WEBVTT - Olo Aims to Digitize All Restaurant Transactions 0:00:01.520 --> 0:00:05.520 Welcome to the Tech Disruptors Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Callon, 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:08.039 the senior Restaurant and Food Service analyst at b I. 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:11.959 This episode will also be simulcast to our restaurant pod, 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:16.400 Chopping it Up by Bloomberg Intelligence on Spotify. Today's guest 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.840 is Noah Glass, CEO and founder of Olo, the company 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.599 powering the digitization of the restaurant industry. It's working with 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.800 eighty four thousand restaurants across more than six hundred brands, 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:29.800 and it's serving eighty five million guests a year. No 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.400 small feet in an industry that has been notoriously slow 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:36.639 to adopt technology. Thanks for doing like than so much 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.360 for having me. You know, I was surprised to see 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.960 Olo listed on the n y s E and not 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.519 the NASDAC. Maybe I'm out of the loop here, but 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:46.839 when I started my career as a day trader in 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:50.720 all the tech companies listed on the NAT well, I 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:52.720 guess this is just the product of the fact that 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:54.840 my first apartment in New York City when I moved 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.080 here in two thousand three, was on Wall Street. I 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:59.440 lived at forty five Wall Street, and so I walked 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.880 past the New York Stock Exchange every day, and I 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.520 just couldn't get over that beautiful banner and in the 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.640 front hanging from all those pillars, and that visual was 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.040 with me every day from the early days of OLO. No, 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:14.800 I never really thought that we would get to the 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.160 point of being a public company and getting an opportunity 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.399 to list on either exchange. So it's a great honor 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.560 to have that option. It's a high class problem, um, 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.200 but particularly cool because OLO kind of started in that 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.200 apartment in the earliest days, back in August of two 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.600 thousand three, if you can believe that. Wow. So alright, 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:34.840 So first of all, it's a yeah, that's a beautiful building. 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.880 And I worked on sixty seven wall in two thousand 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.080 three to about two thousand seven, so I'm sure we 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.560 walked past each other on the street at some point, 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.920 uh during those years. For our listeners that may not 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.680 be familiar with OLO, what are the core products that 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.520 really fueled its pre I p O growth? So pre 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:54.920 I p O I would say OLO is best known 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.400 for actually what the name is the acronym for. It's 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.880 the acronym for on line ordering O l OH, and 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.720 it kind of actually dates the term in that acronym 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.280 itself because it was at the time when online was 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:12.359 two different words, kind of the AO l era. So 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.240 it's been around online ordering as a concept for a 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.440 long time, although the company started in two thousand five, 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.280 but that was at that time really the the industry 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.079 accepted term for online ordering, and that's how we got started. 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.000 So it was letting guests order and pay before they 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:31.040 arrived at the restaurant, mainly for take out. Some restaurants 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:33.680 in the early days also used it for delivery and 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.480 then skip the line when they arrived, collect their order 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.760 and be on their way um before the I p O. 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.280 In maybe the four to five years running up to it, 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:45.560 there was this other big leg of growth as we 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.440 expanded into offering delivery on a national scale, and that 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:51.320 wasn't delivery in the way that I was used to 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.760 delivery from being a seventeen year old pizza delivery driver 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.600 uh growing up, or in the way these early restaurants 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.000 were using OLO and doing their own livery. Rather, it 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:05.480 was tapping into a network of on demand delivery service providers, 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.680 and we made that possible through a product called Dispatch, 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.680 which basically tied all these different service providers into a 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.280 network and made that accessible through a single ap I call. 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.639 So a brand that was using OLO for just take 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:24.120 out could now also offer delivery to guests and still 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.760 let those guests order through the brand's own website or app, 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:30.600 all without having to hire their own delivery fleet, but 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.320 instead by tapping into this on demand pool of drivers. 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.320 The third big product that we came to market with 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:40.520 in two thousand seventeen was enabling brands to syndicate out 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:43.960 their content, their menus, their price list out to the 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.480 third party marketplaces like the door Dashes and the uber 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:49.840 Eats and the grubhubs of the world, and then have 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.160 those orders not come into different tablets sitting on the 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.280 counter that somebody would have to watch and manage, but 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:59.560 all into the same single stream, into the point of sale, 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.840 into the kitchen. And that product is called rails, So 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:07.640 really ordering it solving, Yeah, we lovingly call that tablet hell. There. 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:12.839 There are incredible photos from the twenty era where you'd 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.960 walk into restaurants and you still see this even and 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.760 they have five six different tablets sitting next to the 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:24.160 point of sale, all ringing, all flashing, and restaurant operators 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.920 have to pay somebody to literally just watch the tablets 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.200 and re key those orders into the point of sale 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.120 and all of that goes away and get simplified with 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.000 that rails product bring it all into the point of sale. 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.080 Very cool. I'd like to dive into dispatch just a 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.480 little bit more. Can you talk about the bidding process 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.720 with delivery providers, how it's benefiting your customers and what 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.080 do they value most? Is it the prices at the 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.760 time UH service ratings or is there something else and 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:54.799 and doesn't vary by restaurant. Let's say first and foremost 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.359 would brands value about dispatch and what it enables is 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:02.000 that they can take delivery order through their own platform. 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.600 So instead of it coming from a restaurant delivery marketplace 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:09.120 where you know, the consumer is placing the order there 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.400 and the brand is getting no data about who that 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.599 guest is, the guest is ordering directly from the brand, 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.320 so the brand is collecting that valuable guest data. That's 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.840 going to be a theme, I'm sure over the rest 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.680 of our conversation, so we'll come back to it, um. 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.880 But it's really about meeting the guests needs directly through 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:28.560 their own channels. So if somebody says, hey, I Mike 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:30.599 I don't want to come to the restaurant to collect it. 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:32.760 I want it to be delivered to me. The brand 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.640 can say yes, and that's super valuable in and of itself. 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.520 The idea that it's network, the idea that we have 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:44.760 multiple delivery service providers basically gives that brand resiliency and 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:49.440 redundancy in a little bit of pricing power built into 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.440 what's kind of like a micro auction if you think 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.960 about it. So, there was a great lending Tree commercial 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:58.600 that I remember from many years back, and the tagline 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:02.359 was lending Tree, When banks compete, you win, and a 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:04.600 little bit of this is the same thing with delivery providers. 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.560 It's when delivery providers compete, you win. When you're able 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.640 to tap into not one, but all of the delivery 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.480 service providers and all of the delivery professionals who are 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:18.160 out there working as couriers for the different delivery service providers, 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.560 it's much more likely that you're going to find the 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.320 nearest available driver who can come and collect that order 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.359 fastest and delivered to the guest fastest. As a result, 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.880 and time is money. Fastest often correlates with the lowest cost, 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.280 the lowest bid on what it will cost that delivery 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:37.359 courier to collect the order and deliver to the guest. 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.120 So it's been an amazing thing. What I mentioned, I 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:42.640 used to work in pizza delivery when I was in 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:46.159 high school, and I remember what great looked like then 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.440 was somebody calls in an order and you get the 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:50.680 pizza to them thirty minutes or less. That was kind 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:55.800 of like the gold standard for delivery Domino's popularized. I 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.120 didn't work for Domino's, work for an independent pizza shop, 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.200 but that's at the bar. Everybody expected thirty minutes. If 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.640 you can hit that, awesome. The problem is the delivery 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.880 drivers going out with three, four, five different deliveries all 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.320 in one batch. They're routing their way around. It doesn't 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.920 always get delivered based on first in, first out. It's 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.720 getting delivered based on what's convenient based on the other deliveries, 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.920 So it was hard to hit that thirty minute kind 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.320 of promise. Um. The beauty of the dispatch model is 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.720 it is a point to point delivery model. So the 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.040 courier is coming to collect one order and then deliver 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.920 that one order. We know how long the food takes 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:40.440 to prep based on an understanding of the historical analysis 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:42.320 of how long meals take to prep and what the 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.720 restaurant has shared with us. So if we know the 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.360 drivers ten minutes away from drive time to arrive at 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.160 the restaurant and the food takes seven minutes to prep, 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:54.600 we can send the driver wait three minutes, fire that 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.960 order directly into the kitchen, the drivers arriving right when 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.400 the food is ready and fresh, and then on average, nationally, 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:04.480 month to month, we usually hover somewhere between eleven and 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:08.960 thirteen minutes from store to door. As we say, so, 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.720 it just opens up a whole lot of different varieties 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.880 of food that wouldn't be delivered well with that thirty 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.200 minute time horizon. But if you can finish that delivery, 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.640 finish that order being prepped and at that make time, 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.360 then have twelve minutes on average, let's say, for that 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:28.320 where then get in the hands of the guests and 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.960 then you have food in mouth that magical moment. It 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:37.120 just makes delivery a much higher h quality experience for 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:41.360 the guests and it shows well for the brand. Yeah, 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:45.000 it's great. I'd imagine it's a big boon to guests satisfaction. 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:47.640 It is. Yeah, there are times when a guest just 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:52.440 wants or needs delivery, they just aren't in a need state. 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.040 We're going to the restaurant makes sense, however convenient it 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.160 is to collect the order. So the ability to pay 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.839 for delivery and have somebody else liked it and take 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.520 it from the restaurant to you is a great thing, 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.719 and it opens up a lot of business opportunities for 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:12.360 restaurants that didn't prior to dispatch play in the delivery realm. Yeah, 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.959 it's almost like a democratization a bit, right, because I 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.480 know a lot of restaurants. Independent restaurants can't even get 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.760 insurance for drivers, right, So so I think this is 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:29.120 UM definitely something that that's smaller chains and independence can benefit. 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:33.760 That's right. How the company's products weite evolve with the 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.640 Wisely acquisition. So Wisely was in November of twenty one. 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.679 It was the first acquisition that OLO did, not just 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.920 as a public company, but in our entire history up 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.760 until that point, so we were operating for about sixteen 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.480 and a half years, never done an acquisition. UM We've 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.079 been working with Wisely as a partner. We have a 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:57.320 rich partner ecosystem of other restaurant technology providers, over three 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:01.800 hundred of them today and it means that we're able 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.480 to have a really cool vantage point and see those 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:08.920 solutions that are really helping to meet our restaurant customers needs. 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:13.040 And you know, we got conviction with Wisely that this 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:17.520 was a platform that was really helping restaurant brands to 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:22.000 d anonymize not just every transaction coming through oh Loo, 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.199 but every interaction that they were having with the guest, 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.680 and it was pulling all of those into a guest 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.920 data platform, um a guest data platform or a customer 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:36.040 data platform as it's called in the sort of larger 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:40.079 horizontal technology space. You know, you you see examples of 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.559 that in companies like Braise or Emparticle or Segment that 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:49.080 Twilio acquired, but for the restaurant vertical and the reason 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.120 why we call it a guest data platform is because 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.520 restaurants called their customers guests, and so we thought that 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.320 sort of helped to explained that this was a customer 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:02.400 data platform for restaurant. You know, this, we believe Wisely 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.839 Suite was the foremost solution, and so we felt like 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:10.360 we're in a moment in time when restaurants understand how 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.880 valuable first party data is and it's more difficult for 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:20.280 restaurants to use different forms of advertising that don't require 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.040 first party data. So helping them to harness the power 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:27.480 first party data, really understand who that guest is and 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.319 ultimately understand what the lifetime value of that guest is 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.760 is going to be just a step change in what 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.240 restaurant marketers are able to do. We just came to 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:41.640 believe that Wisely was the best platform out there to 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:43.800 do it. I want to say, and this is important 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.520 for me to say whenever we launch a new product 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.520 or acquire a new company, that OLO is committed to 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:53.600 being an open platform. So while we have three partners 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.520 today and we acquired Wisely, which had been a partner, 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.760 we still work with many other marketing tech platforms, and 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.920 different restaurant customers of ours will say I want to 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.600 work with that one. I think that's better at meeting 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.800 my needs. That's fine. Were We are thrilled to be 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.640 an open platform and to be agnostic between those two things. 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:17.760 We do think that Wisely is a great platform and 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:22.000 helping to join transactional data that we see in OLO 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:27.719 back to understanding who every guest is and d anonymizing 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.960 those transactions to build that profile so you can better 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.719 personalize the guest experience, better speak to and market to 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.599 that guest, and use it to inform every facet of 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:42.319 your business. Is really what that acquisition was all about. Yeah, 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.240 very cool. I mean what we're seeing with the publicly 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:46.880 traded restaurant chains that we cover is, you know, this 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.280 is still in the early innings, and yet it's it's 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.559 providing a much better r O Y than just dumping 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.320 a ton of money onto TV or radio. And uh, 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.360 it really is where the puck is moving. Um, you know, 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.480 can you talk about how you know? And actually before 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.240 I get to that, also to the fact that you're 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.719 open source and have really kind of pushed some of 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:11.520 the other POS systems out there to become open source. 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.160 I think is one of the major disruptions that I 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.040 think your company has has influence in this industry. I 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.320 think that's right. I mean in two thousand eight, nine ten, 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.160 we started to do the work of integrating into point 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.400 of sales systems and what we came upon was this 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:33.480 sort of legacy thinking of closed platforms, walled gardens point 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.040 of sale companies saying who is this startup ol and 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.959 why would I let them integrate into our platform. And 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:44.480 we're lucky that the restaurant brands came to our defense 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.160 support and said, no, we want OLO to integrate, and 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:49.640 we think they do the best job of this point 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:54.400 solution of online ordering. UM, so open up, let them integrate, 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:58.240 and we were able to integrate one by one into 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.400 all of the major enterprise restaurant point of sale systems. 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.200 And that's important because I think a lot of people 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.880 don't realize this, but many of the large restaurant brands 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:14.319 are fragmented from a technology standpoint when it's not guest 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:18.199 facing technology, when it's a restaurant operator facing technology like 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.040 point of sale. Oftentimes you have two, three, four different 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.360 point of sale platforms that are being used within the 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.840 same brand. And yet for online ordering, where an online 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.280 ordering app that's guest facing technology, it needs to work 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:33.840 the same on top of every one of those point 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.360 of sale platforms, and they're not interoperable with one another 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.160 OLO because we're not a point of sale platform. But 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:42.920 where this layer on top that is the guest facing layer, 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.120 can then integrate with all of these enterprise point of 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:51.920 sale companies and technology stacks and provide that universal, uniform 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:56.120 guest experience on top, and then we said to all 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.800 these technology partners, the three plus that are integrated into 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.600 a low today, you know, ride our platform to have 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.960 that same sort of access into point of sale. And 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.920 we acquired a company in March of twenty two called 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.200 Omnivore that did that in an even bigger way than 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:17.680 Below itself. Did not just with order injection, but also 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:23.560 with labor and scheduling and purchasing, an inventory and kitchen 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:28.160 display system integrations, and that's such a key part of 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.600 our philosophy. We believe that an open platform is the 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:36.440 foundation of innovation for the restaurant technology space, and that 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.640 letting a thousand flowers bloom on an open platform is 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.680 going to be best for the restaurant operator and best 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.840 for the restaurant guest. We will always be committed to 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:50.320 being an open platform and big supporters of innovation in 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:54.040 the restaurant tech landscape. Yeah. I think you're right. I 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.600 think that really sparked innovation in the space. Um, can 0:15:57.680 --> 0:15:59.960 you talk about how Olo pay and one of your 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:05.840 latest technology disruptions, border lists also a contribute to data aggregation. Yeah, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.480 I'm gonna separate those two slightly. UM, let me first 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:13.520 talk about olo pay without the borderless context. Oli pay 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:17.600 is something that we announced around the time of our 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.600 I p O and then really only went into general 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:26.080 availability with in the middle of But what olipay is, 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:29.200 it's very similar to if you look at other commerce 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.720 platforms like Shopify and what they've built with shop pay, 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.119 it's it's very similar. It is a digital first, integrated 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:41.760 payment platform that's embedded within the commerce platform itself. So 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.320 instead of us acting as a gateway into whatever the 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.880 credit card processor is at the store, which is really 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:55.120 designed for card swipe experiences, olopa is digital first, so 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:58.880 it's embedded within our platform. It means that you know, 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:02.480 just like I said, with a uniform layer that is 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:06.480 guest facing technology, payments becomes part of that uniform layer. 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.080 You don't have disjointed experiences where you've used your credit 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.280 card to pay at store A within the brand, and 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.359 then you go to use it at store B, but 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.119 your card isn't on file because they use a different 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:21.879 payment processor. Instead, we keep that card on file. And 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.320 so as a result of that, and as a result 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.480 of really thinking about the context of a digital transaction, 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.480 we're able to do things that are both good for 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.200 the guest experience like card on file, but are also 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.280 great for the operator experience, much much lower fraud as 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.600 a result of monitoring e commerce fraud through our partnership 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.560 with Stripe, and also monitoring across the entire OLO platform 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:49.640 to prevent fraud with a second filter um protection against chargebacks, 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.280 reporting all being on the same dashboards that somebody can 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:59.240 do adjustments and refunds and chargeback contestations all in one place, 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.359 and just better authorization rates and better basket conversion rates 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:07.200 that are really about being a digital first payment platform 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:11.200 stitched into the OLO commerce platform, so that's Olo pay. 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.040 What we did with border lists really enhances ol o 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.760 pay and it has benefits beyond Oli pay as well. 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.880 The idea of border list was passwords are a pain. 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.960 I haven't met a person in life who likes passwords 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.120 um both creating new accounts that require you to create 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.199 a password, or logging into an account with a password, 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:38.040 struggling to remember it, resetting it, etcetera, etcetera. What happens 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.800 because of passwords and all the friction that they introduce 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.160 is that people check out anonymously all of the time. 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:46.760 And I'll admit that I do this on the traditional 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:51.399 olo checkouts that I come across, I'll just not sign in, 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.240 not try to even remember my password, but just check 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.200 out anonymously. That's a bad thing for the guest experience, 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:00.840 and it's also a bad thing for the greater experience 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.200 on the guest side. I have to start from scratch. 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.200 I have to rebuild an entire order that I've ordered 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.000 in the past. I have to re enter credit card details, 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.119 I have to re enter my delivery address. It's a 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:14.560 delivery order. It's just a pain. It's a lot of 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:18.160 additional key strokes and clicks, and it's every every key 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.880 stroke and click is friction. Friction is the enemy of commerce. 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.480 On the operator side, if I'm checking out anonymously, there 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.240 is no ability for them to connect that transaction back 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.200 to my guest account and know anything about me. So 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:35.840 the idea behind border this was how do we remove 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:40.720 passwords enable guests to sign in with their email address 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.480 and their mobile phone number, again taking a lot of 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:47.280 inspiration for what Shopify did with shop pay, and in 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.639 so doing have a better guest experience and have a 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.560 better operator experience in the form of helping them to 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:59.040 harvest that transactional data and get it into the guest 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.080 profile to better un understand that guest, and that's really 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:06.399 what we've done with Borderless. So we started this, we 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.440 announced it in the very beginning of Q three of 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.679 last year. We had three pilot brands, and with statistically 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:17.320 significant amounts of data, what we've seen is typically it's 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.280 only thirty percent of guests that log into an account 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.200 on a transaction. With border Lists, we've inverted that, it's 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:28.639 been seventy six percent of guests that are logged in 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:34.000 that are authenticated and not anonymous, And again huge wind 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.360 for the guest experience and huge wind for the operator 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.640 being able to tie the majority now of its transactions 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.560 back into that guest data platform to better understand the guest, 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.040 how to market to them, and how to think about 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:50.280 their business differently with that guest lifetime value as a 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:53.960 new true North metric for guiding their business decisions. So 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:58.879 it's been an exciting um new innovation, our newest. The 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:01.320 other thing about Borderla, which is really special, is that 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.679 once a guest has created that linkage between email address 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:08.000 and mobile number, that lives at the OLO platform level, 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.879 it doesn't live at the individual brand level, and so 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.119 the power of that is now they go to the 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.400 next brand, they plug in that email address. We then 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:18.680 send a text to their mobile phone saying, Mike, is 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:22.200 this you. Once you enter in that six digit number, 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.160 you're into that account. You have your card on file, 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:28.320 you might have other details like your delivery address on file. 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.240 So we've removed the friction from that experience, and there's 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.879 a network effect in that of you know, a platform 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.560 that is benefiting all of the guests and all of 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:40.840 the brand. So at the scale of four thousand restaurants 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.440 across six hundred brand experiences and on the other side 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:49.000 million restaurant guests, we think that's a really powerful value 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:54.280 proposition for the industry as a whole. Yeah, that's very cool. 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:56.000 I love that you're doing some pain points for not 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.560 only the restaurant customers but also the restaurant guests. Uh, 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:05.600 that password is problem is a massive issue to your point. 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:08.200 You know, I don't think anybody, there's anyone I know 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:12.359 that that's uh satisfied with how that's handled. What drives 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:14.760 me crazy is when it's like a brand tells me 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:16.920 I can't use any of my last five passwords, and 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:20.040 so I know with certainty I'm gonna put something in 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:22.840 that I'm never gonna remember, you know, And I go 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:24.600 through a process with some of these brands. It's like 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.480 every couple of months, I have to change the password, 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:30.320 and it's like maddening, you know. I couldn't agree more, 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:35.080 couldn't agree more. Alright, So we talked about Wisely a bit. 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.920 We talked about Omnivore. Uh. You have a strong balance sheet, 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:41.720 almost four and fifty million of net cash. You know, 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:44.679 do acquisitions continue to be a part of your growth 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:46.960 strategy and if so, what type of targets are you 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:49.920 looking at. I think we're always looking at ways to 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:54.480 drive more digital transactions to add more value to our restaurants. 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:58.639 And that's the common thread behind you know, the Wise acquisition, 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:01.639