SC

Strategy Canon

Toast: sourced choices

33 product and go-to-market choices, oldest first. Back to the case study

  1. 2012Product · Origin The founders launched an app that let diners pay from their phones; it worked with one point-of-sale system and needed integrations with many more to scale. T14
  2. 2013Product · Pivot After operator conversations, the founders decided to build their own cloud point-of-sale system for restaurants. T14
  3. 2013Product · Hardware Toast built on Android because its hardware was open enough for Toast to build its own devices. T14
  4. 2013Product · Segment Toast chose to go all in on restaurants rather than build a horizontal system for coffee shops, flower shops and small retail. T14
  5. 2013Product · Feature building The founders built five to ten features for each of their first ten or so customers until requests converged. T26
  6. 2013Go_To_Market · Home market Toast sold only in Boston at first because restaurateurs bought and needed service in person. T14
  7. 2013Go_To_Market · Support The founders answered the support line on their own phones. T14
  8. 2013Go_To_Market · Upfront price The pitch was very little or nothing up front, then a software fee, against $50,000 to $100,000 for a legacy system. T14
  9. 2013-07Product · First customer Dwell Time in Cambridge went live in July 2013; the system went down within twenty minutes of the first orders. T14
  10. 2014Go_To_Market · Distributor Gordon Food Service, an Endeca customer, took Toast into Miami and Chicago. T14
  11. 2015-10Product · Inventory module A $75 a month inventory module, adopted by 10 percent of customers immediately. T2
  12. 2015-12Product · Platform scope A modular platform covering POS, payments, operations, online ordering, kiosk ordering, inventory, loyalty and gift cards, with offline operation. T2
  13. 2015-12Product · Payments Toast operated as the restaurant's transaction processor, matching the restaurant's existing rates. T2
  14. 2015-12Product · Open API An open API with integrations to customers' third-party loyalty and inventory tools. T2
  15. 2015-12Go_To_Market · Channel share Gordon Food Service supplied about 25 percent of 2015 bookings and sold an integration to its food-costing and ordering service. T2
  16. 2015-12Go_To_Market · Installation Toast lost about $2,000 per installation and made a slight margin on hardware. T2
  17. 2015-12Go_To_Market · Sales force An inside sales force with a quota of 4.5 locations a month per rep; co-founder Narang ran sales. T2
  18. 2016-01Go_To_Market · Funding A $30 million Series B led by Bessemer, with GV; 1,000 customers signed in five quarters. T4
  19. 2016-04Product · Partner program An API partner program launched with Compeat, CrunchTime, Ctuit, Paytronix and Peachworks. T27
  20. 2017Go_To_Market · Sales leadership Jonathan Vassil joined as SVP of Sales at about $20 million ARR. T6
  21. 2018-05Product · Handheld Toast Go, a handheld Toast designed that combines hardware, software and payments. T29
  22. 2019-07Product · Payroll Toast acquired StratEx and offered payroll and team management designed to work with Toast POS. T23
  23. 2019-11Product · Lending Toast Capital loans of $5,000 to $250,000, repaid as a fixed percentage of daily card sales. T28
  24. 2020-11Go_To_Market · Hiring About two in three employees had worked in restaurants. T24
  25. 2020-12Go_To_Market · Relief A $35 million winter recovery fund of software credits during the pandemic. T8
  26. 2021-06Product · Invoices Toast acquired xtraCHEF, restaurant invoice and expense software. T5
  27. 2021-09Go_To_Market · Acquisition cost Hardware and onboarding services are priced as customer acquisition tools; their net losses count as acquisition cost. T5
  28. 2021-12Product · Product adoption About 59 percent of locations used four or more core products beyond POS and payments, up from 37 percent at the end of 2019. T7
  29. 2022-07Product · Pandemic products Order and Pay, Toast Delivery Services and Toast Now, which offered online ordering to restaurants without a Toast POS. T22
  30. 2023-07Go_To_Market · Fee reversal Toast withdrew a new 99-cent online order fee after customer objections. T9
  31. Go_To_Market · Field sales About 75 to 80 percent of reps sell in the field and own a territory; inside reps cover thinner markets. T6
  32. Go_To_Market · Referrals About one deal in five comes from a customer referral. T6
  33. Go_To_Market · Territory choice Toast put no reps in Silicon Valley and worked overlooked regions such as the Midwest. T25