DeskPanther

The software came last

DeskPanther didn't begin as a software pitch. Jade Valore co-founded Rad Coffee with her husband in 2015 and grew it to three locations and 38 employees. At its peak, her workaround ran eight systems at once: Sling for scheduling, Shopify for store orders, Google Sheets for par levels, Wufoo and Google Forms for repair requests reached through QR codes taped around the kitchen, Slack for some team communication, text messages for the rest, and SlickText, an SMS marketing platform, repurposed to push announcements to staff. None of it talked to each other. Eventually she built the system herself. In 2026, those systems became DeskPanther, tested inside her own stores before they were offered to anyone else.

• 2015 · Jade Valore co-founds Rad Coffee with her husband in Southern California.
• By 2020 · The workaround peaks at eight systems: Sling, Shopify, Google Sheets, Wufoo, Google Forms via QR codes taped around the kitchen, Slack, texts and an SMS marketing platform repurposed for staff. None of them talk to each other.
• 2026 · Those systems become DeskPanther.
• July 6, 2026 · Deployed across her three stores (Rad Coffee); 38 employees, shift leads running every count, order, repair and cash drop through it.
• Pre-launch · 200+ businesses start your free trial.
• September 8, 2026 · Public launch.

Why now

Independent operators have had a POS for years and a scheduling tool for almost as long. The layer between them is the last part of the job still running on group texts, clipboards and memory, and the tools built for that layer were built for chains, with per-seat pricing and rollout plans that assume a corporate office.

More than 7 in 10 U.S. restaurants are single-unit operations, and more than 9 in 10 have fewer than 50 employees (National Restaurant Association, State of the Restaurant Industry 2025). That is the market DeskPanther is built for: an owner, a couple of managers, a staff that turns over, and no IT department. It is priced per location because that is the unit those operators budget by.

What it is

One place for the daily work that gets lost between shifts:

Staff report from any phone. Owners see every store on one dashboard. It does not replace the POS. It does not replace the people working the shop. It organizes the operational information happening around both. Nothing to integrate, nothing to rip out.

Why it's simple. See it, tap it, done. An employee who notices something reports it in seconds and gets back to the line; the software handles getting it to the right person. Every extra step is a reason a tool won't get used during a rush, so "less is more" is a product decision, not an unfinished roadmap. DeskPanther automates the friction, not the person, and removes the handoff, not the human. Editions for single shops, multi-store operators, and mobile vendors (carts, trailers, trucks). Coffee shops, ice cream shops and other independent food & beverage businesses run on the same app; more than 100 of the pre-launch waitlist signups were ice cream shops.

Pricing: $39 per location per month (1 location) · $34 at 2–3 · $29 at 4+, applied automatically across the account. $0 setup, month-to-month, cancel anytime. Employee count never affects price. 30 days free, no card. Optional Daily Brief add-on, $4.99 per location.

Jade Valore

Jade Valore co-founded Rad Coffee with her husband in 2015 and has grown it to three locations and 38 employees. By 2020 her operation ran on eight disconnected systems, including QR codes taped around the kitchen so staff could fill out a Google Form when something broke, and an SMS marketing platform repurposed to tell her own team the shop was out of pumpkin. Nothing was built for a shop her size, so she built it. In 2026, those systems became DeskPanther.

Valore was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Food & Drink list in 2021. She was interviewed by TODAY for its Getting There series, also carried by Yahoo Finance, and Rad Coffee has been featured by KTLA 5, Business Insider and PopSugar. Those features cover Jade and Rad Coffee; DeskPanther launched September 8, 2026.

From the stores using it

These voices come from inside the founder's own company. Caringten and Isabella use DeskPanther every shift.

From Jade · quotable

Assets

Screenshots

Real screens. Product names in the ordering screens are demo data; counts, pars, statuses, and everything else are as captured.

📱 What the crew seesSix buttons, no training. Pinned notes from management up top.

The staff home screen. Submit count, out of stock, report an issue, cash drop, shift notebook, change request. That's the whole app for someone on the floor.

🚨 Out of stockStaff flag it in thirty seconds; you get it instantly with live status.

The staff side. All out, almost out, or empty up front.

The owner side. Same alert, with Mark Seen, On The Way, Resolve.

🔧 RepairsReport with a photo; track it to fixed. Both sides, linked live.

The staff side. See it, report it, back to the line.

The owner side. Tracked to fixed.

💵 Cash dropsDrawer counted by denomination, tips separated, totals done for you.

📣 AnnouncementsSay it once, pick the stores, pin it if it matters.

Pinned notes ride at the top of the staff home screen until you unpin them.

📓 The shift notebookThe register notebook, digitized. Read-only for the owner: the log belongs to the crew.

The crew writes here. Note, low/out, repair, or weird.

The owner reads it. Read-only, on purpose.

📦 The weekly order, start to finishCount on a phone → the order computes itself → export CSV or PDF, by category or vendor.

1 · Count from a phone. Every item has a par.

2 · Submit. No math, no spreadsheet.

3 · It lands on the owner side. 122 items counted, below-par flagged, to-order computed.

4 · Export, your way. CSV for Excel or a printable PDF, grouped by category or by vendor.

5 · The spreadsheet (CSV), by category.

6 · The printable PDF, by vendor.

Full-resolution set: in the press kit zip, or press@deskpanther.com.

Press FAQ

Fact sheet