In a conversation with Harry Stebbings on 20vc, Noah Glass, founder and CEO of Olo, shares his journey from the early inspiration of mobile commerce to building a capital-efficient public company that powers millions of restaurant orders daily. Glass discusses the importance of focus, capital allocation, and the "embrace the suck" philosophy, which helped Olo navigate through lean times and integrate with complex restaurant systems. He credits his investors, including David Frankel, Danny Meyer, and Scott Schleifer, for their support and highlights the significance of separating personal identity from the business, delegating effectively, and maintaining a family-first value system. Despite challenges and moments of doubt, Glass's steadfast vision for Olo and his approach to leadership, prioritizing important over urgent tasks, and fostering a culture of enlightened hospitality have been key to the company's success.
When this company went public, it had a net burn of just $6 million and an ARR of $122,000,000. Now that is rare.
This quote highlights the rarity and significance of Olo's capital efficiency at the time of their public offering, emphasizing the company's successful financial stewardship.
Noah Glass, founder and CEO at Olo, the interface between restaurants in the on-demand world. Powering millions of orders per day, Noah arrays from some of the best in the business, including David Frankel at Founder Collective, Danny Meyer, Scott Schleifer at Tiger Global, all on the cap table.
This quote introduces Noah Glass and Olo's role in the restaurant industry, as well as mentioning the high-profile investors who believe in the company's vision.
With Core Signal's historical headcount data set, investors can easily see the historical growth trends of more than 20 million companies worldwide.
The quote explains the utility of Core Signal's dataset for investors seeking to understand the growth patterns of companies, which is crucial for making informed investment decisions.
Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business.
This quote summarizes the benefits of using Squarespace for entrepreneurs and businesses looking to establish or enhance their online footprint.
Whether you're running SPVs, a traditional venture fund like me, or even a rolling fund, AngelList has you covered.
This quote emphasizes AngelList's capability to support various types of investment management, highlighting its versatility and value to investors and founders alike.
A mobile device that let me order ahead, pay ahead, and have them prepare my order as I was en route, that would be better for me as a consumer, and it would help them improve their throughput capacity.
Noah Glass explains the core concept behind Olo, which centers around convenience for consumers and increased efficiency for restaurants.
If we can endure, if we can outlast our competitors, if we can integrate into systems in the restaurant, point of sale, systems that weren't meant to be integrated into. If we can get through that suck, we'll be in a place that nobody else will be able to stay with us.
Noah Glass discusses the resilience required to succeed in a challenging market and the competitive advantage gained by enduring hardships.
We were a team that was really good at embracing the suck and having a high pain tolerance, but also celebrating the wins and really being in it together.
This quote reflects on the team's camaraderie and their strategy of focusing on positive developments to navigate through tough times.
We raised that money. We had it in our bank balance, and we knew we had to make it last.
Noah Glass recounts the critical moment of securing Series A funding, which required careful allocation to ensure the company's longevity and success.
"I think it's making the right call in those crucible moments, being consistent in between and really setting the example for the team about what are our values, how do we make decisions?"
This quote explains that leadership is not only about making critical decisions during high-stakes moments but also about consistently applying the company's values and decision-making principles in everyday situations.
"Looking back now, it was at best a toss up and maybe would have been too early in 2019."
Noah Glass reveals his retrospective thoughts on the decision to take Olo public, suggesting that the timing might not have been right and highlighting the uncertainty that leaders must often navigate.
"Those two things of separating yourself from the business and delegating are really closely intertwined."
This quote encapsulates the interconnectedness of maintaining personal well-being by distancing oneself from the business's ups and downs and the necessity of delegating tasks to scale the business effectively.
"My wife has been a huge supporter, worked in the business in the earliest years as our initial CMO, when we were really just getting started, and had a number of brilliant ideas on the go to market strategy, but is a legal historian."
This quote highlights the multifaceted support Noah Glass receives from his wife, both professionally during the early stages of Olo and personally, as they navigate their careers in different fields.
"We really sort of built that family comes first value, and you are now emulating that by spending the time on yourself and on your family."
This quote reflects the company's commitment to prioritizing family and personal well-being over business demands, showcasing a compassionate approach to work-life balance.
"Patrick asking that question of anything that's top of mind is a real gift because every time it sort of takes all these urgent things that are swimming around in my brain and we deal with them and then we're able to focus on the important things after that."
This quote explains how CEO coaching helps Noah Glass prioritize and focus on the most critical aspects of his role, clearing his mind of distractions to address truly important issues.
"I would say that those things that seem really important right now, but won't be over a long time, those are really what I mean by the things that seem urgent."
This quote explains the distinction between tasks that feel urgent due to immediate pressure and those that are genuinely important for long-term success. It emphasizes the need to differentiate between the two when making decisions.
"So many times you'll get into a debate with somebody and they'll be very passionate about something, and you realize that what they are arguing is purely a set of judgments and not really rooted in fact."
This quote underlines the importance of distinguishing between objective facts and subjective judgments in debates, suggesting that a factual basis is essential for constructive dialogue and decision-making.
"I absolutely believe that there is room for intuition."
The speaker acknowledges the value of intuition in entrepreneurship, particularly when creating innovative solutions that data may not yet support, as demonstrated by the origin story of Olo.
"I think high performance. I'll come back to the equanimity idea, like being able to manage through the tasks at hand."
The speaker defines high performance as the ability to handle various tasks with composure and balance, suggesting that this mindset is essential for effective leadership and entrepreneurship.
"I agree with the old adage that every strength is also a weakness and every weakness is also a strength."
This quote reflects the speaker's belief that traits such as stubbornness have dual aspects and that the key is to balance conviction with openness to new facts and perspectives.
"I really wish I'd known that or really had taken it to heart in the early days, it would have saved me a lot of personal pain, I can tell you that."
The speaker expresses a desire to have understood the importance of separating personal identity from the company's performance earlier in their career, indicating this as key advice for founders.
"I think that outraising can be a blessing and it can be a curse."
The speaker suggests that while raising capital can enable a company to seize significant opportunities, it can also lead to problems if not done thoughtfully and at the right time.
"And the curse part of raising too much money is you have to spend the money, you have to go and do things. And oftentimes that can breed a huge lack of focus, and that can mean that you're trying to do too many things at once, you're stretched too thin and nothing that you're doing is really best in class."
This quote highlights the pitfalls of raising too much capital, emphasizing how it can dilute a company's focus and hinder its ability to excel in a specific domain.
"And it preaches this idea of enlightened hospitality, which is about putting your team first, then your customers, then your partners, then your community, and only then your investors."
This quote explains the enlightened hospitality concept, which prioritizes different stakeholders to create a balanced and ethical approach to business.
"Honestly, my biggest takeaway is what an incredible father and husband human being that he is."
The quote reflects Noah Glass's personal admiration for Frankel, emphasizing his character and impact as a mentor in life, not just business.
"The most challenging role is probably delegating things, realizing when we need to bring someone into the organization who will take the lead of some new initiative or some new component of the company."
This quote addresses the difficulty in delegating and the importance of appointing dedicated leaders for new initiatives within a company.
"I'd like to see more companies that can honestly say we're doing well and we're doing good in parallel."
The quote expresses a desire for startups to pursue success in a way that also contributes positively to society.
"My biggest weakness is almost definitionally conflict avoidance."
This quote reveals Noah Glass's self-awareness about his tendency to avoid conflict and his efforts to improve in this area.
"The newest thing that I would promote if I had a billboard is our newest innovation, and that's a product called Olo Pay."
This quote discusses Olo's strategic marketing focus and highlights their new product, Olo Pay, which aims to streamline the checkout process for consumers.
"So we are driving toward what I call digital entirety, which is every restaurant transaction being digital."
The quote outlines Olo's ambition to digitize the entire restaurant transaction process, enabling a higher level of hospitality through data utilization.
"Harry, thank you so much. It's an honor to join you."
This quote concludes the conversation with a note of appreciation for the discussion and the platform provided.