The owners began their businesses with no college degrees and 100 percent grit. A visit from the TikTok food critic Keith Lee also helped.

This article is part of a series on people who have made successful careers for themselves without having a college degree.

Rachel Nieves was 19 and working part time at Armani when she met someone who said her personality would do well in the car business.

At first, she had no idea what that meant. Ms. Nieves had started attending Fordham University in 2008 on a full scholarship, but her new job as a call center representative for an auto business soon earned her $120,000 a year. She realized that her major — first math, then psychology — was unlikely to quickly get her an equivalent salary, so she dropped out of school.

She stayed in the auto business for about a decade, eventually making $200,000 in a year. When

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