Toast: Aman Narang. How a Long Wait for the Dinner Check Launched a $2 Billion Business.
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Notable Quotes
"What got us here was the hunger, the scrappiness, and the customer centricity."
"It's a combination of hard work and luck. The harder you work, the luckier you get."
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Episode Summary
In this episode of How I Built This, Guy Raz interviews Aman Narang, the co-founder and CEO of Toast, a successful point-of-sale service for restaurants. The journey began with a frustration over long waits to pay at a restaurant, inspiring Narang and his team to develop an app for mobile payments. Initially, the concept struggled due to the technology limitations of 2012 and the complex landscape of restaurant operations.
After attempting to build a mobile payment system that failed to gain traction, they pivoted and decided to overhaul the entire restaurant technology stack. This led to the creation of Toast, a comprehensive, cloud-based platform that integrates various operational aspects of restaurants—from inventory and payroll to online ordering.
Despite initial challenges convincing restaurant owners to switch from their traditional systems, Toast gained momentum during the pandemic by focusing on off-premise sales and utilizing tools like QR codes. Narang emphasizes the importance of customer obsession and the company's evolution from surviving the challenges to thriving post-COVID, with a growing portfolio and more than 20% market share among U.S. restaurants. With future expansions into retail, Toast aims to leverage data and AI to further assist its customers.
After attempting to build a mobile payment system that failed to gain traction, they pivoted and decided to overhaul the entire restaurant technology stack. This led to the creation of Toast, a comprehensive, cloud-based platform that integrates various operational aspects of restaurants—from inventory and payroll to online ordering.
Despite initial challenges convincing restaurant owners to switch from their traditional systems, Toast gained momentum during the pandemic by focusing on off-premise sales and utilizing tools like QR codes. Narang emphasizes the importance of customer obsession and the company's evolution from surviving the challenges to thriving post-COVID, with a growing portfolio and more than 20% market share among U.S. restaurants. With future expansions into retail, Toast aims to leverage data and AI to further assist its customers.
Key Takeaways
- Customer experience is critical in building a successful product.
- Embrace failure as a learning opportunity to pivot and innovate.
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