The Killer App for Merchants

Evan Sohn | June 21, 2019

As you see from the article below on Toast and TouchBistro, the market for solutions that deliver point of sale solutions for merchants is as HOT as ever. Toast is laser focused on the restaurant segment and have even created their own handheld terminal to outfit the restaurant servers for checkout. They charge a flat fee for processing and $79/month for the terminal and software.
So what is Toast doing right that others are not doing?
I think the answer lies in their absolute focus on a growing segment. More restaurants were added in 2017 than went out of business. Toast isn’t distracted by adding features for retail, health clubs, spa, etc. but are allocating all their dev resources to restaurant. They have solutions for bar/nightclub, QSR, franchises, etc. but it only variations on the theme. I also added the recent TouchBistro funding.
These looks remarkably like the playbook for Mindbody. Mindbody is a technology platform for the fitness, beauty and wellness services industries. Their market cap is $2B and reported in May to have approximately 58k merchants. Again, laser focused on a growing industry.
So here’s the question for you (please weigh in) – should we expect to see more and more vertical POS solutions as “one size no longer fits all”. Have you come across a vertically specific POS solution worth mentioning?
Let me know what you think.
Best,
Evan