By Cristi McKee | Photo: Nudge Ordering Group

Ordering food from the convenience of your own phone is becoming increasingly popular for college students, busy workers, and those on-the-go, and this new app just made it easier to do so. The Nudge Group Ordering app, which was founded by FSU alum Tanner Cline and University of Miami alum Brian Shirzad, makes ordering food from your favorite restaurant easy, efficient, and cheaper.

Nudge works to give app-users discounts on their favorite meals when they place large orders to restaurants. On the app, you make your order to your favorite participating restaurant, send the order link to friends, family, or co-workers, then they use that link to add their own meals/payment method to the order, and you, the originator of the order, get a discount on your purchase.

The idea behind Nudge is to “improve inefficient, high-volume processes,” explains app co-founder Brian Shirzad, “we noticed that a lot of people weren’t offering to pick up food for others because determining the logistics was too difficult. Money exchange and even coordinating the order placement are all barriers to driving more orders through the restaurants.”

The app also works to re-engineer the supply-chain methodology behind food delivery, which Shirzad dissects: “the traditional delivery services operate under a pull-supply chain, where users place orders, and drivers are dispatched to those routes. Nudge has flipped the model into a push-supply chain. Users establish a route and nudge friends to jump onto the order. The person picking up the food gets their meal incrementally discounted for driving more orders and providing delivery to their friends. If they pick up food for enough friends, their meal is free.”

The idea behind the app came to Shirzad and Cline in 2018, but they were unsure about launching it at first, saying, “we had discussed the idea for several months leading up to this, but the stars aligned, and we finally decided to pursue it.” The tipping point for them was during a visit to the University of Alabama: “a friend explained how he would pick up food for everyone in his fraternity house if they all paid him $1 each. At this point, we recognized the demand, and had to create a system to help students like this.”

At first, the app was called GoingAnyway, but was re-branded after the founders read about Richard Thaler’s Nobel Prize-winning Nudge Theory. Shirzad explains, “the theory suggests that by proper choice architecture and subtle cues, behavior can be influenced.” Thus, on the app, users “nudge” each other to create a group food order.

At the moment, Nudge employs several students at Florida State University, which is the target market for the app. “FSU has shown Nudge a lot of support,” remarks Shirzad. Looking toward the future, “we hope to expand to several college campus’ quickly and be in several states by the end of 2020. Nudge has been getting a lot of attention from some big corporate restaurant chains. We are excited to help users save money while also driving incremental sales to restaurants,” Shirzad says.

If you’re looking to support a locally-owned business and get deals at your favorite restaurants around Tallahassee, download Nudge today and get eating!