execution, entrepreneurship, negotiation, and sales. These students are actively learning how to execute a business idea through personal experience. Rather than memorizing or reading about people who have successfully executed a business plan, the students are actually going out and executing it themselves. It's a unique opportunity, executively educating the future leaders of the corporate world.

Lets Order Now is a prime example of a new business that has a promising future despite these difficult economic times. Although it is still early, I personally believe that Lets Order Now has a high potential for success and will become an international giant in the years to come. However, the fate of Lets Order Now rests on one universal element: Time. All we can do is wait and see how the untold future of this nascent company unfolds.