Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast with Zack Oates
Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast is your backstage pass to the minds of hospitality leaders, innovators, and operators who are redefining what it means to serve. Hosted by Zack Oates, founder of Ovation, each episode dives into real-world tactics and inspiring stories from restaurant pros who know how to create five-star guest experiences—both in-store and off-premise.
From fast casual to fine dining, catering to curbside, learn how to drive loyalty, empower your staff, and deliver hospitality that hits home. Whether you're a restaurant owner, operator, marketer, or tech partner, this podcast will leave you with practical insights and plenty of reasons to celebrate and Give an Ovation.
Give an Ovation: The Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast with Zack Oates
Building Effective Restaurant Teams with Matt Tucker
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Today's episode is with Matt Tucker, a titan in the industry who was formerly the President and COO of Olo, and is now the Head of Tock.
Matt and Zack discuss:
- The 'cockroach' strategy—a testament to the relentless hustle required to weather the tempests of industry uncertainties
- Ben Horowitz's "The Hard Thing About Hard Things"
- Matt's insights on building teams based on trust
- More
Thanks, Matt!
Building Success Through Great People
Speaker 1Welcome to another edition of Give An Ovation , the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast , where I talk to industry experts to get their strategies and tactics you can use to create a five-star guest experience . This podcast is sponsored by Ovation , an operations and guest recovery platform from multi-unit restaurants that gives all the answers without annoying guests . With all the questions . Learn more at ovationupcom . And today I am so excited we have Matt Tucker with us . He's the head of talk , which sits under the publicly traded Squarespace . He has had a decade of experience as the president and COO of Ola , where he took them from 10 people to IPO . Prior to that , he was the CEO of Relye Software and was also on the founding team at Lending Tree . Matt , it seems like everything you touch has turned to gold . How are you man ?
Speaker 2I'm great , zach . That is really not true . By the way , you know , when I send you my bio , it's only the good stuff , because the bad stuff would take way more time than we had . But I have . I've definitely been lucky , and my last experience at Ola was , you know , noah , and he had an awesome podcast with Noah a year ago . It was an amazing experience . But yeah , there are plenty of failures there too , zach , we can't learn without failures , and so I can regale you with those stories sometime as well . That would take probably an extra hour .
Speaker 1But I think this is so interesting though , matt , because you know , I've always said that startups from meeting with thousands of different founders and CEOs , I find that startups , the successful ones , keep a very simple formula they stay alive and excited long enough to get lucky . You know , and there's so much in just like with a restaurant , it's like you just stay alive , just keep serving food and you'll get that good review , you'll get that article written like you just keep doing the good stuff long enough . And there's no silver bullets . You just got to shoot them lead bullets every day , right , matt ?
Speaker 2You got it . You got it . You're Ben Horowitz fan , but you're right , like there is no silver bullet I talk about that all the time with my team and persistence and you know great work on behalf of your customers , like that's all you can do . And if it's a customer for me is a restaurant , is on the software company , or if you're a restaurant and a customer for you as a guest , like you just need to be persistent , consistent and then maybe you'll get lucky at some point . It's helpful if you know there's some trends in your favor , like when I joined Olo , digital ordering had not taken off by the time we went public . Of course , and having gone through COVID , if you didn't have digital ordering you were not gonna survive . So a little luck is probably a nice thing to have as well , zach , but you know you can't plan for that , so you just gotta be persistent . Stay alive . Default alive Sometimes is the best way to be .
Speaker 1Yeah exactly One of our early investors . He always would go around because we're all there in San Francisco together and I would go and work out of their offices a lot and one of the things that he would say consistently he would say be the cockroach . He's like he's A lot more standing right . Yeah , he's like , just be the cockroach . That's how you do it .
Speaker 2And , by the way , one of the I mentioned Board members are helpful that way , aren't they Like just be a cockroach ? That's what I'm saying . Sure , you wanna tell me how Exactly ? Hey , that's really interesting , but what does that mean exactly right ?
Speaker 1So yeah , and it's one of those things , unfortunately , like , you learn the lesson after and then you're like oh , that's what he meant , right ? Yeah , For those who are listening , Matt just mentioned Ben Horwitz because Anyway , there's a great book called the hard things about hard things , Great book . And in there basically that's where the quote came from that I referenced of , like you know , there's no silver bullets , just lead bullets . But anyway , every single founder , no matter what your business is , should read the hard things about hard things by Ben Horwitz . I mean , it's a great book , Matt , isn't it ?
Speaker 2I think it's an amazing book . I have a copy here . It's , you know it is . I think it's standard reading . You get your MBA in one book because there's some fascinating stories there .
Speaker 2But the you know that notion of no silver bullets is just so important . I think people don't understand it . It's almost like , I don't know , it's like a shark tank effect on the sack . Like everyone watches that show and they think it's so easy . And I'm just going to , you know , I have this one little success I'm going to get these people to put money in . Like we've created this culture where everyone wants to be an entrepreneur , which I think is wonderful .
Speaker 2By the way , having been one , you know the vast majority of my working life . But it just looks easy sometimes and it's the opposite of easy . It is the you know the hard thing about hard things . It is hard and failure is , you know , sort of ingrained in the startup world . Yet if you don't go through failure you started with my bio . Those are the good things Again . Like the failures are where you learn so much . I'm grateful for that in many ways . I mean , there are a lot of sleepless nights when you fail and there are even sleepless nights when you succeed . But the whole journey is just not as easy as it looks , that's for sure , and all your listeners know that , because they're entrepreneurs as well .
Speaker 1Yeah , right . And so how do you build great companies , Matt ?
Speaker 2Well , I think you start with great people . I mean , I don't know any other way to do it and you know people talk about do you need a great idea or do you need a great team ? And if you listen to , you know venture capitalist or private equity folks talk . I think oftentimes you'll hear a relatively even split . Well , you need great product market fit and that's everything . I think that that's not the case . I think the great teams are the most important things .
Speaker 2Zach , and you know love to hear at some point your thoughts on this , you know , and how you build ovation . But for me , like , it is really about great people and because , even if you're in a perfect product market fit , if you have the right people , they will find that product market fit . They will find the nugget there . Again , the nugget doesn't mean a silver bullet , because it's not that , but the nugget means there is something there and the right people will find it . So for me , I've always been really lucky to , you know , have great people that I've picked up along the way at my age .
Speaker 2Now you know there are people I could just call and I joined Olo and joined Noah .
Speaker 2You know I brought two guys with me who are critical to the success of that company . And then , when I joined talk a year and a half ago , I brought some people with me who had worked with me before at Olo and other companies , and so ultimately you're lucky enough to have a little traveling band and you can get the band back together from time to time and it's super important .
Building Trust and Strong Teams
Speaker 2But I don't think there's a substitute for just an amazing team , and that's true in the restaurant business as well . I don't think there's any substitute there , and I was just , you know , with some folks the other day who you know , just an amazing team of restaurant tours and whether a tech company or restaurant company or anything else , I don't know , zach , if there's any substitute for team first , and I think that's such an interesting concept because you're totally right that the right group of people can find their way , can meander their way through and I use meander a bit lightly , because it's definitely like not meandering , but you are machete hacking through the jungle , right .
Speaker 2Like it is . That's right and you need to . That's a great analogy . Right Like ? Because you need to trust the person next to you . You have to have that open line of communication .
Speaker 2I remember a funny story , you know , at my time at Olo and we had an offsite meeting Noah's running the meeting and you know , noah and I had an argument with my chief revenue officer at Olo who had joined me .
Speaker 2He was one of the two guys who joined me when I joined Olo and I had worked with him before Marty Hanfield , and so we had like a knockdown , drag out fight about a product that we wanted to release , where he told me my idea was like the worst idea he's ever heard in his life , you know , and fast forward a few years later and the product was doing like 40% of Olo's revenue . But , by the way , you know you have to have that relationship . So that's why the team's important , so you can cut through the BS act and you're not just kissing everyone's ass in a meeting . That you can have those types of conversations Like that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard and I have to be able to respond back and say , okay , well , here's why I think it's not so , it's just the team , but it's the relationship you build and the transparency and open , honest conversations that drive success . Help you find that nugget , as you were talking about a few minutes ago .
Speaker 1Yeah , I think , because it really is . It's not necessarily , and you know , there's a lot of different kinds of luck , right . There's market luck there's a customer coming in luck but then this is a different kind of luck where it's like because you guys were excited about it , right ? If you were not excited about that idea , what was gonna happen was you would be like you got to push back and then you would have said , oh okay , but you were excited about that idea , right , and you need those people to push those ideas , to drag them , as the quote goes , to drag them across the somber threshold into reality , right ? Like it takes a lot of work and effort to do that and you're gonna get pushed back .
Speaker 2It does . You know , the interesting thing is we both were coming at it from a good place , which is we both wanted to serve the customer , the restaurant . And so , you know , in that case he believed that what he was hearing from the restaurants was one thing , and I believe firmly I was hearing something else . But we were both looking to solve for the same thing , like what can we do to make the restaurants more successful ? We both came at it from the right place . We just had , you know , different data sets and different , you know priorities and what was important at that time . But yeah , I mean , though , like you're right , you have to have the conversation , but you have to have trust that at least you're trying to solve the same problem .
Speaker 1Yes , and I think that's a great point , which is with these teams of passionate people . It's about understanding . There's many ways at the top of Mount Fuji , but what is the top and what you don't want is you don't want people realizing , once they get to the top of their ladder , that they were leaning against different walls , right .
Speaker 2Yeah , exactly .
Speaker 1As long as everyone's going after that same high level objective . I think that's where a good CEO comes in , where they can say hey , this is what we're going for . Now let's I mean not quite hunger games it , but quite frankly , like you need to a little bit hunger games it to have some focus right .
Speaker 2That totally . I mean , if you don't have that passion to have that argument like what's the point ? I mean , why are you even at the company ? I mean these are . If this is the hard thing about hard things , why would you want to be doing this hard thing if you weren't passionate about it , if you didn't bring that energy and that enthusiasm to serve your customer in this case , again , the restaurateur . Like that's critical , like there's no other reason to have the conversation , there's no reason to be in the business If you weren't passionately trying to solve problems .
Speaker 1Now you've been a leader for decades . Now both of us have some grays , you know Some have more than others here , zach , there's no silver bullets , only silver hair right .
Speaker 2Exactly there you go . I like that actually .
Speaker 1As you're thinking about building teams , obviously a lot of times when we bring on restaurant restaurant tours onto this podcast and you're a little bit of a different guest here so I'd love to take that perspective of what can a restaurateur learn about building a team that and helping people feel like they can contribute ? Like , how do you do that ? And you've obviously done that successfully over , like I said , decades now .
Speaker 2Yeah , for sure , but even though I have a lot of gray hair and I've done it for decades I wish that was singular , not plural , but it is plural at this point . I think I could talk about this for a long time . With regards to how to build a tech company , and hopefully a successful one , for restaurants , it's so difficult and I really admire successful restaurateurs whether in casual dining fast , casual , of course talk started off in fine dining , we respond out of a well-known restaurant in Chicago called Alinia . Those teams still I think you see a lot of characteristics you would see in a software tech companies act Like those teams do have a level of trust in each other , like I think about .
Speaker 2I was at a great talk restaurant in Chicago this week called Ever and run by Curtis Duffy , who's the chef , and Michael Muser is the other owner of the company , and just these guys , one's front of the house , one's chef , and so they're very , very different roles and responsibilities , but like the level of trust is just in there , as much as it was in my discussion about my fight in the Olo offsite . These guys I'm sure go at it a lot , but they just respect each other , have a level of trust , and that applies to the larger team . The director of hospitality at Ever's woman name Amy Cordell and believe me , she could take it and , I'm sure , give it out and this trusting core is how they've built an incredibly successful restaurant . And if you don't know it , next time you're in Chicago will go , or you just can watch the Bayer , because it's where the famous episode where a cousin is stodging and polishing the silverware is filmed . In Ever no way , and so it's .
Speaker 2I think it's very similar , right Like the characteristics are the same if they're building a fine dining restaurant , as if they were building a technology company that served a fine dining restaurant . It's the trust in your teammates , it's the knowledge that they know what they're doing , it's the ability to not look in the back of the house if you're in the front of the house , because you know that what's coming out is great and your job is just to make sure that your guests are happy and that you are serving them in the best way that you can . And so I don't think that that's you know , in many ways any different from how you and I might build . You know , ovation 2.0 or Talk 2.0 .
Speaker 2If we got together , I think we'd have a lot of the same characteristics as , if you know , you and I were investors in a restaurant . We were trying to find the next great chef , and it's just , it's trust and knowledge that the people surrounding you are the best of the best , and I think that that applies to so many businesses , probably way beyond technology and restaurants . I just don't know anything about those other verticals .
Speaker 1And what are some things that you've found that have helped to build trust that maybe you've seen or experienced , and what are some things you've seen that have helped break that trust ?
Speaker 2Well , I mean , I tend to come at my relationships with trust built in , like I do my very best to , when I'm interviewing for a role , to spend a lot of time with the candidates who are sort of rising to the top , but to spend even more time doing background checks to make sure that my intuition is not incorrect . Now I said earlier that I'm lucky at this point , after decades , to have sort of a band , a merry band , who might come along with me on my next journey . But you know I'm always complimenting that team and I'm always building a bench . But to build trust you need to one do your best to make sure that you're fine , you find the right person to occupy . The rule to again , for me it's trust , but verify , of course
Building Trust and Empowering Success
Speaker 2, early on . But I it's not verify but trust , like I want to find the best person . I want to you know , let them lose to do the best job they can , because I'm not an expert in everything , or even anything potentially . So if I want to find the best customer success person , you know I want to look at what their background is . I want to talk to their references , I want to talk to some of their former customers and then when they join , I'm going to , you know , loosen the reins , what will break trust For me .
Speaker 2Like I'm very , very particular about people who report to me being very honest with me . I'm , you know I'm I'm insistent that they push back . I can't really work with people who just kiss my ass . I really can't stand that . Like if you don't have the ability to prove to me why you're doing something and use the data and your background to tell me what I'm asking you questions , but you should similarly ask me the same thing . Like , if I have a perspective , then you should feel free to push back hard on on what I'm saying .
Speaker 2And I find that you know someone who is unwilling to do that is going to lose my trust , cause if I can't trust them to push back at me and when I insist on it , I really can't trust what else they're doing out there . You know , if you make a mistake , you know mistakes are made all the time , so that's not something that's going to lose my trust . If you make the same mistake multiple times , then I'm starting to , you know , think about should this be something I look at further . But again , I'm going to start off from a position of . I am going to trust you because I've done my work to make sure I've found the best person . I'm not going to micromanage you . The day that starts is probably the beginning of the end .
Speaker 1Yeah , If you feel like you need to micromanage , then you should probably be wondering hey , is this the right person in the seat Right ?
Speaker 2Totally Like . I don't want to do that job . I don't want you to do this role . If I'm micromanaging you now , I'm doing another job on top of my job , that's , I can't kind of do that .
Speaker 1Yeah , and what I found is that when you do let that person go and you do have to take over that role sometimes temporarily , sometimes not it's less stressful to do it than it is to micromanage someone else doing it that you don't trust Exactly , Exactly , Totally . Save yourself the heartache . Take over the role and it's not going to . It's going to be better than micromanaging , so way better .
Speaker 2Totally true , totally true .
Speaker 1So , matt , who's someone that deserves an ovation , who's someone that we should be following ?
Speaker 2Well , I think I'll just throw them out again , zach , because it's hard for me to say we have so many . I mean we have 7,000 customers at talk from restaurants and hotels and bars and wineries . I don't want to call out any singular customer , except for the last one I was at and that was the team at Ever , michael Curtis , amy . I think they deserve an ovation because it's easy , easy to select the customer and you can find your confidence in those customers . The level of , first of all , the food quality is just off the charts , but the level of hospitality and the passion they have for their guests is really hard to match . Now , I'm confident that a lot of talk restaurants do match that level of hospitality , but it's just with a lack of pretension as well .
Speaker 2I think sometimes , zach , when you think about fine dining , you think about sort of a pretentiousness that can creep into how you're served , how you're treated . But to do it with the grace they do it and the humor they do it and just the realness , like you , while the place is beautiful and again , maybe you've seen it on the bear and the food is incredible , it's just a great experience because it's not fake at all . Like you know , this week I was there and you know the Psalm is bringing over , you know the wines they curate and wonderful descriptions , but also like talking about it with a sense of humor , not taking himself too seriously , talking about a bottle of wine , because myself and my you know , the colleague I was with at the restaurant , we were joking around about certain things and you could just see they light up and it's just a wonderful experience . So , you know , the ovation for me certainly would be the team at Everton Chicago and , you know , just kudos to them across the board .
Speaker 1Awesome and Matt , where can people go to learn more about talk or if they want to follow some of your musings ?
Speaker 2Well , I hope they listen to this podcast and generally I always say I sound smarter in two time speed , but you know whatever speed you want to listen to with that . You can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram , but mostly I talk about Michigan football and Instagram for talk . There's a join talk or explore talk if you're a guest looking to make a reservation at any of our you know thousands of restaurants . We're on Instagram as well , and so that's where I would go and look , and you know we have wonderful content that we put out about our restaurants , but we are restaurant focused first . We're here to provide tools for the restaurants to form closer relationships with their guests . It's not about talk . It's about how you know we make our restaurants better at doing their job . Awesome .
Speaker 1And , by the way , if you're looking for him on LinkedIn , it's Matthew Tucker . Don't get confused with the country singer Matt Tucker , exactly .
Speaker 2You love me singing , that's for sure Awesome .
Speaker 1Well , matt , for helping us keep things on lock with talk . Today's Ovation go see you . Thank you for joining us on Giving Ovation .
Speaker 2Thank you , Zach . I really appreciate it . Thanks for joining us today .
Speaker 1If you liked this episode , leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen . We're all about feedback here . Again , this episode was sponsored by Ovation , a two-question SMS-based actionable guest feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurants . If you'd like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience , visit us at ovationupcom .