Jul 20, 2026 · 51m · how-i-built-this
Toast: Aman Narang. How a Long Wait for the Dinner Check Launched a $2 Billion Business.
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, host Guy Raz interviews Toast co-founder Aman Narang on how a frustrating wait for a restaurant check inspired a failed consumer payment app, a bold pivot into cloud-based point-of-sale systems, and the creation of a multi-billion-dollar restaurant technology platform.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 32.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.6 Guest teaching 2.1 Guest disagreement 0.2 Guy pushing back 0.2
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 44:13 Aman reframes restaurant market share metrics
Aman immediately refines Guy's 15-20% market share estimate to over 20% in small business restaurants and explains that raw restaurant count understates their actual volume dominance among busy venues.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 25:15 Guy highlights the Sisyphean task of fighting legacy incumbentsGuy challenges the feasibility of Toast's initial plan by pointing out that taking on entrenched multi-decade incumbents like Micros and NCR appeared nearly impossible to investors.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 15:10 Aman explains why restaurant systems require complex offline architectureAman educates the host on the hidden intricacies of restaurant operations, explaining why pure cloud solutions fail when a busy kitchen loses internet connection during prime dinner service.
Guy holds their own ▶ 14:24 Guy breaks down the legacy 2012 restaurant server architectureGuy articulately details the exact technical limitations of pre-cloud POS hardware, citing dominant players like Micros and NCR to frame the problem space.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Career at Endeca and the Mobile Computing Shift | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy prompts Aman on his background at MIT, Endeca, and the early mobile shift around the launch of the iPhone. The dynamic is purely collaborative and narrative-driven. | |
| Leaving Oracle and Finding Inspiration at a Local Pub | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy tracks details about the founding trio and the moment of inspiration at Firebrand Saints pub. Aman explains how waiting for the bill sparked the initial consumer payment app idea. | |
| The Flawed Consumer App and Discovering Legacy POS Flaws | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Guy displays solid contextual knowledge regarding legacy POS systems like Micros and NCR with on-premise servers. Aman elaborates in detail on the complex realities of kitchen line workflows and offline requirements. | |
| Pivoting to Build a Unified Restaurant Operating System | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy notes the daunting challenge of competing with legacy incumbents and navigating razor-thin restaurant margins. Aman shares the realization that fragmented solutions forced restaurants to receive online orders via fax machines. | |
| Mid-Episode Break: The Challenge of Customer Acquisition | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy queries Aman about early competitors like Square and Clover and the geographical expansion strategy. Aman recounts the opening-day crash at Dwell Time and the crucial distribution partnership with Gordon Food Service. | |
| Scaling Pains, Hands-on Support, and Hiring CEO Chris Comparato | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Aman candidly details operational failure modes, hardware returns, and support line triage that led them to recruit Chris Comparato as CEO. Guy listens and structures the progression. | |
| Surviving COVID-19 and the Contactless QR Code Surge | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy establishes the dramatic shift from a $5 billion valuation right into COVID shutdowns. Aman details the 90% revenue plunge, massive layoffs, and the rapid deployment of QR code ordering. | |
| Public Debut, Becoming CEO, and the AI Frontier | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Guy probes into Toast's market share, profitability, and competitive moat against rivals. Aman clarifies market share dynamics, noting Toast commands a higher share of sales volume because it targets higher-volume restaurants. | |
| Reflections on Co-Founder Values, Execution, and Timing | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks his standard concluding question balancing skill and luck. Aman attributes success to core values in co-founders and crucial timing breaks. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Toast convinced restaurant owner Gary Stark to pilot early payment app
“We convinced Gary, Gary Stark, who you know, he was in the middle of... We convinced him to give us a shot. It wasn't easy, but we did.”
Toast built custom hardware by leveraging Android's open ecosystem
“We could make these, this technology a lot better by moving it to the cloud and by taking advantage of Android hardware, because Android hardware actually is open, which allows for which allowed us to build our own hardware, which was critical to building some…”
Toast found an edge by building vertical software exclusively for restaurants
“Because there were a bunch of providers that were building something more horizontal, where you could be a restaurant, or a coffee shop, or a flower shop, or a picture of a small retail business, and we felt like our unique edge, because we had gotten a sense …”
Endeca founder Steve Papa invested $500,000 to seed Toast
“Steve Papa, who was the founder of Indeca, invested I think it was 500 K to get started.”
Toast disrupted legacy POS systems costing $50,000 to $100,000 upfront
“Instead of spending, like for a restaurant like Finale, for them to go buy a legacy on-prem system, you know, you might spend 50 to a hundred K up front. And so our pitch was very little up front and sometimes nothing up front. Then we had a SAS fee.”
Partnering with Gordon Food Service enabled Toast's expansion beyond Boston
“And that was a really important partnership for us that helped us get outside of Boston. So we launched in, in, in, in Miami and Chicago, thanks to GFS and their support, and then went from there.”
Toast revenues grew over 100 percent annually from 2015 to 2020
“You know, we for years between 20 15 and 20 20, we were this business that was growing over a hundred percent.”
Narang says Toast revenues plummeted over 90 percent in April 2020
“We had aggressive plans that year, and then I think early April of 2020, we had gone from this company that was growing like this to maybe revenues down over 90%.”
Toast laid off 55 percent of its workforce during early pandemic
“Because restaurants weren't taking payments, and when restaurants aren't open, they can't really pay their software fees, and so we had to make the hard decision to cut, I think it was like, 55% of the team, and then also to like, get on a call with the team a…”
Toast's share of US restaurant sales volume exceeds its location share
“Even though we have 20 plus percent of the restaurants, we actually have more of the sales volume, because the average restaurant that's on toast has more sales than the average restaurant in America”