Bold move to launch a delivery app competitor in late 2026! But if anyone has a shot at success, it’s Olo, the 21-year-old online ordering company.
After decades spent outside of the diner spotlight, Olo is stepping directly into it. It’ll (finally) launch a diner-facing mobile app October 20 with 220 (and counting!) restaurant brands including Dave’s Hot Chicken and El Pollo Loco and Waffle house. Last week, Olo released a teaser video that’s part ad, part explainer, part recruitment tool to recruit restaurant participation.
For decades, Olo has worked with large restaurant brands, quietly powering online ordering. The company IPO’d in 2021 (likely riding that pandemic ordering high), but exited the public market last summer in a $2 billion, all-cash deal from private equity firm Thoma Bravo.
While it seems a little… late to jump into the marketplace game, Olo CEO Noah Glass told me the timing is exactly. “The thing that’s been holding us back, truly, being a public company, it would have been hard to do this,” he said.
I agree. A new app and diner-facing ordering experience is risky — a big marketing push, a big and unproven strategy shift — the kind of expense and uncertainty that the public market doesn’t love. I can’t imagine Wall Street loves any company trying to go after the DoorDash machine, either.
Glass calls Olo’s app strategy “second-party ordering,” which is a made-up phrase meant to position the app in a category of one, between first-party (ordering directly with the restaurant) and third-party (placing an order on a commission-based marketplace app).
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Olo has some work to do to get hundreds more restaurant brands onboard — the company works with 800 of them. Glass doesn’t seem worried. Olo’s building ordering infrastructure for the future, he told me, a future laden with bots and agents, digital tech that’ll more for diners. Our interview continues below for paid subscribers.
Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.