Listen to the most recent episode of Smart People Should Build Things: The Venture for America Podcast, a play.it original in collaboration with CBS!
In this episode, Jeremy interviews Noah Glass, Founder & CEO of Olo, the fastest-growing digital ordering provider for the foodservice industry.
Noah began his career at Endeavor Global, a nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs in emerging markets around the world as they develop high-impact companies. There, he launched the first African Endeavor affiliate office in South Africa. Throughout his work abroad and with aspiring entrepreneurs, Noah recognized the opportunity for smart phones to revolutionize the e-commerce space, particularly in the food industry. Noah’s idea was novel at the time: order food on a smart phone, and arrive at the restaurant to find your meal ready and waiting.
When Noah returned to the US to attend Harvard Business School, he ran his idea and a prototype by David Frankel, a member of Endeavor’s board. David gave Noah an offer too good to refuse: if Noah quit his job and withdrew from Harvard, David would would seed the budding idea.
Olo was a fledgling company in 2006 when Noah, wearing a sandwich board on Wall Street, happened to hand a flyer to a Wall Street Journal reporter. After an article ran in the WSJ, Good Morning America invited Noah to appear on the show. Soon Noah’s phone was ringing off the hook from restaurants who wanted in on this novel idea.
Download the most recent episode of the #VFApodcast to hear how Noah and the Olo team scaled the business, transitioned from a B2C (business to consumer) company to one of the first SaaS B2B (business to business) companies of its time, and scored clients like Carvel and Cold Stone Creamery to become the “ice cream cake platform.”