Who's behind it
Two parents, one kid and pretty full weeks
We live in Vienna and have a little son. We both like to work, and a lot. And we still take him to nursery together almost every day.
The idea came from my wife
She was the one who named what was going wrong for us. I didn't get it at first. I thought we were splitting the work anyway, and that part was true: I did the shopping, the cooking, bath time, the pick-ups.
Until it dawned on me that we were talking about two different things. It isn't the work itself, it's having to think of it. Whoever packs the gym bag isn't the problem. Whoever remembers it needs packing, that the trainers have got too small, and that the sign-up closes on Thursday, is. That list runs in the background all the time, and it wears you out without ever being something you can show anyone.
In Austria 65.1 per cent of unpaid work is done by women (Statistics Austria, time use survey 2021/22). The thinking-about-it isn't even in that number, because it can't be measured.
shary grew out of that. For us, not as a product.
Two angles on the same thing
I spent 17 years in emergency services and work in IT today. That's where we met, she volunteered there for years. On a call nothing is assumed. You say who takes something on, and the other person confirms it. Only then does it count as shared. It sounds unspectacular, but it's the difference between "I thought you were doing that" and a team that works. In my free time I fly, and it's exactly the same there.
My wife comes from HR and controlling. She sees the same thing from the other side: what people are good at without it ever showing up on a certificate. Planning, negotiating, holding several threads at once, keeping an overview under pressure. She's the reason this isn't only about who does what, but also about making it visible when everything lands on one person.
And then there's this
I can't keep appointments in my head. Really can't. I can work through an emergency in a structured way and prepare an approach to land a plane, but if someone mentions in passing that the parents' evening is next Thursday, it's gone from my mind half an hour later. Method is no substitute for memory.
That's why a tool has to do two things for me: it has to capture the thing the moment it's said, and it has to resurface by itself when the time comes. Not as a list I have to open to remember that I've forgotten something.
That's the most honest reason shary exists. I built what I need most urgently myself.
Why it became more than a tool for us
Talking to other families, we noticed how much hangs on this one thing. Not because people couldn't do it, but because in everyday life with kids nobody has the calm to say everything out loud and keep track of it. And if no one writes it down, it stays in one person's head. Almost always the same one.
So we built the thing that takes over this coordination. shary holds what's coming up, who's taking it on and what's still open. Both see the same state at any time, without having to ask. I build it, my wife tells me where it still doesn't fit everyday life. That split works pretty well.
We listen, and we mean it
A big part of shary doesn't come from my head. The ideas come from my wife, from families we're friends with, and from parents who write to us about what's not working for them. We have a large circle that thinks along and honestly says what's annoying.
That stays. If you write to us and it turns out a suggestion really takes a load off, we build it. Not eventually, but as fast as we can.
What matters to us
shary shouldn't lecture or grade anyone. There are no points, no streaks, and no app telling you that you've missed something. It's about both of you knowing what's coming up, and about the work landing where it belongs.
Children's health data isn't ours. It sits encrypted on our server in Austria, is never sold and never used for ads. No accounts, no profiles, no tracking.
shary is a product of Die Software Zimmerer Matthias Gattringer e.U. in Vienna.