Document page
entrepreneurial sectionprinted 10 · PDF 11
42 pagesrevision 9185
printed 10 · PDF 11
Page image rendered from the stored file at 110 dpi; it sharpens as you zoom. Outlines are placed from each region’s stored position on the page (595 × 842 pt).
readable
Source of this text: embedded text layer. The better of the embedded text and OCR is kept.
10
the chief operating officer, would often debate each other during investor
meetings about various aspects of their business strategy. The original idea for
Toast came from all the hours Fredette, Narang, and Grimm spent hanging out
in Boston bars, cafes, and restaurants trying to figure out what to build. They
developed an app and launched it in 2012 with Firebrand Saints, a bar they
frequented in Cambridge. The app gave customers a way to start a tab at the
restaurant and link a credit card.
“To me, it sounded like a suicide mission,” said Bennett, recalling that he told
the founders it would take those five years to build something viable. “These
legacy systems were old and painful but they were 50,000 features into a
complex roadmap.” Meanwhile, Papa would soon start flying around the
country trying to help land new business deals and recruit talent. One place he
wasn’t going was the Bay Area. “We focused on the middle of the country,
which was mostly overlooked,” Papa said. This would be the story of another
self-made company that started from nothing and became something unique.