Rotabird
Vetted bar, café and kitchen staff, booked for tonight.
The problem
Independent venues lose shifts and money when someone calls in sick, and agencies take a large cut. Good hospitality workers want flexible shifts without being treated like a number.
Who it’s for
Two sides: venue managers filling a gap at short notice, and hospitality workers choosing shifts around their lives.
What we had to respect
- Two products in one: employer tools and a worker app.
- Payments, timesheets and right-to-work checks must feel effortless.
- Has to stand out against corporate staffing platforms.
The decisions that shaped it
The experience
Shift posting, invite and cancel, timesheets, payments, worker earnings and notifications.
What we learned
“Personality is a feature in a two-sided marketplace. The bird does real work in onboarding.”
Deep dive
A character system
One round tomato-red bird in five hospitality outfits and five colours. The bird carries onboarding, empty states and notifications.
Two products, one platform
Venue tools cover posting, inviting, cancelling, schedules, timesheets and billing. The worker app covers browsing, quick-apply, earnings and payment requests.
Payments and trust
Payments run through Stripe, with a flat 10% fee for venues stated up front and nothing charged to workers.
Security and legal plan
A written architecture, security and legal plan sets out what must be true before launch, rather than leaving it to the week before.
