Endeca founder Steve Papa was so impressed by the trio when they worked for him that he invested $500,000 - and eventually a total of $10 million. Most restaurants had outdated computer systems that weren’t connected to the cloud. Flour is a customer of Toast, a local technology company that has revamped the technology restaurants use to ring up sales, manage finances, and glean insights about their customers.īut the restaurant industry was vast - now close to $1 trillion in annual sales in the United States alone - and ripe for change. Outdoor seating at the Flour Cafe & Bakery near the Seaport on June 8, 2022. It helped that Square cofounder Jack Dorsey had already started Twitter. California startup Square, for example, offered payment tech for any retail outlet and immediately gained backing from Silicon Valley firm Khosla Ventures.
Toast menu software#
Another hit was adding a mobile payment terminal that servers could bring to tables so customers could pay their checks more quickly.īefore Toast, most venture capitalists avoided business software startups targeting specific industries, preferring companies developing products with broader applications. The Toast founders spent hours talking to restaurateurs and built features such as real-time communication with the kitchen about special orders and dishes that have sold out, and a way of tracking loyalty rewards. They initially tried to build a mobile payment app, but pivoted to point-of-sale terminals when they realized how little technology had penetrated the restaurant industry.
The three friends hadn’t decided on a focus for their startup when they began meeting at coffee shops and bars, where they noticed inefficiencies - including waiting for their checks. bought Endeca for $1 billion in 2011, the trio were among at least 20 former employees who went on to start their own companies. “You need that reality to prove to investors that we’re more than life sciences and banking and accounting.”įredette, Narang, and Grimm met while working for Cambridge ecommerce company Endeca Technologies. “Toast has proven that you can create billion-dollar companies here in Boston,” Belsito says. Belsito launched the company in 2016 after several conversations with Narang and Fredette. Aaron PressmanĪmong those who have benefited from the counsel of Toast’s founders is Nick Belsito, founder of OpenCity, a startup developing artificial intelligence assistants for restaurants. Steve Fredette, a cofounder of Toast, talking to students at The Harvard Undergraduate Venture Capital Group 2023 Entrepreneurship Summit. After his talk, Fredette spent another hour chatting with students on topics from locating a startup in Boston to Toast’s strategy of hiring experienced restaurant workers to sell systems to restaurant owners. Their influence reaches throughout the innovation ecosystem, from established companies, to startups, to aspiring entrepreneurs.įredette, for example, recently addressed hundreds of college students on starting a business. These contributions to technology, business, and the community have made Fredette, Narang, and Grimm The Boston Globe’s top Tech Power Players in 2023. “And a big part of our success is seeing the ecosystem that builds from that and from our team and from others that are inspired by us.”
“It was always our goal to build a pillar company in Boston,” Fredette says. They are seeding startups, acting as mentors, and advancing diversity in a tech industry notoriously white and male. Today, Toast has systems in some 79,000 restaurants, employs 4,500 people, and generates nearly $3 billion in annual revenues.īut Toast and its founders have had far greater impact than building a company valued at about $9 billion. Toast overcame not only these obstacles, but also a pandemic that shut down its clients and kept customers away from restaurants for months.
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