The operating system for the cash-tip economy.
17 million US cash-tip and 1099 service workers run their financial lives in spreadsheets and screenshots. Night Shift is the daily-ritual product that finally serves them. Pre-Seed round open.
The problem
Bartenders, servers, rideshare and delivery drivers, dancers, stylists, salon workers, freelancers — about 17 million people in the US — earn variable income that the personal-finance category was never built for. Mint sunset in 2024 publicly citing its inability to serve non-traditional earners. Bank aggregators like Monarch and Copilot need a bank link 30%+ of this audience can't or won't give. Tax-and-gig tools like Hurdlr and Keeper Tax show up once at filing season and disappear. No daily-ritual product owns this segment.
The product
A financial-management PWA. The worker logs a shift in 5 seconds. Night Shift auto-allocates a tax reserve, routes the rest to jars (slow-season buffer, rent, goals), and shows the running tax balance and pay-yourself ratio on the home screen. State + municipality tax breakdown is transparent — $847 = $721 federal + $79 CA state + $47 SF city. Bank-link optional via Stripe Financial Connections; cash-only workers fully supported. Six verticals routed at the subdomain layer, each speaking its own vocabulary. Spanish UI parity since V1. Live at nightshift.cash on Stripe.
Why now
Three shifts converged in 2024. Mint sunset — the largest horizontal PFM left the table. Stripe Financial Connections went GA — single Stripe relationship handles subscriptions + bank linking; competitors still on Plaid. Tipped-worker minimum wage rising in DC, Chicago, and seven states — tip income moving from invisible cash to visible card and payroll. The category window is open in 2026.
Founder
Cruz Romero Morales — solo, full-stack, full-time. Lived inside the audience: gig and restaurant work; FOH, BOH, rideshare, salon, dancer vocabulary is native, not researched. Bilingual; Spanish UI parity has shipped at Night Shift since V1. 22 V2 ADRs ratified; V1 security audit closed across 13 commits. I'm building the product I needed when I started, with the discipline I have now.
The ask
$500K on a $5M post-money MFN SAFE (YC standard template). 10% equity at cap. No discount; no pro rata in the standard template. Min check $25K. First close target 2026-06-15 at $250K. Final close 2026-08-15 at $500K. 18–24 months runway through Series Seed trigger at $1M ARR + V2 Waves 2–3 shipped + SOC 2 Type II in hand.