We watched our clients struggle to hire. So we built something.

My Friendly Staff started with a simple observation that we kept seeing over and over again in our day jobs.

We work in commercial real estate. Dan Parker has been representing retail tenants and landlords across Southern California for over 30 years. Noah Stegman joined his firm to focus on restaurant and retail site selection. Between us, we have helped hundreds of small businesses find their space, negotiate their lease, and open their doors.

But here is the thing nobody talks about in real estate: finding the space is only half the problem. Once the lease is signed and the buildout is done, the owner still has to hire people. And that part is where we kept watching our clients get stuck.

A restaurant owner who spent six months finding the perfect location would put a "Now Hiring" sign in the window and then miss half the calls because she was prepping food. A salon owner would post on Indeed and get 60 applicants, none of whom could actually work the hours he needed. A retail shop would hire someone who looked great on paper and then never showed up for day two.

We heard these stories constantly. At lease signings. At grand openings. At the coffee meetings where a tenant would tell us things were going well except they could not find reliable help.

The hiring tools that exist are built for big companies with HR departments and recruiting budgets. A 10-person restaurant does not need an applicant tracking system with 47 features. They need someone to answer the phone when an applicant calls, ask a few questions, and tell them which candidates are worth talking to.

That is what we built. My Friendly Staff gives each business a dedicated phone number and a branded application page. When someone calls or scans the QR code on a hiring sign, our AI picks up, runs a quick screening conversation, scores the applicant, and puts everything into a dashboard. The business owner looks at the dashboard, picks the best people, and sends them a text.

We did not build this because AI is exciting (although it is). We built it because we spent years sitting across the table from small business owners and watching hiring be the one problem that never got easier. The tools got fancier but they never got simpler. We wanted to make something that a restaurant owner could set up in 10 minutes and forget about. Something that just works, like having a really reliable employee who never misses a call.

We are based in Orange County, California. Most of our early clients are restaurants, salons, and retail shops in the OC area, which is the market we know best from our real estate work. But the product works for any small business that hires hourly workers and does not have time to play phone tag with 30 applicants.