Welcome to the Arena from ICR – Conversations with Today's Innovators & Business Leaders Matthew Tucker, Head of Tock – Data-Driven Dining: Optimizing the guest experience by reshaping reservations
In the effort to recover from the impact of the pandemic, the hospitality industry has had a surge of innovation, ideas, and new technologies. And while the boost has been essential to getting the industry back on it's feet, it has also intensified the competition. Today's guest is setting themselves apart with their consumer-focused approach.
We're sitting down with Matt Tucker, who is the head of Tock, a technology driven hospitality business owned by Squarespace, and trading under the symbol SQSP. Matt oversees commercial success and growth of the Tock business, which includes a reservation system, table management, carry out operations and events for operators across 33 countries. Matt came to Squarespace after nearly two decades of experience building teams and operating companies of all sizes and has a strong background in hospitality tech and the startup world.
Most recently, Matt served as President and COO of Olo, the leading provider of SaaS solutions to the chain restaurant industry, serving almost 90,000 locations. He spent nearly nine years there taking the company from 10 people and one product to a public company with over 700 team members, six core products and nearly 200 million in revenue.
Prior to Olo, Matt was on the founding team of LendingTree and was also the founder of Rely Software. He has an MBA from Georgetown and a BA in political science from the University of Michigan.
Highlights:
- Matt's background and path to restaurant software (3:10)
- Matt describes Tock's founding and current work (4:11)
- How Tock works in the restaurant to optimize reservations (6:01)
- Matt explains how Tock targets customers, and the ROI (7:36)
- Data captured through Tock, and what makes Tock's approach to data optimization unique (11:35)
- Matt talks about recent economic hurdles and how Tock has navigated the atmosphere (13:05)
- Matt discusses Tock's versatility in the restaurant industry (15:12)
- How Squarespace and Tock's work interconnect (16:50)
- Field competition and the state of the restaurant technology market (19:00)
- Tock's senior team and their history in hospitality (21:58)
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If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, marion@lowerstreet.co.