Kareem Dasilva and Naim Hakeem co-founded Edesia along with three other recent UofM graduates — Omar Mustapaha, Umer Khan and Pamodou Jawneh. Edesia connects local food trucks to customers through geolocation, mobile ordering, booking and more. The group of UofM grads previously created Poeen — an app studio helping businesses put themselves on the mobile marketplace.

: What brought you to the UofM?

Dasilva: I’m from the Nashville area and when I was getting ready to make a college decision, it seemed like everyone I knew was going to MTSU (Middle Tennessee State University) and a lot of my family had gone to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. So, it felt like I was positioned to go to one of those two schools.

My mindset on that changed when I started to find out about the University of Memphis. It felt like out of all the marketing materials sent to me from colleges, the University of Memphis was putting the most amount of effort into it. I felt like the UofM was really pushing for innovative people to come out there.

Hakeem: I’ve always been good with computers and very much liked design-oriented stuff, so I was looking for a school where I could potentially get into video game design. I looked into a bunch of different schools that were really big and really expensive.

But I’m from Memphis, I’m already in Memphis, my parents went to the University of Memphis, so why not just go right down the road and pursue those goals? I checked into it and felt like everything I needed was right here. That turned out to be true.

: How did you two get connected at the UofM?

Hakeem: We actually had a few classes together within our first few semesters. From there, we would do our homework together and hang out, and it really just turned out to be one of the many great connections I’ve made with like-minded people here. We’ve built our startup team here, and it’s a team where everyone wears multiple hats.

: Explain the process of starting Edesia and the obstacles that came along with it?

Dasilva: Initially, we just built an app to find food trucks. We released the app, and the problem we ran into was that no one was willing to pay for an app that just finds food trucks.

What we learned from that is to treat the food truck owner like a core customer. The food truck owner is in a high-pressure environment where they typically only have a window of a couple of hours to make most of their money. They can’t afford to miss out on opportunities.

Hakeem: We found from talking with the food truck owners that people wouldn’t even know where they were set up a lot of the time. People had to search online or scroll through social media to see where their favorite food truck might be, and that’s just not often the most time-efficient way for people to find out where you are.

: How did you solve these problems?

Dasilva: During a 48-hour competition we were a part of, we built a product we called “sweet spot” that can track the foot traffic of a specific area using Bluetooth signals. We’re able to map out the city where most of the foot traffic occurs at certain times, and we can offer spots to food trucks accordingly.

They bid on valuable spots and when they get to those spots, then we offer a delivery component to the app. So essentially, food trucks now have an innovative new channel to make sales that never existed before.

: What would you say to someone that’s considering the University of Memphis and wants to follow a similar path to what you’ve done?

Hakeem: The University of Memphis gives you all the resources you need to hone your skills and go pursue all of your goals. For example, when I came to the Crews Center for Entrepreneurship they gave me access to an iMac that had all the Adobe tools on there. I didn’t have that at my house, so all the design stuff I’ve been able to do with Edesia I wouldn’t have been able to do without that resource.

Whatever you might need help with, the University will help you figure it out. That’s the best part of it. It’s almost like an incubator being here.

Dasilva: It is like an incubator, that’s the best way I would describe it. The Crews Center and the UMRF Research Park are amazing resources to help you learn and grow as an aspiring entrepreneur. Then you also have the City of Memphis with its “grind” spirit. The people here are the best type of people to be around because they’re willing to work and try anything.