Hardware Podcasts

Toast: Aman Narang. How a Long Wait for the Dinner Check Launched a $2 Billion Business.

How I Built This · 20 Jul 2026 · 51m

What this episode covers

Aman Narang, co-founder and CEO of Toast, explains how a failed mobile payment app for diners revealed the massive opportunity to replace the entire point-of-sale (POS) infrastructure for restaurants. Narang details the company's pivot from a consumer app to a cloud-based, purpose-built POS system, the struggle to gain traction against entrenched incumbents like Micros and NCR, and the decision to intentionally stay small before scaling. He discusses the disastrous first launch, the pivot to a new CEO to handle growth, surviving the COVID-19 pandemic by shifting to off-premise tools, and the current strategy of leveraging AI to capture the remaining market share.

Most relevant to

founders before launch, early-stage companies, companies scaling up and large enterprises

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Indeca, Micros, NCR, Square, Gordon Food Service, Firebrand Saints, PaziTouch, Level Up, Groupon, Clover, U.S. Bank
Products
Toast, Toast IQ Grow

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