Olo

3.0

15 Oct 2022

Recommend

CEO approval

Business outlook

Pros

The people. Hands down. I've worked with some of the best, kindest, and most sincere people at Olo. They genuinely want their coworkers and customers to succeed. It's not a competitive environment. It's not an environment that encourages or tolerates smart jerks. The people have always been what has made Olo special. And you'll see this reflected in most reviews. The benefits. 20 days of PTO, 10 company holidays, and the entire last week of the year off. The health insurance is pretty good. They match up to 50% of your 401(k) contributions up to 5% (could be better). I'd like to see a stipends for home office expenses and a higher 401(k) match but I'm happy with what we have. The focus on equity and inclusion. We have a good group of ERGs. The company talks openly about equity. We have monthly events hosted by ERGs that bring in external speakers or highlight our internal leaders, like a recent Hispanic Leaders Fireside Chat. We've had pronouns in email signatures for a couple of years. And we've made improvements in our senior leadership being more diverse. There's room to improve (there always is), but Olo tackles this head on. Olo is a clear market leader. We have a strong product, we're the leader in our industry, and our customers generally really like us. We've taken the approach of being a neutral platform focused on making restaurants successful rather than seeing them as means to an end (like delivery marketplaces do) or using their data to compete with them (like some marketplace aggregators do). Olo's products have both breadth and depth. Few competitors compete across all of our offerings. Most just compete in narrow ways. Olo is still growing, so it's not stagnant and there's opportunities to make your mark and grow with the company. It's not a start-up mentality with 60+ hr workweeks, but it's not a lumbering corporation. You can make an impact, find a niche, and see your efforts payoff.

Cons

Olo has changed considerably in the last few years. Since 2020, the company has 3x headcount, gone public, acquired two companies, and lost/replaced the Chief Operating Officer, Chief People Officer, Chief Customer Officer, SVP of Engineering, SVP of Product, and an SVP of Sales. The stock price has fallen from a high of $45 to $7-$8. And we essentially lost our largest customer. These changes have been hard and leadership has, understandably, struggled. The new leadership has a different ethos laser focused on revenue and scale, in contrast to the people-first culture that made Olo such a special place to work. For example, the replacement for the Chief Customer Officer is now the Chief Revenue Officer. While we used to view ourselves as partners in our customers' success, we now appear to view customers primarily as a source of revenue. This has led to a less personal approach and an environment that feels less caring and more process-oriented. Olo has been a remote-forward company since before COVID, but prioritized in-person interactions. That's been lost since COVID, blamed on the budget. We've also seen teams shrink. But this has been contrasted with news of an authorized $100M stock buyback program. Budgets are one of the clearest reflections of a companies values and it appears Olo values its stock above its team. I think many of the cons you'll see in reviews are from people who have been here before the transition and are struggling with what the company has become. I can't say whether it's good or bad. But it's certainly different. Different enough that more people are making the decision to leave and find what we used to be.

Olo Response

Thank you for your thoughtful in depth review. We truly appreciate your feedback so we can continue to improve and grow. One thing we would like to clarify is our view on these Glassdoor reviews. In the recent All Hands Potluck, our COO had mentioned how she and the leadership team regularly read Glassdoor reviews. As she shared at the Potluck, our P+C Team also shares these reviews with our leadership team on a consistent cadence. As stated at the Potluck, we take all the feedback to heart. We acknowledge that some of the feedback is on point and are working to change and improve. For example, as we set our People + Culture priorities for 4Q22 and 2023, we considered feedback from a range of sources including these reviews when setting our priorities. We encourage employees to leave an honest review, and we love that feedback is constantly being shared. In addition, we encourage employees to join Potlucks, office hours, or to reach out directly to leaders, Business Partners, and/or the People + Culture team to share feedback as well.

Struggling Through Changes - Customer Success Olo Employee Review

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