By Carter Schroppe
You see their orange stickers plastered on campus buildings during your walk to class—a biker whizzes by, donning an enormous, orange backpack almost as large as themselves. Or perhaps you simultaneously need an iPhone charger, paper plates, and have the inkling for some diced peaches.
Speedi, a UNC-student-created mobile-delivery app, has taken Chapel Hill by storm in recent months. Created by seniors Casper Mika and Eli Lippman—both of whom are on the fencing team—the app delivers a wide range of products to Carolina students and Chapel Hill residents alike.
The app was launched on October 15th, 2023, but recently has garnered significantly more attention on campus and has become incredibly popular. South Campus and Main Campus dining halls close early and otherwise fail to adequately serve student needs, and Speedi fills the gap in the market for these goods. Whether you’re a freshman living in Craige desperately in need of toilet paper or a drunken soldier whose vape fell out of their pocket on a Friday night, Speedi promises to deliver your desired item(s) in less than 15 minutes. Which it does.
The variety of products for sale is amusing yet completely sensible when you consider the strong demand for these niche items and the targeted customer base. College students do need “Dorm Essentials”—such as Tide Pods or tissues—and want snacks and other items such as protein bars or a $14 bottle of wine. Combine this demand with astonishingly cheap prices, an easy-to-use app, and legitimate customer service, and you have a student-created small business that deserves significant recognition.
The location of their warehouse (they buy, clearly, in bulk) has caused controversy among Carolina undergraduates- depending on who you know and what rumors you’ve heard, their storage facility may be on one end of Franklin Street or the other. Or perhaps it’s somewhere in the middle. Regardless, the bikers who uphold their 15-minute promise are typically Chapel Hill high schoolers or UNC students themselves. Speedi no doubt delivers on its “Of students, for students” motto.
Lippman and Mika have previously commented on their inspiration for the business—the long walks to Franklin Street they had to endure as freshmen living on South Campus. If you know, you know. Carolina Dining is infamous for closing dining halls too early and not providing North Campus and South Campus students with enough options, particularly on the weekends. On the weekdays, Chase Dining Hall and Rams Market remain open until midnight. If it’s 9:01 on a Saturday night, however, and you’re hungry—you’re out of luck. Those hours might make sense for my grandfather, but not college students for whom going to bed at midnight is often considered an early night. The students on this campus who can’t afford the luxury of living right next to or above Target are broadly overlooked as it pertains to food access. I’m not saying that South Campus is a “food desert,” but, um, it kind of is?
Regardless, Speedi is a great story that hits at the heart of what it means to be a student at Carolina. Two entrepreneurs in the Kenan-Flager Business School—esteemed athletes, no less—identified a gap in an on-campus market and decided they were going to fill it.
Two and a half years later, I’ve got some foam earplugs and Barilla elbows pasta on the way to my apartment right now.