College was not Chris Webb's thing, so at 18 he took an internship at Oppenheimer and launched his career in finance.
While working Wall Street at investment bank Bear Stearns and then Lehman Brothers, he continually found himself drawn to the tech sector.
Eventually, the New York high life was getting him down, and Chris returned home to Los Angeles where his mom had invested in a restaurant that's now a successful chain, Tender Greens.
Chris learned about the pain points the restaurant was experiencing. Inspired, he combined his knowledge of tech to help restaurants avoid the onerous fees required of services offered by the likes of GrubHub.
Chris and his co-founder, Eric Jaffe, built ChowNow, an app and online ordering system for restaurants, in 2011.
Now, the L.A.-based company has 450 employees with investments from Upfront and 3L. Incidentally, I'm a limited partner in both those funds, so that makes me an investor in ChowNow.
Chris Webb is the co-founder and CEO of ChowNow. Previously, he had a career on Wall Street at investment bank Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.
dot.LA Sr. Podcast Producer & Editor Laurel Moglen contributed to this post.
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