Eddy Connors and Luke Siegert originally met at CU Boulder during Eddy's freshman year (after his gap year) and Luke's sophomore year (after he transferred from Montana State University). 

 

During college, the duo were no strangers to being scrappy, both doing what they could to save some moolah. Eddy slept in the living room his final year to save on rent, and hustled to graduate a year and a half early to save on tuition. Luke worked as a waiter, drove for door-dash, and flipped legos on facebook marketplace.

 

Between rent, tuition, textbooks, wifi, gas... it was hard to budget for food, and even harder to find time to cook. 

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It was during a ten-week startup program that these former college roommates, along with a few other students, ideated what is now Goodie Bag. The marketplace concept was built to address two wicked issues; food waste and food affordability. 

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After placing first in the startup program's pitch competition, the duo created a modest first iteration of the platform and launched it in January of 2023 at the local pizzeria Luke worked at, Barchetta. With one partner and a couple dozen customers, they saw immediate traction. Barchetta was listing their surplus lunch slices as “goodie bags” and sure enough, local people were buying them at half the price. 

 

Goodie Bag has since grown to service the Boulder, Fort Collins, Denver, Charlotte, and Charleston communities. With over 200 partnering shops we've been able to prevent over 45,000 goodie bags from being wasted while feeding over 11,000 people! 

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The team upgraded tremendously with the addition of Briana Boehmer, who first heard about Goodie Bag while teaching at CU Boulder, and joined full-time shortly after.