From Chef to Tech Founder: Atlanta’s Rachel Ramsey Launches Measured HR for Restaurants
ATLANTA, October 26 (Hypepotamus) - Rachel Ramsey built her career in restaurants. First as an executive chef and then as an HR professional. Her experience includes senior people and human resources roles at Sodexo, Levain Bakery, and Major Food Group (the hospitality team behind Carbone).
Now, she’s building the tech she wished she had while working in the food and beverage industry.
After ideating on the idea for two years, Ramsey has launched Measured HR, an Atlanta-based platform built specifically for the restaurant industry. The platform brings onboarding, scheduling, tip management, and payroll together, with its first payroll run planned for November.
How The Measured HR Platform Works
Measured HR is designed to help restaurant owners manage their teams so that they can focus on running their restaurant. It is also focused on helping owners and managers navigate state compliance requirements.
Benefits and performance management options are planned for future releases, Ramsey told Hypepotamus.
Gridline helps advisory firms launch, operate, and scale private market investment programs through one integrated platform.
For Ramsey, the opportunity comes from two challenges she saw in the industry: Restaurants operate on thin margins, and managers often take on responsibility for employees without training in the people side of the business. That leaves little room for costly mistakes.
Opportunities In New York
Measured HR is launching first in New York City, where Ramsey has established industry connections. The city’s complex compliance requirements also make it a strong “test kitchen” for the platform, Ramsey said.
“If we can do it [in New York], we can do it anywhere,” she added.
Ramsey plans to remain active in both Atlanta and New York, and she credits Atlanta’s startup ecosystem with helping her launch. (She was a participating company on this year’s Venture Atlanta lineup).
“Once you say you’re building something, Atlanta wraps its arms around you in a way I haven’t seen in other places.”
Maija Ehlinger
From Restaurant HR To Building Software
Ramsey, who said the platform is preparing to start running its first payroll this November, was honest about the experience of launching a tech company as a non-technical founder.
“I spent years providing tech-enabled services for restaurants. I broke down systems, implemented them, and tried to force-fit them into what restaurants actually needed. So I had a great idea of what I wanted to build. I'm just not an engineer.”
For about two years, she documented the concept through notes, drawings, a database schema, and plans for handling tips and overtime across multiple locations. Then she turned to Lovable.
“I put everything I had into Lovable and it actually understood it. Quite frankly, it was eye-opening. Something I'd been talking about for two years was finally real.”
Maija Ehlinger
Using Lovable let Ramsey build at night, on weekends, or whenever an idea came to her. It also gave her something concrete to put in front of potential users and industry peers.
“Then I took the prototype to other HR & Ops leaders and consultants, people who know this world, and asked them to poke holes in it. That was my market research. By the time I hired an engineering team, I knew how big this system needed to be and exactly what I needed from them,” she added. “Lovable wasn't the finish line, but it got us here faster. We thought we'd launch sometime in 2027. We go live in a few weeks.”
Her advice to other founders without an engineering background:
“If you're a non-technical founder, build it first. Get people to believe in it. Then write the big check.”
