Imagine this: It’s the 4th quarter with five minutes left, and both teams are tied in the biggest rivalry football game of the season. It’s a nail-biter, but you’re hungry. You dash to the concession stand quickly for a snack but miss the game-winning touchdown. That is why a University of New Mexico senior founded a company so fans won’t miss a touchdown for a treat.
Younes Slaoui, an engineering student studying computer science, created Peanut Tech, an app that offers in-seat food delivery to fans during sporting events. It works by scanning a QR code at your seat, which retrieves your seat information and connects you to a food menu for ordering. 5 to 10 minutes later, the food arrives at your seat and you can pay with a card or cash. Slaoui focused intensively on making it as user-friendly and fast as possible and believes that goal was achieved with a slam dunk.
“Chances are, you’ll be waiting upwards of 20 minutes for food due to congestion around the stadium and long lines. Then, you need to carry your order back to your seat, and if you’re ordering for kids, the order size might be too much to carry through crowds. While this is happening, you’re missing the game which is the reason you’re there in the first place. Peanut resolves those issues,” he said. “You scan a QR code, place your order, forget about it, and minutes later, someone delivers it to you, eliminating those wait problems. There is no login or requirement to enter your card information and no need to figure out what seat you’re in. The payment is made once the food arrives, so I tried to make it as easy for the user as possible.”
The idea began taking shape in November 2023 during a conversation between two friends, inspired by apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats. While the friends eventually went separate ways on the idea, Slaoui decided to continue the concept on a smaller, local scale and hired a professional software engineer to help him with the coding. He aimed to introduce the project at New Mexico high schools where the potential sales could help fund athletic programs and benefit the surrounding communities. Ten months later, he launched the food delivery service app at Los Alamos High School’s football stadium, adjusting the technology to fit the facility’s size, and he says it’s been a home run.
“For our first football game, we mapped out one section of bleachers and split it into 150 seats, each with a sticker that said ‘in-seat food delivery‘ and an NFC tag that you could tap to access the menu. It went pretty smoothly, people loved it. My grandparents, aunts, and uncles were all there, strategically dropping loud compliments about how amazing it was to get food at their seats, like undercover brand ambassadors,” he said. “However, I noticed people were having trouble using the NFC tags, so the next game I added QR codes and expanded to just under 900 seats. We did $1,000 in sales through the app, increasing the school’s sales by 13% with only one-third of the stadium mapped.”
Slaoui mentioned that big banners and signs with the message ‘Got a sticker, get food quicker’ decorated the football stadium with numerous advertising announcements during the game.
“It was such an amazing experience figuring out all these things on paper, solving problem after problem, and then boom, it’s game on, and it actually works,” Slaoui said. “I remember the first order we received on the iPad— a large order for more than 20 items, including a bottle of water, a Coke, multiple green chile cheeseburgers, and candy. I was scrambling around the kitchen to get all the items in a bag as fast as possible and my sister, Houda, told me that when she delivered it to the customer’s seat, the lady couldn’t believe it.”
He recalls the next three hours running around the kitchen, collecting orders, and packing them into bags with their seat numbers. With the help of his sister and friends delivering the orders, he remembers feeling emotional to see it in action after months of planning, developing, and pitching the idea to other entrepreneurs in Albuquerque. “Most people don’t realize how much work goes into making a project like this successful, you really have to plan for every single detail and possible scenario,” Slaoui said.
He believes none of this would have been possible without his sister and friends who helped him lay down the hundreds of beacons across the stadium and served as delivery runners during the games. Additionally, he says he learned a ton from people like Mark Niederhaus, with whom he had previously collaborated on a grocery and meal planning start-up, and who introduced him to Q-Station—a shared working space for founders—and the New Mexico Start-Up Alliance, which connects local start-up founders. “I think these are great resources for anyone looking to do business in Albuquerque,” he said. “I’ve learned so much from the people I’ve met through this network, like Sandy, who runs the NM Start-Up Alliance, has a real talent for bringing the right people together.”
He hopes to expand his company to other high school or college sports stadiums across New Mexico, such as the PIT. However, one significant obstacle he faces is staffing. Slaoui initially used his friends as ‘runners’ to deliver food, but he notes this is only a temporary fix since most athletic venues won’t assist with providing delivery runners.
In the meantime, he is now helping others with their startup companies, effectively becoming a tech consulting firm, Hima Tech Consulting, with the software engineer who aided him in developing Peanut and others. They are building websites, mobile apps, and AI tools for several non-profits and clients nationwide.
“I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to do this, and it gave me many skills that I believe I can apply in the future if I decide to explore another startup,” he said. “Two main takeaways for me were that sometimes, to make a big project work, you need to start small with precision and then expand quickly. I also made sure the goals and timelines were always slightly out of reach, which helped keep the momentum alive. The second takeaway was that everything is centered around the user’s experience and you need to put yourself in their shoes. No one cares about what cool technologies you used or how any of it works—they only care about speed and convenience.”
At 22 years old, Slaoui is not just an entrepreneur. In 2023, he worked on a project for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), putting his interest in Artificial Intelligence to the test. He contributed to developing a software tool that employs AI to model, predict, and detect criminal activity. After that, he interned as a software engineer at Indica Labs, a biotech company, and then at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is also fascinated by biotechnology research which he does with a professor at UNM.
As graduation nears, Slaoui is packed with ideas for his future, although he hasn’t decided yet which path to pursue, whether biotech or AI. One thing is certain: no matter what, an exciting future lies ahead.
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