ShiftPulse: simple schedules for cafes

Pull Excel rotas, WhatsApp leave requests, and paper contracts into one lightweight board for small cafes and bakeries

Problem

Small food-business owners have no HR or accounting team, so rotas live in Excel, leave requests in WhatsApp, and contracts scattered across email. Hiring surges and off-season gaps make staffing and payslips error-prone, and owners say that admin crunch is their biggest time sink.

Solution

A minimal scheduling tool for single-location food businesses: drag a weekly rota, let staff confirm shifts or request swaps on mobile, auto-tally hours into a payslip export, and surface holiday and contract-expiry reminders. Owners see who is on and who is out on one page.

Users

Owners of 5-30 person cafes, bakeries, and small restaurants

MVP

Drag-and-drop weekly rota with mobile confirmation; swap requests and approvals; automatic hours tally and export; holiday and contract-expiry reminders; staff directory

Revenue

Per-location subscription (flat monthly fee per shop) rather than per-employee pricing to undercut existing tools

Why now

Small food businesses still run on Excel, and HR suites are per-seat and heavy; a lightweight single-location tool is a clear gap