Scott Gladstone

Applebee's VP, Strategy, Business Analytics & Consumer Insights

Scott is Vice President of Strategy, Business Analytics & Consumer Insights at Applebee’s. In this role, he is responsible for a series of strategic growth initiatives across the brand. These include ensuring that we are guest-driven across all of our initiatives through guest insights and analytics, driving the growth of our off-premise channels (To Go, Catering and Delivery – third-party partners and Applebee’s Delivery), and strengthening the franchisee portfolio through market evolution and restaurant development. Prior to joining Applebee’s in 2016, Scott was a Project Leader at The Boston Consulting Group, leading strategy and operations projects across a variety of industries and topics. His experience included efforts focused on brand transformation, marketing optimization, growth strategy and consumer insights. Scott received his undergraduate degree from Emory University and his M.B.A. from UCLA Anderson School of Management. Scott and his wife Sienna live in Los Angeles with their son, Weston.

Articles by Scott Gladstone

The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out

A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies

In our latest session from the Mucker Growth Series featuring Ethan Smith from Graphite, we explored AEO, a significant new approach for optimizing visibility in AI-driven search, particularly relevant as...

Startup Guide to AI Visibility: Be the Brand ChatGPT Recommends

Introduction Today, users aren’t just searching on Google. They’re asking ChatGPT, Claude, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI systems for advice. AI visibility is the new frontier of brand awareness....

Practical Uses of AI & Automation for Startup Operations

In a recent Mucker Growth Series session, we invited Rock Vitale, Founder & CEO of Easie, to share how he’s helped early-stage teams move from manual, fragmented workflows to streamlined,...

2025 New York Tech Week Recap Of Mucker Sessions

Last week during New York Tech Week 2025, we joined more than 1,000 events hosted by founders, investors, and VCs. This post is a full Mucker recap of the three...

How to Build a Customer Support Function for Startups Using AI Tools with Alex Velinov

Delivering high-quality customer support can be one of the most resource-draining parts of a startup. The good news: we’re at a turning point where founders can use AI tools to...