Owner.com reposted this
🎉 Exciting news! After 10 years at Compass, building from an idea to an IPO, I'm on to my next adventure: I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve joined Owner.com as President & COO. I’ve spent the last 20 years helping small business entrepreneurs succeed. It's my life's mission. It’s why I loved what we were building at Compass. For my next move, I explored a number of opportunities at the frontier of AI. The biggest trend I saw? The gap between the leading edge of AI and small business owners just keeps widening. What no one seems to be thinking of is how to put the incredible power of AI and cutting edge technologies in the hands of small business owners. That's exactly what Owner is doing, starting with independent restaurants. This company is changing reality for small business entrepreneurs, in the best way. As I met the team, I heard stories of people like Timirie Shibley, the owner of Doo-Dah Diner in Kansas. It’s the most popular diner in town, but Timirie was still getting crushed by big corporations before she found Owner. “Owner is life-changing,” she said, with tears in her eyes. I heard other stories like hers as Adam Guild and Dean Bloembergen took me on a listening tour with their customers. It was plain as day: we all had the same mission of helping small businesses thrive in the digital age. I knew I had to join. Owner’s target customer is “small”, but the collective opportunity – millions of independent business owners – is massive. And the team has done an incredible job of getting to this point. Owner about 3X'd in 2022 and did it again in 2023, while racking up #1 ratings on G2. And they've built an amazing team. The friend who introduced me said his friend joined after having spent years at Notion and Dropbox, and called it, "the best team I've seen in my career." I’ve been similarly impressed. This includes Owner’s incredible investors, including Jack Altman, Jason M. Lemkin, Alex Bard among others. They’re highly engaged and aren’t shy about being superfans of this company. Bottom line – Owner is on a fantastic mission to make sure beloved local businesses thrive in a world where technology and AI will dictate their future. I can’t wait to help them by bringing Owner’s mission to life with this unbelievably talented team. Rob