Adit Gupta, 25
BS software engineering ’19
Tom Falzani, 24
BS graphic design ‘20
When Covid-19 caused Adit Gupta’s parents to close their convenience store, the Drexel graduate saw an opportunity.
With a 2019 BS in Software Engineering from the College of Computing and Informatics, Gupta envisioned a technological enhancement that could help convenience stores weather the ups and downs. He teamed with Tom Falzani, who received a BS in graphic design from Westphal College of Media Arts & Design in 2020, to found Lula.
With Gupta as CEO and Falzani as chief product officer, the company makes it possible for small stores with lots of inventory to quickly and easily participate with delivery services like GrubHub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats.
“We are democratizing eCommerce for convenience stores around the world, by connecting them with every delivery outlet online,” Gupta says.
Online delivery services enable such stores to take orders from anyone, any time. But participation in these services has typically been hard for convenience stores. It can be a daunting technical challenge to upload product information on a big inventory — often 3,000 items or more. And high fees made convenience store owners reluctant to get in the game.
Gupta and Falzani had previously started a Drexel club supporting the digital tracking system known as blockchain. They decided to help convenience stores tackle the technical issues around online delivery when they saw that “there was no one else solving the problem for these mom-and-pop stores that are pivotal for the society and economy,” Gupta says.
Convenience stores are ripe for technical aid. “It’s an industry that does not have the most up-to-date tools, and they don’t have a lot of experience with the newer technologies,” Falzani says. “So we are building something that is easy for them to use.”
As a former graphic design major, Falzani hopes to be an inspiration to other designers looking to start their own company or get involved with the startup space. His design background, in tandem with his minor in software engineering, got him working on websites and digital applications. “And from there I got interested in the user experience,” he says. “I wanted to design things that help solve a real-world problem. That’s what led me to join Adit in his initiative to help convenience stores.”
Philadelphia-based Lula has hit the ground running. With 16 full-time employees (including three other Drexel alumni), the company already supports convenience stores across 30 different states. Gupta says the goal is to build a team of 40 to 45 full-timers over the next year. Lula raised nearly $1 million in pre-seed funding in March ’21 and another $5.5 million in seed funding in January ’22.
Both say their Drexel experiences have contributed directly to the success of the enterprise.
“Drexel really helped me get a number of diverse opportunities in terms of co-ops,” Gupta says. He and Falzani have also won about $30,000 in prize money from Baiada Institute competitions. “That helped us to kickstart our journey.”
The co-op program helped Falzani to envision his professional trajectory, “and the way that Drexel sets up their program, the faculty and staff are always making sure that they are preparing you for the real world,” he says.