“The biggest problem when going out and expanding our restaurant base is where new business and restaurants don’t necessarily want to risk their customers with a new service, so just trying to built up our reputation has probably been the biggest challenge right now.”īeing involved with UGA, especially through the UGA Accelerator, has helped Walls tremendously in the process of developing his business. “Building your brand image and convincing your restaurant owners that you are a reputable company that they can work with (is the hardest part,)” Walls said. (It’s) basically been a slow and painful process to build that reputation, there’s no easy magic.”īuilding Cosmic Delivery’s brand was no easy task. “Once you get to five restaurants, it’s going to be easier for you. You’re going to get a few that say yes, and go out on a limb and try (it out).” Walls said. “It’s basically just been continuously talking to restaurant owners. Athens Wok was the first restaurant that began collaborating with Walls on his food delivery business. In order to make this idea a reality, they needed to find willing restaurants. “We just kind of ran through each of those types, looked through how likely it would be to succeed, and food delivery was the one that stood out, so we kind of ran with it from there.” “I think we had like grocery delivery, expanding the eCommerce store into more school supplies type stuff, and the food delivery,” Walls said. If I want to bring on a partner or something, that’s usually a pretty good resource for finding someone to work with.”Įarly on in the process, Walls met with some friends, where they tossed around a couple business ideas, debating on what would be the most beneficial for both the society and for themselves. “If I have a technical kind of question, I can just ask them or just if I need some help. It’s always been a useful tool,” Walls said. There’s just so many people working together (there) that are aspiring to do something. “I think the biggest resource I had with this would be the student organization, which would be IEEE ACM. When brainstorming ideas to start Cosmic Delivery, UGA student organizations, such as ACM and IEEE, were a huge help. I don’t want to split my time with too many different business ideas.”
“I shut that down when I started Cosmic Delivery. I didn’t have that support team with me as far as other founders do to encourage me to keep growing it, so that kind of stagnated,” Walls said. “Once I got into college, (the eCommerce store) kind of stopped growing just because I didn’t put enough time into it.
Then later as a high school senior, he opened an eCommerce store, which he closed last year. He ran two business websites, however, they did not collect revenue one was an eCommerce website, and the other was a game sharing site. Walls has been creating his own self-employed businesses since as early as middle school. Walls originally had the idea to serve fresh food to customers placing orders online in early January of this year. Trent Walls, a fourth year University of Georgia student majoring in Computer Science and Engineering, is the founder of Cosmic Delivery. Cosmic Delivery is collaborating with 13 different restaurants, mainly centered around Downtown, Athens.Some of the restaurants include Zombie Coffee & Donuts, A-OK Cafe, 180 Degree Cafe, and Pita Pit. Cosmic Delivery, an online food-serving platform, officially began its deliveries four months ago.