Frisco, TX native Lucious McDaniel has always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and going into college, he knew it was his goal to build his own company. When Lucious isn’t working on building BiteSight, he enjoys skiing, hiking, and running. He is also a huge foodie and enjoys traveling the world to try all different sorts of foods.
Lucious graduated from the Canfield Business Honors Program with his Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Honors and a minor in Management Information Systems. Lucious says he was drawn to the program because of the diverse community of talented and driven people. Additionally, he found that the opportunity to learn from some of the best professors in the country that cover a wide spread of expertise in industries and fields is what drew him to McCombs.
During Lucious’ freshman year at UT, he had his first internship at Flo Recruit, a startup that was actually started by another UT student. During his internship, Flo Recruit participated in Y-Combinator, the world’s top startup accelerator program. This exposure to working with a high-growth, venture-backed startup solidified his passion for creating something of his own.
Lucious is now the Founder and CEO of BiteSight, a video-first food delivery app. Lucious describes the app as a melding of TikTok and DoorDash, where you can scroll and see videos of restaurants that you potentially want to order from and can place your order right inside of the app. Lucious is responsible for leading product development, fundraising, sales, hiring, and internal operations. Lucious works with his Co-Founder and employees to set and execute the vision for the business.
After graduating from the Canfield Business Honors Program, Lucious moved to New York to work at General Atlantic. While at General Atlantic, he ordered food delivery nearly every day, sometimes multiple times a day. It was during that time that he realized that existing apps like DoorDash and UberEats had not changed or improved their user experience for many years. Realizing this, along with the time he spent watching food content on Instagram, led him and his co-founder to the idea of bridging the gap between food delivery services and social media.
Lucious goes on to tell us what it was like building a company from the ground up. When asked, he said, “It has been singlehandedly one of the most fun, intellectually stimulating, challenging, and rewarding experiences I have ever been a part of. Being able to have a vision for what the world should look like and then working alongside your best friends to make it a reality is the stuff of dreams, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to work with the people I do to be able to build BiteSight.”
Since leading BiteSight, Lucious’ most important lesson has been to always have a people-first mindset. The largest challenges he faces involve people rather than technology. Lucious says, “Whether it is keeping the team aligned and motivated to achieve the same goal or navigating partnerships with external stakeholders, I have found having a people-first mindset approach goes a long way in moving the business forward.”
When asked about his enjoyment and excitement for BiteSight and developing it into what it is today, Lucious said, “The most exciting part of building BiteSight has been taking a vision and turning it into a real product that people can use. There is nothing better than seeing someone’s eyes light up for the first time when they hold BiteSight in their hands and see the future for themselves.”
Lucious credits Canfield Business Honors for giving him a foundation for understanding the core principles of business, including marketing, finance, operations, and management. Additionally, he learned how to effectively problem-solve, be resilient, and act ethically in a business environment.
We asked Lucious for some parting words and advice he may have for current students, and Lucious had this to offer: “Don’t be afraid to bet on yourself and take an unconventional approach. Before founding BiteSight, I had the opportunity to continue on my path of working in finance. However, I knew that while building a startup would lead to short-term instability, in the long run, I knew that it was something I was passionate about, and no matter what, I wanted to bet on myself regardless of the outcome.”
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