INNOVATORS | COVER STORY
IAN COSTELLO & ALAN CLIFFORD Co-Founders, Galley galleyfoods.com
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ust over a year ago, Costello and Clifford were co-workers at LivingSocial in a similar quandary: what to eat for dinner after working long hours at the office? They decided there had to be something better than traditional takeout – pizza, Thai and Chinese food – but not as complicated as having to shop for ingredients to prepare a meal themselves. Their solution: Galley, an app and website that allows the exhausted and ravenuous to order healthy, fully-cooked meals and have them delivered in less than 20 minutes. They left LivingSocial and recruited friends to test their recipes, which Clifford whipped up in his own kitchen and Costello delivered in the family car “with a baby seat in the back.” Galley formally launched in January and its customer base has been growing steadily since. Costello and Clifford now work out of a commercial kitchen facility in Ivy City in Northeast and their meals, prepared by trained chefs, are so much in demand that they’ve expanded delivery service outside the District to Bethesda, Chevy Chase and parts of Baltimore. Meal options, ranging from seared ahi tuna to a chicken and squash wrap, sell out on a regular basis and have become tech community favorites. Local incubator 1776 frequently orders enough Galley lunches to feed the entire coworking space. Costello’s advice to budding entrepreneurs: “Just get started, even if you don’t have all the answers. Pushing the ball the first revolution is the hardest part.”
Ian Costello and Alan Clifford, photographed at The Jefferson Hotel.
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