Beyond Location Count: Inside Gotab’s Strategy of Targeting High-Value vs High-Volume Customers

Beyond Location Count: Inside Gotab’s Strategy of Targeting High-Value vs High-Volume Customers

While most restaurant technology companies chase location count as their primary growth metric, Gotab is taking a radically different approach. Their strategy focuses on high-volume establishments that can truly benefit from operational transformation.

In a recent Category Visionaries episode, co-founder Tim McLaughlin revealed why this unconventional approach is reshaping their industry. His insights offer valuable lessons for B2B founders about rethinking traditional customer acquisition metrics.

Redefining Success Metrics

The restaurant tech industry, particularly companies like DoorDash, has trained everyone to focus on location count. But as Tim explains, “One thing that’s actually very confusing, I think, to a lot of people when they talk to Gotab, is they always think, and I think maybe Doordash trained everybody this. They always think that we care a lot about how many locations we have, like how many restaurants we have and when we actually don’t.”

Instead, Gotab prioritizes the success and scale of individual locations. Tim notes, “If I can go win a $30 million restaurant… it’s actually a lot better for us as a business. And we can also build some really rich functionality for those operators to create a bespoke experience.”

The Volume Advantage

This focus on high-volume establishments isn’t just about revenue. It’s about finding customers who can truly benefit from operational transformation. Tim shares a compelling example: “Maui Brewing will see 8000 people. 8000 guests come through one restaurant in a week, which is a pretty high volume.”

At this scale, operational efficiency becomes critical. As Tim explains, “When you get into these bigger restaurants, they have no choice in the new labor market but to leverage all of our technology because they get into such resource binds that they really need the software to do a lot for them.”

Proving the Model

The results speak for themselves. While “restaurants typically try to stay under 30% of their revenue is spent on labor,” Tim notes that “our restaurants, on average, have a 22% labor cost, which is basically 25% below the industry norm.” This efficiency translates directly to operator profitability.

This success creates a virtuous cycle. As Tim explains, “Those are the ones where not only we win there, we stay there. They love us, they make lots of money thanks to us, and we make money because we make money when they do.”

Building for Scale

High-volume customers also drive product innovation. When Gotab introduced QR ordering, they discovered, “We would actually take more orders than they’d ever taken before at the same time.” This forced them to develop robust operational tools to handle the increased volume.

Their latest high-profile customer, T Squared – a collaboration between Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake in New York City – exemplifies this strategy. These flagship locations demonstrate the platform’s capabilities at scale.

Lessons for B2B Founders

Gotab’s approach offers several key insights for B2B founders:

1. Question industry-standard metrics
2. Focus on customers who need your full capability set
3. Let customer success drive growth
4. Build depth before breadth

The strategy also demonstrates how focusing on the right customers can accelerate product development and market validation. As Tim notes, these high-volume customers “don’t just want commodity experiences.” They demand and help shape innovative solutions.

For B2B founders, particularly those building operational technology, Gotab’s experience shows the value of focusing on customers who can truly benefit from your full platform capabilities. Sometimes the path to scale isn’t through rapid customer acquisition, but through dramatic transformation of select high-value customers.