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.
That works not because we have more time than others. It works because clear agreements have long been our craft, just from two different sides. We met in emergency services, where my wife volunteered for years.
Two angles on the same thing
I spent 17 years in emergency services and work in IT today. 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 and built her own coaching practice. She helps mothers back into work and has looked into how parenthood works as a place of learning: what parents pick up along the way that never shows up on any certificate. Planning, negotiating, holding several threads at once, keeping an overview under pressure.
So her work is about making invisible competence visible and usable. That's remarkably close to what shary does. 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 an app
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.