Inside the Olo Network: The Next Evolution of Restaurant Ordering | Kris Linney - SVP & GM |

0:00 What's up everybody? Welcome back to Delivering More. I'm your host, Ben Alky. Thank you so much for your continued viewership. We appreciate you. As always, if you could hit that like, subscribe, and comment down below, that's going to help us out more than you could ever know. Today's conversation is all about Olo. We talk about the solutions available to restaurants and brands, highlighting the Olo network, and most importantly, the second party app that will be rolling out at the end of this year. Let's get into the conversation with Chris Lenny.

0:53 you have a background in the restaurant industry like what was your time prior to Olo and then like how do work your way up through the company from there. >> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, um I' I've mostly been in restaurant tech more or less my whole career. Um so, started at a a company called Sprig, um out of San Francisco, early stage startup. Uh it was really before delivery even existed. So, you know, before the likes of marketplaces even. So, this was back in 2014 kind of early days of GrubHub essentially. uh kind of the first concept to do uh ghost kitchen. So we own full fulfillment. Uh we had our own brand and and really tried to get guest you know healthy meals delivered in 15 minutes. Um pretty cool opportunity. Uh learned a lot. Uh from there moved on to a company called Ritual. So takeout only app. Uh I was one of the first 15 employees. Uh expanded over 500 employees 50 cities across the world.

1:56 um and was there for about five years. Uh it was being uh it was doing incredibly well. Uh one of the challenges is co hit uh and being a takeout app in dense downtown urban environments is not necessarily the uh the app or platform that you wanted to be. Um so spent some time there kind of rebuilt throughout COVID. uh it was kind of clear that the business was going to face its continued challenges and actually ended up leaving uh with one of the co-founders, raised some capital and and started our own concept. It was a a concept called Good Good. Um it was actually a brickandmortar locations. Uh so we had five all day cafes across Toronto. Early in the morning it was all about that coffee experience. The afternoon we did kind of grab and go items and then the evening uh was alcohol on and off premise.

2:50 Um and then everything in the store could be delivered within 60 minutes uh up to five miles away. So uh did that for a while was an operator kind of ran retail um and then joined Olo about three and a half years ago. So, worked on our order business for a while. Um, worked with our COO, Joe Lambert, uh, kind of as a right-hand helper for a while. Um, during that time worked on Olo accounts, which was previously called Borderless. Um, and then most recently, uh, became the SVP and GM of, uh, the Olo network that we launched earlier this year and, uh, expect to be a market, uh, soon. So yeah, a lot of kind of restaurant experience both uh kind of the marketplace side, the operator side, and then the SAS side.

3:40 >> What did going from being an operator to then like working, this doesn't have to reference OL's product by any means, but like being that operator, seeing the workflow, seeing the work it takes to get the order, make the order, deliver the order, and then join a company like you have now. like how much of that knowledge and experience did you take in to what you're able to build and create moving forward? >> Yeah, I mean it's super helpful. You know, mostly being on the tech side for, you know, the better part of my career.

4:13 Uh I don't think you have full appreciation for the work that it takes to not only receive an order but manage menus, manage store hours, etc. and then also be able to kind of provide a great on premise experience while also managing off- premise orders. And so something that we think about a lot especially is as we kind of build OLO and also the OLO network. You know, we really want to be seamlessly integrated into the day-to-day operations for the restaurants. We know how important that is and you know demand channels are incredibly valuable but you know if it starts to impact other experiences it can be very challenging and you know probably it's got to be something that's got to be reevaluated over time. So you know it's a it's a big piece of what we do at OLO. I mean we're fully integrated uh with you know over 10 poss. I think we have a partner ecosystem of over 400 partners and so you know we think about not only integrating OLO's products as seamlessly as possible for brands but also kind of that 400 plus partner ecosystem um is as seamless as possible uh for for operators and >> I think if we kind of start from a very basic standpoint any maybe driver or consumer out there might not be super aware of like what OL is what the product is and what it can do for restaurants and how it's helping brands move forward. As we move forward through the conversation, that obviously is hopefully going to change by the end of this year. But prior to that, could you just give like a blanket statement of how you would define OLO um and what it means to today's business model, today's brands, today's restaurants and where it fits in the ecosystem of the restaurant industry.

6:01 >> Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I always like to joke with friends and family, you know, they they've probably interacted with ilo without actually knowing it's um my wife placed a catering order the other day from Bueno Beef and you know, she was joking she finally looked through the page to realize that it was an Olo catering order. So, finally appreciating what what we do at the company, which is great. Um, but I I think that's kind of the beauty of Olo. I mean, historically today, we've really been the behind thescenes operator, not operator, but be behind the scenes for restaurant operators to kind of efficiently take orders. So, you know, we like to call ourselves a a unified restaurant tech platform, really focused on powering the guest experience. And that could be, you know, whether they're placing a catering order, a takeout order, a delivery order, um, etc. And, you know, we have kind of now four product suites that we think about. So we have an order product which is kind of a commerce experience.

6:58 So if you go to a brand's website and place an order, you know, we generally power that experience for a lot of the little brands. We also have a payments experience. Um and that's both digital and on premise now with our card present and card not present solutions. And then engage really is our full encompassing kind of marketing suite. So it's our guest data platform. Uh it allows brands to do marketing. So, emails, SMS, etc. And now loyalty as well with the the recent acquisition of Spang Go. Uh, and then lastly, um, you know, excited to share more about the Olo network, uh, on this conversation, but it's really our four-way into consumer, uh, and and kind of shifting, uh, things into that regard. So, um, yeah, do a lot of stuff behind the scenes today. uh but easiest way to describe is kind of uh the commerce platform that's that's powering restaurants uh across the US.

7:54 >> Do you have this is a maybe a ridiculous question to ask. Do you know how many locations or restaurants are being serviced by the products you guys undertake? >> Yeah, so uh I mean Ola has roughly 90,000 locations that we work with. Um you know we're primarily in the enterprise I mean emerging enterprise space. So, historically, we've really been kind of plus 100 units. Um, but over time, we're finding the need for more and more emerging brands to to need our product.

8:26 So, you know, we work with locations or brands now that have anywhere between three to five locations all the way up to 2,000 plus locations. So really kind of servicing the entire industry and um ensuring that they have a great kind of digital strategy and uh products we in place to to power them as uh they either grow or continue to to scale their businesses. >> That's beautiful. Um I think I'm going to continue to tease the app a little bit. We we'll get to that in the very near future here there for folks out there excited to hear about a little bit more. But I want to talk about the Olo network itself a little bit before we actually get to the app and the commerce side for the customer and everything.

9:04 Like why is building out the network inherently important before you can move on towards a consumerf facing app? Like you already mentioned you consider the OLO network an actual product in and it of itself. What is the all-encompassing solution of the network I guess would be my most point blank way to ask that question. >> Yeah. So I mean I would think about the OLO network almost as kind of uh the holding company for all things consumer at Olo is maybe the easiest way to describe it. So you know the network itself isn't an individual product. It's going to be a suite of products and really kind of anything that's consumerf facing at Olo. Um so we have OLO accounts which is our passwordless checkout experience. Um we launched that a few years ago. over 20,000 locations are are using that today. Um increases, you know, uh conversion by over 7%. Um so we've kind of pulled that into the OLO network and um you know, obviously doing great things with that. Uh we're going to talk about the OLO app, I'm sure, a lot today. Um so I won't go too far into that, but um you know, a great kind of experience that we think is going to be a great complement to first party and third party digital ordering.

10:20 Um, and then you can imagine all the different things that we could eventually get into. I'm sure we'll talk about Agentic and and all of those things as well, but you really what we think about with network is, you know, anything that's touching the end consumer um or end guest uh will kind of fall within that product suite. And, you know, we have some great ideas of what we're going to be focused on in 26, but also long term in 27, 28, 29, 30 and onwards. So, um, yeah, the network isn't kind of an individual product in itself.

10:50 It's more of kind of where we're going to put all of the the consumerf facing products, um, that it will always going to be investing in over the coming years. Um, as you know, there'll be great synergies within there. >> Yeah. No, I I think the the holding company analogy off the rip there, that was a that was a great way to frame it. And I I appreciate you comparing comparing it to something easily um easily to understand, I guess, would be the best way to put that. Um in our call offline the other day, um you said something to me that felt so obvious in real time, but when you said it, I was like, I never really considered something like that. Um, but you said we have first and third party, but there's something between one and two. Or you said there's something between or there's something between one and three.

11:39 There's something between first and third. And the Olo app that's going to be rolling out in October, I believe this year is a second party app. Is that how you refer to? So, it's a second party channel. >> Yeah. I'll I got to give our CEO Noah some credit on that one. you know, he did a nice nice job introducing the the one and three and something in between. So, give him some some credit where credit's due. But yeah, I think the way that we think about, you know, the Olo network in general and then, you know, obviously the the Olo app as well is that we really want to kind of have core founding principles that apply to every product that we're building. And I think when we think about first party, there's incredible benefits. You know, commissionfree, you get access to the guest data. You're able to provide consumers with everyday value because you can generally offer instore pricing.

12:34 Um, and then you think about third party, there's also tremendous benefits to that, right? It's a place where guests can discover different uh concepts. You generally can get access to network level insights versus just, you know, individual level insights. And then I I think there's, you know, great convenience to the consumer being able to have one app, always logged in, state, address saved, payment saved, etc. And so, you know, the way that we think about it is how can we bring the best of both of those worlds into one experience. And so as we think about second party and applying that to the OLO network, it's really about, you know, ensuring that guests never pay or sorry, ensuring that restaurants never pay a commission on these orders.

13:16 Ensuring that restaurants always get access to that guest data. Um, ensuring that it's as integrated as possible. I mean, we talked about that a bit earlier, but you know, really ensuring that, you know, they don't have to build new processes to handle new demand and and change the way that they operate in store. Um, but also kind of giving the benefits of of third party around discovery and more enriched data and ultimately, you know, the benefit of the guests being the consu the convenience element. So you know we're really trying to take the best of both worlds to solve kind of new problems as you know 26 27 etc come upon us. Um and so that's really the way that we think about is is kind of second party is a bit of the founding principles that we want to instill in everything that we build and apply that to the the network that we're building.

14:09 >> And if we I want to highlight a couple things you pointed out there. I don't want to gloss over the importance of some of the aspects of the the product that you spoke about there. Um the com the commission free aspect um for the brands operating throughout on within on whatever the the the commission free aspect um that the brands will have while operating on the OLO app app itself. Why is that aspect so important you guys? Obviously you compared it already to their first party channels are commission free. So it just kind of makes it more seamless. It makes sense to make a second party channel as profitable for them as possible. Is it that simple in nature just to make it as easy and as suitable for the brand as possible or what are the I guess you mentioned the founding principles of why a commissionfree product makes the most sense?

15:00 >> Yeah, I I mean I I think from our perspective that's been a value for EDL for over 20 years. You know, we've never charged commissions. You know, to be fair, we've always been a SAS company, so entry consumer is a little bit different, but um you know, we we know there's a lot of challenges in the industry right now. Margins are extremely compressed. Um it's something that that brands kind of struggle with on a a day-to-day basis. And so, you know, I think from our perspective, we win when our restaurants win. And if our restaurants are are processing more orders, it will ultimately be a benefit for for OLO as well. And so, you know, from our perspective, the way that we're building things is fundamentally different than kind of most other models out there. And so, we're able to to offer that to our brands and ensure that um you know, they're never paying a commission through the OLO network and the products that we um we build through there. So, it's a big part of of what we're building. We've made that commitment very very clear um at Beyond for our customer conference 30 days ago, roughly when we announced this. Um, it's something that we continue to message in follow-up conversations, but you know, we know the challenges that it can provide on restaurants and then, you know, in return the challenges that it can provide on consumers. Um, you know, you think about what happens when a a restaurant is getting charged um convenience. They generally need to offset that just given how thin uh the margins are in this business. And you know, it generally goes to the to the guest. And so we want to be very thoughtful in that. and um you know ensuring that when you're ordering through Olo network um that you're you're getting great pricing in everyday value and and ultimately we think will be a win for restaurants and for for their guests.

16:45 >> And then the the second half of that that you mentioned um was the data ownership or the customer relationship. Um we can speak about like what does it mean for a restaurant to actually own that customer relationship in this model specifically? You know, as I mentioned, a big piece of this is uh as a first party order, we'll we'll flow through um all the the the same guest data. So, you know, guest name, email address, phone, etc. And I think we think about it two ways. You know, one obviously data can help from a marketing perspective. If brands want to reach out to those guests, you know, absolutely they should have the right to do so. Um, but we also think it's really important for brands to have it to make, you know, business decisions. So, you know, you can be thinking about LTO's and, you know, what new products you should be introducing.

17:37 Um, also, you know, we've we spent a lot of time looking at this recently through um our Olus intelligence product, but um being able to give brands more data on not just what the most popular items are, but what items have the highest repeat rate. So when you know they do go out and do marketing, they're promoting the right items that are not just driving acquisition but also driving retention over time. And so you know we we feel it's really important to be able to feed that data to brands you know not only to can be able to communicate with their guests but also to be able to apply it to their business and and make business decisions. And so, you know, ultimately what we hope is that, you know, brands can take their first party data, combine it with OLO network or second party data, and it's just another way that they can have more data on guests to make better business decisions over time.

18:25 >> Beautiful. Um, I don't want this question to come off as combative because it's certainly not. We're all friends here. I'm not This is I'm never I've never been a a hard ball interviewer by any means. Anyone will tell you that. So, I'm not trying to catch you here or anything, but um more out of like curiosity. Um a brand I know operates through Olo that we have locally and we work with directly is Honeyrow. I have the Honeyrow app on my phone, assuming they'll be within the Olo network on the Olo app. And from the consumer vantage point, what what are the benefits for them to utilize the Olo app as opposed to the Honeyrow first party app? Or should they have both? and use them, you know, as they see fit.

19:10 Like where do both apps fit in this marketplace of products? >> Yeah, it's a great question. I actually appreciate you answering because it comes up a lot in conversations that that we've been having and you know, I think really every brand is completely different, right? You think about not just geographies, but you think about QSR versus LSR versus FSR. you know what makes sense in those different environments from a digital perspective in particular etc. And so really the guidance that we've been giving to brands is you have first party, keep investing in that. You have third party, keep investing in that. This is just a net new channel that should hopefully provide more demand in a way that maybe looks a little bit more like both of those to some degree. And so, you know, I think from from our perspective, you know, it's it's really important for brands to kind of take inventory of of their digital landscape and say, you know, the way that I want to behave in the OLO app is in this nature or in this nature. It doesn't need to be all in or all out. It it should be uh an and is the way that we think about it. So, um you know, there there's some brands that are wildly successful on on first party and and that's incredible. keep investing there. Keep doing great things there. There's some brands that really see benefit in third party. Amazing.

20:32 Keep investing there if you think that's right for your business. Um, from our perspective, we just wanted to bring uh a new product to the market that we think is solving a lot of the problems that we're hearing from brands in 2026 and probably likely beyond that. And so, it's it's not about one or the other. It's really about um this hand um is the way that we view it. >> Awesome. Uh something that we spoke about also um was the nature I guess I would say the nature of how brands populate on the app itself. It's not necessarily algorithmic, but the consumer will actually be able to follow the brands that they want to get information from, get value from, order from directly. Like the way I would think about it, it's a terrible analogy because it's just like a typical male thing to say, but like I have the ESPN app, so I follow the Guardians, the Cavs, and the Browns. A lot of misery in following those teams outside of maybe the Guardians, but that's my life of the Northeast Ohio experience that I've had throughout my entire life. Long way to ask if consu like that that is like the baseline, I guess, just of how consumers are going to operate within the app. It's not necessarily algorithmic. They're able to go in and follow the brands that they want to interact with consistently.

21:56 >> Yeah. I mean, first of all, apologies for what you've been through and childhood. I'm a Cubs fan, so I probably contributed to some of that pain. >> I don't appreciate that. I don't appreciate that at all. >> Um, but I I think, you know, the ESPN app is a great analogy, right? Like you want to follow the teams that you love. For me, it's the Cubs, the Blackhawks, and Fulton. for you it's that, you know, the teams that you described in kind of the Cleveland area. And I think that's what's so important, what makes this so unique is that, you know, every consumer has a different set of teams that they want to follow and be alerted of, but they don't want every update about the MLB or the NHL or the NFL or whatever it may be. Um there's this uh gentleman named Doc Surles who kind of came up with this concept a few years back called um a vendor relationship manager or vendor relationship management kind of similar to customer relationship manager but it's essentially the opposite of that where you provide the consumer the control of monitor of managing the different vendors that that they want to interact with. And so that's it's a massive piece of what we're building specifically with the OLO app, you know. So aside from kind of the second party principles that we've outlined, you know, from a product perspective, this is something that you'll really see bleed through is that when a guest onboards to the Olo app, um, they're actually going to select the brands that they want to follow. And what that does is it takes those brands, it pins them to the home screen. And every single time that guest opens up the app, the first thing that they see on the home screen is the brands that they're following. Um, and we think that's a really really important element. We don't believe that an algorithm should be dictating what the guest sees. We believe that the guest should have the choice. Um, you know, there'll be a discovery element of the Olo app where you can go search for different brands, look at a map, see what's around you, etc. We also know how important that is as well. Um, but yeah, one I think big product difference that you'll see in the Olo app experience versus other experiences, it's really optimized for showing you those brands that you love that you consistently reorder from. Um, and the discovery component maybe being a little bit more secondary in in that experience. I think that that kind of speaks to the shift in this commerce piece that's been much more intentional relationships with the consumers themselves and how they uh how they interact with these brands directly and we will lead into the the piece about like agentic commerce and how that all revolutionizes I guess how people are interacting, purchasing, consuming and everything like that. like is a piece of the Olo app building on top of the foreseeable future that will be agentic commerce.

24:46 >> You know, I I think the way that we think about it is, you know, we're very focused on building the whole app and just want to be intentional about that. No easy lift about what we're doing. Um, so that's really been our primary focus. Um, it's hard to ignore what's happening though with Aentic. I mean, it's changing every day. Um, but we definitely see a big piece of the Olo network being part of the Gentic world.

25:11 Um, we really want to be thoughtful about what that experience looks like. But I mean, I think you saw probably six weeks ago or so ChatGBT made the big announcement that, you know, they're no longer going to handle the checkout experience. They're going to kind of default to apps. Um, you know, you can imagine a world where, you know, the Olo app having, you know, 90,000 plus locations, millions of users on it could be an extension of chat where you could order through there. And I think, you know, the big value proposition from a brand there is you get a lot of those second party principles that we talked about directly in those agentic experiences. And so, um, definitely something that's top of mind for us and, you know, probably changes on a day-to-day basis just given everything that's happening with Agentic and kind of AI in general. But, um, definitely something that we we think about, we're actively exploring and we do believe will be a big piece of the OA network.

26:04 Um, but really want to make sure that we're we're laser focused on landing the OO app, ensuring it's a great guest and restaurant experience and then from there kind of uh evolving into more products within the network. >> Yeah, 100%. I I I would agree with that vision 100%. Um, do you think in some capacity that we're moving towards like a world where like the interface I guess maybe of how consumers order or something along those lines? Like if we talk about like the website conversation SEO moving to AEO things of that nature like the interface isn't going to matter so much as the infrastructure and what's built underneath or behind it. depends on the day. You know, you know, I think it's all moving so fast. Um, you know, I think there's there's cases to say, you know, the experience is going to or the interface is going to matter more than ever. And there's others days where, you know, the interface can matter less and less. And so, you know, I think the way that we're building and, you know, everyone should be building is um a way that allows for you to run a lot of experiments and to be flexible and in changing things based off of what's happening kind of in the outside world.

27:17 Um, so, you know, hard to give you a straight answer on that. I think again, everyone six months ago with kind of chat thought that interfaces wouldn't matter. then, you know, six weeks ago all of a sudden they're leaning purely on kind of apps and that interface within their platform to to really service that. So, um, look, I I think we're in the very very very early innings of an incredibly transformative and exciting time. And again, I think the biggest advantage here is building with flexibility because I think the way the world looks today is going to be very different than it looks in three months, six months, 12 months out. Um and so trying to be very intentional of uh ensuring that we're building with uh the ability to to kind of uh evolve and and be uh strategic in in how we kind of integrate different ways.

28:11 >> Yeah. To say to say the least 6 12 months going to look wildly different. Um, something I wanted to preface back to the Olo app maybe itself, like any operator brand out there listening, we've kind of referenced that it's going to release I believe in October. Is there any way they can act on the opportunity to get involved with that today in real time? >> Yeah, for sure. So, um, you know, I mentioned this earlier, we're having a lot of brand conversations which have been incredible. Um and and really right now what we're doing is you know the team's building the Oolo app and um all that great stuff that comes with it. Uh but we're really using this time to hear directly from brands. We don't want to just build the solution for the industry. We want to build it with the industry. And so um you know the feedback that I'd throw out there is um you know if there is interest we we'd love to hear from any brand listening to this. um happy to walk them through a bit of a demo of how we're thinking about it, a little bit more about second-party principles. Uh but it's been so helpful. I mean, selfishly, to be honest with you, to to get that kind of direct operator feedback. It shaped a lot about how we thought about things.

29:28 We made a lot of different changes already to the design based off of that experience. And so, um yeah, as you mentioned, we're kind of launching later this year. And so, you know, right now is really focused on the build and and making sure we get that right. And then kind of come this fall, we'll be doing more onboarding and a proper launch. So, um, yeah, would would love to hear from any brands. If you go to olo.comolo-network, uh, there's a form there where you can kind of ask for a demo. Uh, that actually goes directly to me. So, you know, feel free to to go through there and we'll set up some time and and have a conversation about what we're building and would love to hear your perspective.

30:07 >> Yeah, I hope I hope I hope your inbox gets blown up because of this. Just one I'm gonna clip that up and send it to everyone I know. Um >> Yeah, please please do. >> Um I I wanted to just like candidly ask as well. I know we touched on the Olo app, the Olo network, but is there anything that you weren't able to mention because of the questions I asked or in real time you didn't necessarily think about like anything else that excites you about the network in the app itself? Anything you really want to highlight that I'm maybe myself I just wasn't thinking about that you know about or you want to share or talk about publicly that makes you excited about what this product is going to be? Yeah, I mean I think we covered a lot of ground today which was great and really appreciate you making the time to have this conversation. Um, you know, the biggest thing I would throw out there maybe is that every brand is is pretty radically different. And so, um, I would challenge brands to really think about how could this potentially help their business. And I think what, you know, generally what we hear in these conversations is everyone's thinking about slightly differently. And that's great. I mean, that's ultimately what we're trying to to solve for is how do we build a solution that can impact every restaurant in some positive way and it doesn't need to be the same across every restaurant brand. And so, you know, again, it kind of goes back to that first party, third party, second party where we started this conversation. Um, you know, the way that I would view this is that it's not first party or third party or second party.

31:40 It's it's all together. So it's first and second and third. And I think you know that's the the biggest takeaway that that we want to make sure that lands with every brand is that this is not going to replace first party. This is not going to replace third party. This is going to be an added channel that will drive value and you know very different way than kind of what shows up today. Um and and something that we're really excited about and continue to support our brands and hopefully many more brands across uh the world.

32:11 >> That's well put. Thank you so much for sharing that. Um Chris, I just want to thank you so much. I know um we're we were working on a tight timeline to get something done here. Um hopefully, Will you be at Food on Demand in a couple weeks? >> I won't be. Um my wife, we're we're expecting our second child uh early Mayulations. So, >> she put a a travel ban on me starting uh very early May. So, I won't be, but uh it's an incredible event. Very sad to miss. I've been the last few years and um you know always had a great time there. So uh you know excited for the industry to get together, learn from each other, share with each other and um yeah bummed I won't be there but hopefully returning next year.

32:54 >> Yeah. Well, you got some more important things to worry about than food on demand. Uh to say the least. Um but yeah, man, I I do appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. Obviously, we're big fans of your team and Ola over here at Deliver that. Um thank you so much for your time. Uh, I'm not sure I can forgive you for the 2016 World Series. Um, I was in Cleveland. I was extremely heartbroken. It was a tough night for myself and my friends. Um, but yeah, man. I I do I just greatly appreciate you. Thank you guys so much. And uh we I hopefully I'll see you at a conference soon down the road um where I'll come uh come visit you sometime soon. But thank you so much, man.

33:28 >> Awesome. Thanks so much, Ben. Chat soon.