I Wasn't in Forbes for DeskPanther. I Was in Forbes Because My Systems WORKED.

The press came before the software. The systems came before both. DeskPanther is what happened when I finally put over a decade of them in one place.

By Jade Valore, founder of DeskPanther and co-owner of Rad Coffee. 🐾

DeskPanther didn't exist when I made Forbes 30 Under 30. There was no software company, no SaaS, no beta list. I was building Rad Coffee with my husband, and what started small grew into pop-ups, a truck, storefronts, teams, and a multi-location coffee company that I still run every single day.

That's what makes the timeline of DeskPanther so important. I didn't build software and then go looking for a problem it could solve. The business came first. The problems came first. The systems came first. DeskPanther came much, much later.

Growth Forced Us to Build Systems

When you're small, you can get away with keeping a ridiculous amount of information in your head. You know what needs to be ordered because you were just standing next to the cups. You know something is broken because you heard it yourself. You know what happened on yesterday's shift because you were probably there.

Then you grow.

Now there are more employees, more shifts, more inventory, more equipment, more locations, and more opportunities for something tiny to become a giant pain in the ass. You can't physically be everywhere anymore, so we built systems. Not because "systems" sounded exciting, but because we HAD to. We made spreadsheets, forms, checklists, websites, processes, and whatever else solved the problem at the time. Something would stop working as we grew, so we'd change it. A process built for one shop suddenly made absolutely no sense across multiple locations.

Over and over, the question became: How do we make sure this gets done without one of us having to remember it?

"I'll Remember" Is Not a Business Strategy

This is where a lot of independent businesses get stuck.

You have a POS for sales. You have payroll software. You probably have a scheduling app. Maybe you have spreadsheets, shared docs, a manager group chat, some laminated sheets hanging in the back, and 37 text threads.

But where does everything else go?

Who knows you're almost out of cups? Who remembers that the blender at Location 2 is making a horrible noise? Did somebody submit the repair? Was it fixed? Did anyone order what was counted? Did the closing team complete the cash drop? Who changed their availability? Did the manager see that message? Did anyone actually follow up?

That's the gap.

The individual tasks aren't complicated. The problem is that there are hundreds of them, happening across different people and different shifts every week.

Eventually somebody becomes the system. Usually it's the owner.

And that's when your phone starts running your life.

That's the Problem DeskPanther Solves

DeskPanther is designed to take those everyday operational tasks and give them somewhere to live.

Weekly counts and ordering can happen from actual pars instead of another random spreadsheet. Out-of-stocks can be reported where the team can see them. Repairs can be submitted with photos or videos and tracked instead of disappearing into a text thread. Cash drops can be recorded. Time clock and break issues can be documented. Change requests and important store updates can go where they're supposed to go instead of being scattered across someone's phone.

And when a manager is off the clock, PantherChat™ can help stop every non-emergency question from becoming their problem anyway.

The goal isn't to give your team another complicated piece of software to manage.

The goal is to give all the stuff you're already managing a home.

The Boring Stuff Is What Lets You Grow

Nobody takes a picture of a really good inventory process and posts it on Instagram. Nobody throws a launch party because their cash-drop procedure finally makes sense.

But those things are what allow a business to grow without the owner becoming the human glue holding everything together.

A business can have incredible branding, a line out the door, and a product people love, but somebody still has to order the cups. Somebody has to notice you're running low before you're completely out. Somebody has to report broken equipment. Somebody has to count the money. Somebody has to communicate what happened today to the people working tomorrow.

The bigger you get, the more expensive bad communication becomes.

That's what I learned while growing Rad.

DeskPanther Didn't Build Rad. Rad Built DeskPanther.

Being recognized by Forbes was an incredible milestone, but the part that's relevant to DeskPanther is everything that got us there and everything I've learned since.

I've spent over a decade figuring out how to get information out of people's heads and into systems that a team can actually use. Rad still operates every day. I still run it every day. The problems DeskPanther solves aren't problems I read about in a founder forum. They're problems that have landed on my phone for years.

The difference now is that I'm turning the solutions into something other owners can use too.

So if your weekly ordering still requires three spreadsheets, your repairs live in a group chat, your managers are answering questions when they're off the clock, your team is constantly asking where something is, or you're the only person who seems to know what's happening inside your business...

You don't need to get better at remembering everything. You need a better system.

I've spent over a decade building mine. Now you can use it.

A quick note: This article describes my personal experience running my own businesses and the systems I've developed along the way. It is not legal, HR, employment, payroll, tax, or compliance advice. Forbes and other media mentions reflect coverage of Jade Valore and Rad Coffee, and do not constitute endorsement of DeskPanther. Business owners should consult their own qualified professionals regarding the requirements that apply to their business.