This is a huge pain point—validating this problem is definitely not the hard part! I’ve been tackling the exact same "Spreadsheet Tetris" nightmare with TimeClout ( https://timeclout.com ).

We actually just open-sourced our solution because we realized that while the scheduling interface needs to be simple, the optimization logic (fairness, constraints, sales matching) is where the real complexity lives. Since you're building something similar, you might find our approach interesting—we use a constraint satisfaction AI solver to handle the heavy lifting.

We’re currently looking for beta testers to stress-test the scheduler in real-world hospitality scenarios. Since you're deep in this space, I'd love to hear your take on our approach vs. what you're building.

Best of luck with your tool—the market definitely needs more than just "digital spreadsheets."

Worth putting implementation to one side for a moment and thinking about who your typical ideal customers would be. OK, a restaurant: how many employees, how many locations? How much revenue do they do every year? If they have too few employees, not much value to add from optimisation, no matter how good it is, vs how much it would cost you to sell to them and support them. On the other hand, if they're big, there's a fair chance they're already using some competing solution that offers scheduling as but one of many features.

Sometimes podcasts like business breakdowns can have insights about what a successful company did early on to get traction. I remember listening to one about a company that was selling to restaurants, it may have been the episode about Toast [1], maybe worth a listen. IIRC there was at least one anecdote in there about something they needed to change early on to start getting a foot in the door and have fruitful conversations with restaurant owners / managers.

You might not have much luck reaching potential customers here - HN users are mostly folks who have day jobs messing with software.

See if you can get a warm introduction to restaurant owners/managers through your existing network - friends of friends or family, etc. Or try knocking on some doors!

[1] https://joincolossus.com/episode/schreiber-toast-the-restaur...