E6: Steve Fredette - The drive, customer obsession, and GTM innovation that built Toast

(0:00) Intro

(5:10) Building a competitor to Facebook while at MIT

(10:03) Joining Endeca instead of starting a company

(14:40) Deciding NOT to go to business school to get an MBA

(16:31) Creating a side hustle with early Apple App Store products

(22:50) Becoming an entrepreneur inside Endeca and learning the power of vertical focus

(27:28) Launching Toast as an iPhone app

(30:18) Finding early product market fit

(35:07) Execution wins

(37:50) Disruption and focusing on finding what people want, not just fixing what people dislike

(42:27) Raising money to innovate on the GTM model

(46:01) The best business model wins. Understand unit economics

(54:54) You can test your business idea without a product.

(1:02:13) Ongoing innovation at Toast

(1:05:51) Execution and focus

(1:09:00) Impact of AI at Toast

(1:14:32) Productivity without burn out