For Atlanta-based founder Starr Douglas, the entrepreneurial lightbulb went off while she was in a class at Georgia Tech. Someone in front of her was on his computer looking through Google to find a bartender who could work an upcoming party. Despite working in the bar scene as a bartender, bar manager, and beverage director, Doublas thought about how difficult it would actually be for this person to find a “fully trained, fully vetted bartender on demand.”
This staffing problem was also something she was dealing with in her own work. On top of full-time work and pursuing a double major at Georgia Tech, she was constantly stressed out about having to find qualified bartenders to work when other people on her team called out of a shift or quit.
“The number one thing that stressed me out more than anything else that I had going on in my life was staffing,” Douglas told Hypepotamus. “Because even though I was supposed to be managing and overseeing all the bars and restaurants, I was constantly being forced to go jump back behind the bar and bartend.”
It was a staffing problem that Douglas thought could be fixed with the right technology staff and the right marketplace. She ultimately launched in 2022 to help FrontHouz, a startup connecting venues with exceptional front-of-house professionals. She decided to work on the idea full-time after connecting with her mentor (and later first investor in FrontHouz), Cherie Kloss, the Atlanta-based entrepreneur behind the healthcare staffing platform SnapCare, during a class at Georgia Tech.
Inside FrontHouz
At its core, FrontHouz is a hospitality-focused tech platform that allows venues to ensure they are fully staffed with qualified talent instantly.
The app gives greater control over staffing fulfillment and expenses for venues while helping hospitality staff find extra and flexible shifts that work with their schedule. Venues on the platform build out a comprehensive AI-driven virtual training that is individualized to their location’s specific needs and documents. Workers that are matched with a venue for a shift get trained virtually to ensure they arrive at their shift ready to hit the ground running.
“The guest experience is everything,” she added. “We have to do a really great job on the front end, vetting [staff] so that they’re as prepared and as qualified as possible to just jump in and do their best.”
Alongside a round of virtual interviews, the vetting process is automated and includes work experience confirmation checks, identification verification, personal reference checks, as well as skills-based tests and personality assessments. Applicants can also upload any professional certifications that would be important to bars and restaurant owners.
FrontHouz accepts about seven percent of applicants, according to Douglas.
The startup works exclusively on staffing at reputable full service venues, including restaurants and stadiums.
FrontHouz currently has over 20,000 industry experts on the platform and fills the staffing needs of customers like Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United, BOLD Catering, Rosendale Events, Pullman Yards, District Events & Catering, Legendary Events, Murphy’s Restaurant, Kennedy Space Center, PLC Restaurant Group, and Capital City Club.
Businesses pay $150 per month per location to be a member, and $4.50 per hour per worker per shift. A worker’s paycheck per shift varies by venue and by the amount of tips they make, but the average hourly wage is $26 per hour. Workers keep 100% of their earnings and are paid in full within seconds of clocking out.
Serving A Need In The Service Industry
Douglas believes that the community and culture they’ve created amongst those using the app is really the “driving force” of FrontHouz’s success.
FrontHouz’s model has also helped attract more high-quality hospitality workers back into the industry while giving them the flexibility they want.
“[Workers] are valuing their work-life balance. Especially after COVID [in] the hospitality industry, seeing all those jobs get lost overnight, job security became really important. So a lot of people in our industry started driving for Uber and delivering for DoorDash. And they saw they could work on their own terms, set my own schedule, and get paid immediately,” Douglas added. “People say they’re no good workers anymore. [But] it is just that you have to look for them in other ways. And by this style of model, we’ve been able to attract those people back into the industry and give them a really safe, high paying place to land that they feel respected in.”
Investors have taken note of the FrontHouz model and traction. Douglas raised a $1.2 million pre-seed and is now closing a $2 million seed round now.
–
Featured photo shows CEO and founder Starr Douglas (from LinkedIn)