Building an app to organize our households
At a dinner with friends, we were talking about how scattered our home organization was. My friends who had just had a baby felt especially overwhelmed, too many things in too many places, too much falling on one person, and a partner who was constantly out of the loop.
I thought I could do something about it and take on a fun challenge.
My role
I built the entire thing. From the branding, the website on framer to designing the app in figma and shipping it using claude code.
The Problem
Most households juggle a handful of disconnected tools. The fridge becomes the family dashboard. One partner carries the mental load while the other is usually catching up or a bit out of the loop. Nothing talks to anything else, and nothing is built for two people to share the work.
How I Tackled This
Seeing if others have this problem
Before designing a single screen, I talked to people around me and dug into family and parenting forums to see if the problem was real beyond my own group of friends. Then I built a waitlist landing page to test demand before writing a line of app code. A cheap, fast way to validate the idea before committing to building it.
Designing the app
I ran surveys to define the MVP feature set, then designed the full app in Figma, working iteratively and leveraging AI throughout to move faster without losing quality. The result is the most refined UI I've ever shipped.
Shipping the app
I built Dona using Claude Code, shipping a full MVP to TestFlight for a closed group of friends and family. My girlfriend and I use it every day!
To dos & Chores
Calendar
Family management
Grocery lists
