For restaurant owners juggling razor-thin margins, managing inventory efficiently is a critical ingredient for success. Three computer science students from Western Michigan University, David Harrison, Cody Thornell, and Khang Nguyen, saw this industry challenge firsthand and decided to develop an innovative solution: Shelf, a restaurant inventory management system.

The idea for Shelf, now an LLC, began simply. While David was working as a server, he saw the massive, time-consuming challenge of inventory management faced by the restaurant owner. “I talked a lot with the chef and realized that he had this huge problem, which was inventory management, and being able to do it efficiently enough,” David said.

Recognizing a significant market gap—competitors were failing to fully satisfy many restaurants—David recruited his friends, Cody and Khang, to help build a better solution.The Shelf app is designed to make inventory tracking effortless and cost-effective, directly addressing a pain point David identified. A major differentiator is the team’s commitment to automation.

Current systems often require restaurants to send invoices to a third-party service for manual data entry, a costly and slow process that is set up for errors. Shelf solves this with an advanced, nearly complete invoice scanning process using optical character recognition (OCR). “It makes it so all that information is basically going to be put through the app, and it’ll just take a quick confirmation to add them into the inventory,” David explained. “Shelf aims to be significantly more cost-effective than competitors, helping restaurants save money and reduce food spoilage,” he continued.

The Shelf co-founders were connected to the Michigan SBDC through Western Michigan University’s business accelerator, Starting Gate. They met Business Consultants Siera Gunnett, and John Schmitt, who specializes in the restaurant industry.

Siera, who is also a young entrepreneur, provided invaluable insight into basic and foundational business practices. “Her insight was extremely helpful,” David said. “She connected us with tons of different resources.” One key recommendation Siera made was to utilize DocuSign, streamlining their legal processes. Siera also provided essential coaching for the Starting Gate pitch competition, which ultimately led to the Shelf team winning the $5,000 prize.

John provided tailored industry knowledge, including vital feedback on the app’s development, advising on features and functionality based on how restaurant management team insights.

“Siera and John both gave us really unique insights in different ways on how our industry thinks, and how we should be thinking, too,” David summarized.

The team has partnered with local Kalamazoo restaurants for product testing and is working to finalize the app before David graduates in December and moves to Atlanta for a new software engineering job. Despite the distance, David, Cody, and Khang plan to maintain their strong customer base in Kalamazoo with ongoing support from the Michigan SBDC.