Fabian Raso, MBA‘12/Law’13 (Artsci’09), has hit it big on the popular CBC show Dragons’ Den. His company, Hangry, closed a deal for $120,000 with three “dragons” in November. Hangry, a skip-the-line restaurant app now targeted at university and college students, allows users to pre-order and pre-pay for meals from any of their on-campus food locations and then notifies them when their order is ready for pickup.

The idea for Hangry actually grew from Fabian’s work at Queen’s. One day, he was running late to class and had to wait in a really long line at a nearby coffee shop. Someone in front of him was ordering four or five complex drinks for a bunch of friends, and he was just trying to order his usual latte. “It suddenly occurred to me that if I could just order ahead and pick up my drink on the way to class, life would be good.” This thought was the basis for his final MBA research paper, a four-month project looking into whether the “now generation” would be willing to pay extra for the convenience of not waiting in long lines.

Raso credits his time in the combined JD/MBA program at Queen’s with instilling him with an ability to “think outside the box, to look at a problem in a different light and come up with a solution that hasn’t been done before.” Also, his law degree gives Hangry a luxury that many other small businesses don’t have: in-house legal counsel. In a typical day, Raso may draft a contract, execute a marketing campaign, attend a sales meeting, and then do some coding (he also has an undergraduate Math/Computer Science degree from Queen’s). Legal work is part of every day in his business, such as when he recently hired an employee and was able to draft the employment agreement himself.

Another huge benefit from his time at Queen’s is the network of friends he can now rely on. “I can fall back on classmates who will be friends for the rest of my life and who are always willing to lend a hand, whether it’s to review a document in their area of expertise or make a strategic introduction to a colleague,” says Raso, who left private practice early on in his career. “I know almost everyone in my graduating class and you don’t get that at other schools. Your network is so important.”

Hangry, recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary, means “bad-tempered or irritable, as a result of prolonged hunger.” We’ve all been hangry before. Raso’s business partner, Mark Scattolon is the creative guru behind the name and brand.

Originally, Hangry focused on fast-food restaurants, and had been working on securing a deal with a burrito franchise with many locations across the country. However, Raso says that one of the big outcomes from the Dragons’ Den appearance was to laser focus the business on institutions, where the value of the service is greatest – in this case, post-secondary campuses with millennials.

Before the TV show, Raso and Scattolon had secured a deal with Aramark to test out their app at the University of Toronto, St. George Campus, which has more than 50,000 students. Since appearing on Dragons’ Den, Hangry has expanded and will have four more schools on board early next year, including McMaster University in Hamilton, and two schools in Alberta. Plans are for Hangry to be available at over 25 campuses by the fall of 2016.

That’s a booming business for a young entrepreneur just two years after graduation.