The rise of Omnivore - The company that changed the restaurant industry forever
Turns out integrating with APIs is a big deal
Let me tell you about my 2nd startup: Omnivore.
In 2012, my friend invited me to his birthday party at Michael Minna in San Francisco. Now, this quickly became a shitshow as it was not a crowd of people who normally went to such an establishment and we all drank like fish. Since I was dressed appropriately and me being me, I grabbed the waiter and kind of took control of the situation and made sure everyone got drinks, ordered some appetizers for the table, and generally managed things so it didn't get too out of control lest we get kicked out. At the end of the night, the waiter quietly slipped me the bill. It was $8,000. Now, the wealth disparity at this table was huge. There was a couple that had split one beer all night and another couple that had ordered filets and multiple bottles of very expensive wine. I asked how many cards we could split this between. Four. And these were the days before Venmo, Cash App, etc.. I quickly started doing some math but realized it was fruitless as people were already leaving since we were late to "the club" and no one seemed to care about paying or had cash. I grabbed the affluent people at the table and got them to contribute as much as possible, but at the end of the night, I ended up paying more than half the bill myself. In the end, my friends bought me dinners for months and were very appreciative and I enjoy giving so I wasn't annoyed.
But it got me thinking: there has to be a better way. So I build an app based around scanning a QR code on receipts, getting your receipt on a web app, and splitting your bill in real time. It worked really well and was actually quite more advanced than even today's solutions like Toast's.
But then I hit a brick wall. The POS systems like the Micros 3700 and Aloha had no APIs or ways to access or pay the checks. But I did some digging and found a company called SubtleData that had found a way to integrate with them. I signed up for an account and was horrified to find their API was a mess of proprietary standards that was very slow to integrate. So I build a simple JSON API on top of it and started getting their customers using it. Soon Subtledata bought me out and I became their Chief Software Architect. Long story short, they had a patent troll problem and went out of business. This was a notorious patent troll that shut down any POS integration attempts. Years later, Apple, Microsoft, and a bunch of other companies would work together to have this company's patents invalidated.
But meanwhile, as I was their client integration specialist, I suddenly had hundreds of companies banging on my door asking for POS integration that went around the patent. I set to work. I designed a system that went around the patent, hacked a Micros 3700 system from scratch (something only a handful of people have ever done), and in about 8 months had a working system where you could see the menu, place orders, see your check, and pay (among other things like see stock levels).
I incorporated funded by some clients, and we were off to the races. We moved very quickly. I had early meetings with BIG names in tech and fintech. Even an early buyout offer. The idea was to use our deep integration with Restaurant and bar POS systems to build an "app store" for them. And that's what we did.
After about a year and a half of insanely hard work and ridiculously long hours, I stepped aside to take care of myself. After I left, due to some conflict, I was erased from the company and they went in a different direction using a more marketable name. Happens all the time in tech. I'm over it and have moved on. But the technology I built and the architecture I came up with that went around that patent powered Omnivore for the next 10 years. In that time, it became ubiquitous in the industry. It was used for ordering, payments, logistics, AI server scheduling, menu management, taxes, reporting, online and takeout order processing (I cannot say which companies but they are BIG), among many, many other uses of hundreds of companies that integrated.
As many a restaurant manager or owner has told me, it significantly changed how they did business. And many told me it changed the entire industry. I don't bring up often that I founded Omnivore when I'm at a restaurant, usually only if I'm having a friendly chat with a manager or owner and find out they are a client, but when I do, the reception I get is universally positive and something I should take more pride in.
I didn't end up making much money in the end from Omnivore, but the impact it had spread to hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. Perhaps many more depending upon how deep their integration is with the takeout order ecosystem (I'm not privy to that information). The changes it had on the hospitality industry were widespread and groundbreaking.
The best part about all of this is I get to know I'm done. I've succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of any entrepreneur. We don't dream of the money.....we dream of the impact. And I can say I've directly led to not only significant impact, but changes that was appreciated by a lot of people. It's incredibly comforting to know that at 39, my legacy is sealed. I don't need to achieve anything more and I will feel very satisfied with what I have accomplished.