A tech company founded in Saskatoon has secured a huge investment to help fund their innovative scheduling software.
7Shifts’ software is meant to help ease the challenges of making schedules in the food industry. Tens of thousands of companies across North America, like Drift Sidewalk Café in Saskatoon, are using the software to take the load off their scheduling struggles.
“Everything is constantly changing and it’s on a dime, and they’re really good at keeping up with updates,” said Kaitlin Kawochka, a bartender at Drift Sidewalk Café.
7Shifts just hit a major milestone closing a deal that will bring in 10-million dollars to the company. The company’s CEO Jordan Boesch says the funding is an exciting moment for the business and Saskatchewan, since it is difficult to build a global business in the province.
“It was a lot of validation, especially raising the capital of a US based firm and their belief that we can scale and build a really big company here,” said Boesch.
The idea for the company started when Boesch worked for his father at Quiznos. He says watching the scheduling process was sometimes painful to witness.
“There were sticky notes everywhere for staff availability he'd print the schedule on Excel, post it, staff would write over it with pen,” said Boesch.
There is similar software around, but Boesch says that 7Shifts is different in that it tailors the software toward the food industry. This distinction makes a big deal for Kawochka and she says it is helpful knowing what to expect when heading into a shift.
“[It is] easy to pick up shifts, easy to see who you’re working with, easy to send messages back and forth and you have everyone’s contact information,” said Kawochka.
Based on a report by Saron Fanel
