Olo Inc. (OLO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome. My name is Alecia Pulman. I'm a partner in ICR's Consumer Group. And I am pleased to have with me today a long-time ICR client and friend, Noah Glass, Founder and CEO of Olo; and Peter Benevides, Chief Financial Officer. So for those of you who aren't familiar, Olo is a leading restaurant technology provider with ordering, payment and guest engagement solutions that help brands increase orders, streamline operations and improve the guest experience. Over 700 restaurant brands trust Olo to create a faster path to profitable growth while creating a world where every guest feels like a regular. We're going to start off with a quick video to show Olo's product flywheel. [Presentation]

Noah. Well, that was an amazing overview of where you guys are. But let's take a step back. You founded Olo in 2005. Take us through the journey to get you to where you are today.

Okay. How long do you have? I mean 25 minutes.

21 minutes.

All right. I'll try to be brief in summary. First, thanks so much for having us. I think this is probably my 10th ICR at this point and bigger and better than ever. So huge thanks to you and the ICR team. How Olo started 20 years ago, I wanted to get a cup of coffee faster in downtown Manhattan and a lot of people want to get coffee at the same time. And I thought it would help me if I could order and pay ahead and get this coffee faster. It would be good for me, and it would be good for the operator at the same time. I could skip the line. They could move more people through that line faster. So that was the initial idea. We have now scaled that in a very major way up to 700 brands that are using Olo for that digital ordering capability. So that's really what the industry knows us for in addition to delivery enablement, first-party delivery, third-party marketplace delivery enablement. That's what we call our order suite. Since our IPO, we have added on to Olo. We have added our pay suite of capabilities that enable restaurant brands to take payment within the ordering platform and now also take payments inside of the restaurant, inside the 4 walls with card-present processing on a variety of kiosk providers and POS providers. And our Engage suite, which is really about data and engagement of the guest. And you saw those 3 things living together into the Olo guest data flywheel. But we really do this all as an open and modular platform purpose-built for enterprise restaurants. And we work now with emerging enterprise, enterprise and top 25 restaurant brands. For a sense of scale, just for fun, in 2023, we processed $26 billion of sales volume through the Olo platform. Now obviously, we're not a restaurant brand. But if we were a restaurant brand, that would rank us #3 behind only McDonald's and Starbucks. From a digital perspective, we're far and away #1, doing more digital transactions, more digital sales volume than all of the pizza players, McDonald's, Starbucks, anybody in the industry. And I'd like to think that we've done billions of transactions over our history. We are doing 2 million more transactions every day. And those are really the seed crystal for this larger vision of enabling hospitality at scale to pull all these transactions together, collate them behind every guest and help brands really understand their guests and how to personalize their experience going forward as a way of driving profitable traffic and realizing that vision.

So I'd like to unpack the flywheel. But before we do that, Peter, you want to take us through some of the financial highlights?

Yes, absolutely. So this past quarter, when we guided to the full year from a top line perspective, at the midpoint, targeting $281 million of revenue for the year. That's approximately a 23% growth rate year-on-year. From a profitability standpoint, $30 million of operating income. That's a little over a 10% operating margin, and we are a cash flow positive business. Some of the KPIs, SaaS KPIs, gross revenue retention north of 95% net revenue retention north of 120%. And again, cash flow generating with a healthy balance sheet.

Amazing. Can we talk a little bit more about the revenue model?

Yes. So how we monetize the platform is through a mix of both software and payments-related revenue streams. On the software side, we have a combination of both a flat fee and a usage-based component. So as our customers succeed, we succeed alongside them. And then, of course, we have a take rate model associated with the payments product. And today, we are predominantly or exclusively processing card-not-present transactions. So all of the revenue is being derived through that type of processing. We are now moving into the card-present opportunity, which is great on many fronts in terms of being able to drive revenue growth, ARPU growth as well as the data capabilities that come alongside with that.

Amazing. So, Noah, Olo has been a leading force in restaurant tech for many years. But -- can you talk about the industry in which Olo -- the ecosystem as well as what you think differentiates Olo?

Yes. I think ecosystem is a great jumping off point for my answer. One of the big things that differentiates Olo is that we have a really thriving ecosystem of technology partners, many of whom are in the room here today. We have over 400 integrated technology partners on top of Olo's open and modular platform, 16 of our own modules, our suite 16 through these 3 solution suites. But then all the innovation brought forth by 400 technology partners. It's one of the things that I am most proud of in terms of Olo's legacy in this industry. When we walked into doing integrations, POS integrations at first, it was anything but an open ecosystem. It was a world of walled gardens and trying to break through those walled gardens and really leaning on a lot of our early customers to help us to do that. And we said, we want to be an open platform. We want to enable restaurant CIOs to sit and say, I'm going to start here, and I'm going to build like LEGO pieces, the right tech stack for my brand, for my operators, for my guests. And if I can't find that from within Olo's library of integrations, I can then build on top of Olo and do bespoke work on my own because it's an open platform with open APIs that is so fundamental to who we are as a company and how we show up for the industry that we want to be on the restaurant side. We want to be on the CIO side. I think gone are the days of should we build or should we buy brands that I think are enlightened are buying into the Olo platform, building on top of it with technology partners. And then the things that they want to do that are really bespoke and differentiated for their brand, they can then spend their resources to build on top in a way that truly differentiates the brand.

So I think there's more to get into on this. But Peter, maybe walk us through the decision makers, how this -- the sales process, so to speak.

Yes. So when you think about the flywheel, Order, Pay and Engage, there's different entry points into those brand relationships. So typically, with Order that can originate in the office of the CIO or the Head of Digital, Payments tends to start in the office of the CFO or Treasurer, and then you have the Engage suite, which is typical to engage with no pun intended, with the marketing teams. What's interesting, though, is because of that flywheel where more data, more payments leads into Engage and how you can better engage with your guests, the constituents that we're talking to at the brand, they're all really kind of interrelated and talking amongst themselves and choosing Olo to really fit -- fit the need of all 3 of those buying centers. But one thing that I think we've done over the years that may be unique is we only sell into the brand and then we're adopted across all locations within the brand, where I think some tech providers go franchisee group by franchisee group. And the reason for that is because we are a consumer or guest-facing technology, you need to have that unified guest experience when you are transacting with your guests. So it served us really well to sell into the brand and then get adopted across all locations within the brand.

So that leads us perfectly back to the flywheel. So Olo has been a long-standing leader in third-party digital ordering and delivery. But help us understand the why behind entering both payments and guest engagement.

Yes. It's a good question because we -- when we came public, we were really just the order platform and Pay and Engage were things that we kind of handwavely what said, these are opportunities. We don't know when they're going to come to fruition. Just on Pay for a moment and then into Engage because they do kind of segue into one another. Pay really came about organically. I mean, of course, we've seen other technology providers get into the payment space as a way of augmenting their business. We took a lot of inspiration, a lot of inspiration from Shopify. That was a company that we looked at and we said, they've done a really nice job of using payments to improve the consumer experience buying on Shopify and to grow their business and to make their merchants happy. But really, we heard organically from our Product Advisory Council that there was a set of needs that were not being met by the incumbent, typically horizontal payment processors. And they were both guest needs and operator needs. On the guest side, guests want to pay with Apple Pay. Guests want to pay with Google Pay. They want to have a card on file. They want this frictionless sign-on experience. We can't get that with the existing horizontal payment processor who is really designed for card swipes in the restaurant, not for digital transactions. On the operator side, there are all these problems we're having with authorization rates, fraud, franchisees really do not like fraud. They haven't seen it in card swipes in restaurants. Now they're getting online fraud. They hate that help chargebacks, the ultimate sort of adding [indiscernible] to injury of you're out the food cost and now we're charging you a chargeback fee. So there are all of these problems that we were hearing voiced by our customers and they said, could Olo help? Could you design something into the digital commerce platform itself to make payments better and easier for guests and for operators. And that was really the origin of building out Olo Pay. We then saw that Olo Pay was kind of brilliant at the basics of authorization, fraud prevention, chargeback, contestation. It made life so much simpler for operators, made life so much better for guests with Apple Pay and Google Pay with our borderless sign-up and sign-in that's a passwordless sign-in modeled off of Shop Pay, that ability to sign in just with your e-mail or your mobile number, never having to remember a password. And that there was an opportunity for us to span from card-not-present only into card-present as well. The first baby step of that was integrating with the kiosk providers that were already integrated into Olo for digital ordering into our ordering API, now being able to accept Olo Pay as a card-present tap or swipe. Then we set our sights on, could we do the same thing with POS? Could we integrate with the point-of-sale providers such that we could be the payment processor for transactions that are not digital transactions, but are the over 80% of industry transactions that are nondigital. And could we do it in a way where we weren't only just drilling at the basics, but also able to pull data from that transaction, item level detail of what was ordered from the POS, from the ticket and pull that into our guest data platform. And that's really where Engage comes in. It's -- now we have the ability with a set of point-of-sale partners to pull in the data from nondigital transactions and have that data be effectively as rich in clues about that guest as a digital transaction. From a guest perspective, I can now see every transaction that, that guest has placed at that brand, and I can use that to really understand who they are, what they would like on their next order. Typically, it's a reorder something they've ordered in the past or I can make a data-driven recommendation of what is the thing Alecia has never tried before that other guests that look like Alecia have tried and loved. That is not new technology. That is something that all of us have experienced with Spotify or Netflix, the songs in my Discover weekly, they're based on the songs that I have listened to on repeat in Spotify and what other listeners like me also like. Shows, movies, those are getting recommended based on a look-alike audience. That collaborative filtering that enables that kind of data-driven personalization is right there at our fingertips. It just needs to get unlocked for this industry. And that is why we're so excited about the Olo guest data flywheel with the order data and the pay data and being able to take action on it through the Engage capabilities.

So with 700 brands, 85,000 locations, really impressive numbers. Can you elaborate on the state of that end market? What are you -- where is your ability to drive business despite a lot of the pressure that you mentioned in the macro environment?

Yes. I think the thing that is universal, I've heard from every brand that I've talked to over the last quarter certainly and even earlier is everybody is feeling the pinch of traffic has dropped. How do we reinvigorate traffic and drive traffic. And unfortunately, that's typically where the thought stops that just drive traffic of any kind, and that's good. So that can mean deals and discounts, that can mean putting ad fund dollars into third-party marketplaces to drive transactions through those channels. But it really is about how do we make sure that we're driving profitable traffic. How do we drive the kind of traffic that's going to be not just good for the brand, but also long-term good for operators and franchisees, ultimately good for the guests value perception of the brand and not corroding any of that in doing something that's kind of short-term oriented. So a big focus for us is how do we help our brands use all the data that we've collected over the years and learn about those guests so that they can take action, send marketing communications to guests that are not one size fits all, but that are relevant, that are timely and that really resonate with the guests and get them to take action. So a favorite example of this for me is Five Guys Burgers and Fries because they're one of our oldest customers, 15 years that we've been working with them. They have really never done marketing of any kind. I mean they're known for viral marketing as sort of the only marketing channel at Five Guys. And recently, we said we'd love to experiment with the Engage platform, harvesting some of these guest data profile -- guest profiles and then taking action on them. We did a test 6 months in 150 locations. We harvested with the guests permission. That's a critical thing to say, 4.5 million guest profiles of Five Guys loving guests. And then we sent communications out to those guests using our marketing automation suite within the Engage platform. We drove over $2 million in attributed sales just by doing that campaign. And what was special about it was this campaign was a set of messages to those guests that was personalized, informed by what we knew about them and relevant to those guests. So it have a much higher likelihood of that guest than taking action and saying, "Oh, I just forgot about Five Guys, wasn't top of mind. I want to go back and I want to order from Five Guys. That's the kind of profitable traffic that I think is healthy and durable for restaurants. I think restaurants that are shortsighted about this and do whatever they have to do just to drive top line transactions and sales, I think they're going to discount themselves to death, and you see that with store closures and bankruptcies. I think the way to survive and thrive is to lean in like every other industry has into personalization. I think that's good for the guests. They feel special. They feel seen and it's good for the long-term health of the business.

Amazing. We've got a few minutes left, but I want to jump into a few more things. Peter, let's touch on expectations for 2025.

Yes. So what we've shared is, from a location standpoint, adding a similar number of locations in '25 to what we've added this past year. Also a focus on reaccelerating gross profit on the year. That's as the payments opportunity has continued to scale, that's really what the management team and the business has been focused on reaccelerating gross profit. At the same time, we've done a great job this past year in stabilizing OpEx such that as gross profit continues to grow, we expect to continue to expand operating margins. So that's the kind of high-level commentary that we've shared with regard to '25.

And you have a strong balance sheet. So any thoughts on capital allocation?

Yes. So really 2 primary focus areas, executing on our second $100 million buyback, which we announced last year and then also looking at tuck-in M&A, things that we think can help to accelerate the product road map.

I'm looking forward to seeing what that will bring. So last question, Noah. You've long talked about how we're in the early innings of the digital transformation. Where are we today? And what do you see as we look ahead to 2025? And what are you excited about?

I still think we are just getting out of the dug out with regard to digital in this industry. This is a massive $1 trillion-plus industry. Digital has grown and scaled. I think the last number I saw were about 18% of overall transactions that are digital. That's why we're so focused as a company on not just being within that digital subset, but really touching every transaction that is out there, digital and nondigital and then using that to help brands use digital tools to improve their business and improve their guest experience at the same time. We're super early in that story, that Olo guest data flywheel that you saw in that video. But we're seeing brands have early success with it, and it gives me great confidence that this is the path forward for our industry in the future. And we're thrilled to be along for that ride. As I come up personally on Olo's third decade, crazy thing to hear myself say, I've truly never been more excited about what's ahead of us as an industry and as a company than I am now. I think there's so far to go, and I'm really not going to be satisfied until we've truly made every guest feel like a regular. That's why I love that as a vision and a point on the horizon that we're always going to be sailing toward, but it is a very long-term mission and one that we're thrilled to be on with this industry.

Well, I will say on behalf of ICR, we are thrilled to be on it with you. Coming up on our decade but appreciate you both being here and sharing what's to come and what's ahead.

Thank you. Thanks, Alecia.

Thank you.

Thank you all.