Handle provides snack delivery to USC
Last year, Mia McCarthy and Chase Robbins, both sophomores in the Iovine and Young Academy, were sitting around at 11 p.m. when they started craving candy.
The pair immediately ordered DoorDash to settle the sweet tooth. After carefully tracking the driver for an agonizing 45 minutes, the driver canceled. This moment made them realize there had to be a quicker way for customers to order snacks without having to drive to the grocery store.
McCarthy and Robbins then started their newest entrepreneurial endeavor: Handle, a service that delivers snacks, drinks, ice cream and household necessities to your door in under 15 minutes.
“It’s been really wild to see something that [we] just thought of one day actually come to fruition and see the people working for us and see our happy customers,” McCarthy said. “Everything here has come from our brains, and it has been such a fulfilling experience to see this intangible thing actually become physical.”
McCarthy and Robbins spent the summer of 2021 navigating the process of starting a business. Robbins had previous experience in start-ups, and the two dove in. Every day became about speaking with realtors, searching for suppliers and understanding the logistics and engineering that comes with starting a fully functional business.
“We were trying to push things forward so fast that we started to hate weekends because no one else was working so we couldn’t move forward with real estate or we couldn’t contact suppliers, which is something that [McCarthy], and I joke about to this day,” Robbins said.
After spending the full summer learning the ropes of running a buisness, McCarthy and Robbins acquired an assortment of suppliers to provide everything from food to condoms in preparation for Handle’s launch. The store sells a variety of chips and snacks, candies, drinks and household items from over 10 suppliers.
The next major hurdle was figuring out what strategy made the most sense for ordering and customer convenience. In hopes of mimicking platforms like Doordash and Uber, they decided the best choice was to hire engineers to build a fully functional app. The Handle app allows the customer to scroll through all snack, drink and item options: add them to cart and order when ready.
On the night of the app’s official launch in late August, the app crashed, leaving McCarthy feeling hopeless and devastated. Despite months of effort, preparation and events hyping up the company’s launch, they had to make the difficult decision to close the store and figure out how best to address the issue.
“It was really hard, emotionally challenging and such a letdown,” McCarthy said. “I’m really glad that we were able to bounce back, but it was a really hard decision to not only close but just take the hit personally.”
Robbins had a background in engineering and spent the following 10 days coding the app from scratch so that the team could ensure success for their second launch. Mia’s artistic background, combined with Robbins’ engineering background, allowed them to work well together with their own unique skill sets.
“Mia has a really unique artistic and expressive ability about her, and I bring more of a scientific engineering side, and so when we get together and start talking, we are able to come up with a lot of ideas really quickly,” Robbins said.
The early days of the business were nothing but difficult. McCarthy and Robbins delivered orders, worked on marketing and spoke with suppliers to improve the products the store was selling.
“It has taken so much time, and so much energy to make this happen, and we really have poured everything we have into it,” McCarthy said.
H McCarthy and Robbins now have an entire fleet of deliverers working from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. daily, delivering thousands of products to people in the surrounding campus community.
Eli Safaie-Kia, a sophomore majoring in business administration, was brought on as the chief growth officer at Handle. Safaie-Kia has seen the business grow in both success and the strong sense of community among the team.
“We have been so successful in creating a Handle community of customers, employees and other stakeholders on campus that snack together, study together, party together and Handle together,” Safaie-Kia said. “This incredible community has grown, not only in size and numbers, but also in breadth and depth as our student organization and local business partnerships have flourished.”
McCarthy and Robbins’ journey with Handle has been defined by the pressures and struggles that come with opening a new business, especially as students. Despite challenges, they are now functional, serving snacks and other necessities to the USC community.
“Emotionally, it has, at times, been super hard, but also, at the same time so unbelievably gratifying,” McCarthy said. “Just seeing the traction we’ve had has been so beautiful and so happy and fulfilling, so there have just been so many emotions, but mostly good ones.”