How One High School Dropout Became His Own Boss

Move over Uber Eats and Grubhub, there is a new delivery service in town. 

Profitboss, founded by 21-year-old Adam Guild, enables restaurants to deliver meals for free or at a significantly lower price than competitors. The app also allows restaurant owners to track and utilize their customer data. 

Guild’s unique background has allowed his company to prosper. His passion for technology dates back to his teenage days when we spent hours creating Minecraft servers and earning money for managing them. This led him to lose interest in his high school curriculum and drop out. 

“I’ve had a very weird life,” Guild said in an interview with Fox Business. “I built my first technology project when I was 9.”

When Guild’s mother launched her own pet-grooming business in a Los Angeles neighborhood, he stepped in and helped her reinvent her website. 

“At my mom’s birthday that year – it was me, my mom and my brother – and I remember, at the end of the dinner, she told us that this was the first year in as long as she could remember that she was really looking forward to the future again. She was re-energized by this business, and she found a purpose and passion through her team and all of her amazing customers,” he said. 

The idea behind Profitboss was to help local restaurant owners increase in-store traffic. But like most businesses across the nation, COVID-19 had other plans for them. 

“We had about four months of cash left. I had to lay off a bunch of people on the team, and everything possible that could have gone wrong did go wrong. I thought I was going to lose everything.”

As Guild, his employees, and his restaurant partners continue to navigate the reality of lockdowns and curfews, together they will adapt accordingly: one delivery at a time.

The Alliance to Save the American Dream is a non-profit organization dedicated to three core goals.

1. Develop an Ideas Factory to give small businesses and industries a centralized place to share innovative ideas that must be considered.

2. Build a unique Resources portal for small businesses to go to for answers or resources that address a wide range of issues or challenges.

3. Offer a new networking opportunity for small business owners to connect while also giving them a platform to share their own personal stories.

Resources and Useful Tips

Save the American Dream encourages small businesses across a wide array of sectors to utilize resources to help them navigate the walls that COVID-19 continues to build. 

We continue to compile resources and helpful tips to guide business owners as they try to maintain their physical and financial health. Our resource page will provide you with a platform to connect with agencies that can help. 

Whether you’re looking for financial advice, marketing assistance or a single point of contact to help you navigate the range of services available from federal and state organizations, we encourage you to view each tool carefully.

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented both wide scale tragedy and economic downfall. Small businesses, especially, have been threatened and have often been forced to permanently shut their doors. A recent Yelp study has discovered that nearly 100,000 small businesses have gone out of business since the start of the pandemic. The Visual Capitalist mapped out the uneven recovery that small businesses throughout the U.S. are experiencing. 

But help is out there and we are here to provide guidance. For more information, please visit our resources page to access the helpful links that include readily available partners, resources, financial aid, and experts. 

The Alliance to Save the American Dream is a non-profit organization dedicated to three core goals.

1. Develop an Ideas Factory to give small businesses and industries a centralized place to share innovative ideas that must be considered.

2. Build a unique Resources portal for small businesses to go to for answers or resources that address a wide range of issues or challenges.

3. Offer a new networking opportunity for small business owners to connect while also giving them a platform to share their own personal stories.

For more information, visit savetheamericandream.com. 

Restaurants Pushback Against New Shutdown Orders

Restaurant owners and industry groups across the United States are pushing back as city and state officials impose new restrictions on restaurants and bars. Filed lawsuits are piling up against the bans and targeted policies as rallies in support of dining rooms grow momentum. 

In early November, Illinois was the first to reinstate the ban on indoor dining. Michigan, Washington, Minnesota, Kentucky and most California regions have since followed. New Mexico and Oregon have put an end to table service entirely, while New York City officials have also warned about indoor dining suspensions.

Mike Coughlin, owner of Village Tavern and Grill in Illinois, is openly breaking a state order. Like other restaurant owners, he abided by local rules early in the pandemic and invested in a bigger outdoor patio space. He also spent thousands of dollars on plexi-glass dividers and a $10,000 air-purification system. 

When the state of Illinois suspended indoor dining when Covid-19 cases surged, Coughlin opted to keep his dining room open, despite the risk of fines.

“You pay my bills, you pay my taxes, you pay my employees, and I’ll close,” he said, addressing Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I’m not going to be the guy with a boarded-up building because I follow someone else’s science.”

As restaurant owners and protestors continue to express their frustrations and concerns, businesses will embrace the support to stay open. 

The Alliance to Save the American Dream is a non-profit organization dedicated to three core goals.

1. Develop an Ideas Factory to give small businesses and industries a centralized place to share innovative ideas that must be considered.

2. Build a unique Resources portal for small businesses to go to for answers or resources that address a wide range of issues or challenges.

3. Offer a new networking opportunity for small business owners to connect while also giving them a platform to share their own personal stories.