Olo: Vision, Competition & Innovator's Dilemma

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It makes sense. Whom do you view as the foremost competitor for Olo moving forward and getting to this vision?

The third – to the earlier question – is the POS systems. The resurgence of NCR or, let's say, directly Toast, successfully going upstream and delivering ultimately on the vision that we're the new NCR. We can go and do everything, and Olo is just a feature. There are the Toasts and the PARs of the world, but I can tell you, as an insider, no one in the industry believes that. Returning to the savvy enterprise customer, I spoke to some recently. You could tell there was a lack of excitement about Toast. When I asked an Olo customer about that, I got nine out of 10, we love Olo, or I wish they did this and this, and I'll get one who's pissed. So, it's the opposite.

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It makes sense. Whom do you view as the foremost competitor for Olo moving forward and getting to this vision?

On the PAR side, I suspect we get some enterprise. That said, when I had that same question go out to the enterprise community, their products seemed to be breaking and brittle. To that end, I don’t think there’s a trust that they can handle over 50% of volume coming through the brand. We’re talking about $23 billion in GMV that Olo is processing. Who can handle that volume better than Olo? That’s what I’ll come back to every time. There isn’t a company out there. That’s why the enterprise IT community doesn’t believe today that there’s a better solution that’s more scalable, reliable, and secure than Olo.

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So they’re a necessary evil?

They're a necessary evil, as was NCR. The demise of NCR, which we took down, was because they got too greedy with partners; they did not create a friendly partner ecosystem. There are over 300 partners out there, but let's call it a few dozen features of Toast that can influence key IT decision-makers to either get Toast or insert any company to play along. If they're not playing along, they can influence the decision to move away. In addition to our story, NCR was a bit of a self-inflicted wound. The mindset was different in that they were too greedy, and they charged a toll on too many sides. They kept charging tolls where there were no tolls for any other company. I'm hearing that new tolls are being put into Toast or other companies getting up there that partners are not happy with, which, ultimately, some influential partners will get customers to be pissed about. On the same side, customers are likely incurring new fees directly or indirectly because of these integrations, so that's why I mention it.

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