Adam Guild is a 24-year-old who never finished high school and opened his restaurant-software startup called Owner.com. He co-founded Owner in May 2020 and is the chief executive of the company. Guild grew up in Los Angeles and has been an entrepreneur since high school, which he quit during 10th grade to pursue his business idea. He has received the Thiel Fellowship grant, which is a program created by venture capitalist Peter Thiel for young people who drop out or never attend college. Guild was extremely dedicated to the business and says he has worked 15-hour days, seven days a week, without taking a vacation or sick day for the past six years.

Owner.com is used by independent restaurant owners to create websites with online-ordering features, as well as for other tasks such as running marketing campaigns and improving placement in online search results. They charge a $500 a month fee for the use of the software. It is based in Palo Alto, California and serves thousands on customers in the U.S. Through the use of this software, restaurants save money compared to orders placed through sites such as DoorDash and Uber Eats. This startup has reached a $200 million valuation and, in a job posting a few months ago, the company said they had $15 million in annualized revenue. They said they have since been growing at a rate of 30% month-over-month. Investors in the financing brought Owner’s total raised to $58.7 million.

Overall, I think this is a great story about Adam Guild and his success. This goes to show that with great dedication, you can be a very successful business owner without even finishing high school. They even risked years of their lives, their families, their saving all to pursue their dreams and I think they do a great job of showing that owning a business is possible.