We understand this world from the inside.
We grew up in a family caring for a sister with a disability. Her needs are different from those of the children OwnMyDay is designed for — but the shape of family life around a loved one who needs extra support? That, we know.
We know the mornings that go sideways when something changes and nobody has a way to explain it gently. We know the weight every family carries, and the quiet victories that keep you going. That lived experience is the reason we kept asking: why are the tools out there this bad?
Then Sue went to work.
Sue-Hayley trained as an Occupational Therapist, and for nearly a decade she's worked with children with autism, ADHD, sensory processing differences, and communication delays. She's watched families try every app on the store — the one with the subscriptions and no offline mode, the one that looks like a flip phone from 2011, the one that asks for too much and gives back too little.
“The tools exist. They're just not built by anyone who has to use them.”
That was the conversation we kept having. Therapists were spending their evenings printing laminated cards because the apps weren't good enough. Parents were juggling three tools to do the job of one. Nobody loved what they were using.
So we built it ourselves.
Zane had been a software engineer for years, and we finally had the right pair of skills in the family: one person who understood the therapy, one person who understood the code. We set out to build the visual schedule app we'd actually want to hand to the families in Sue's caseload.
That meant a few things, non-negotiable:
- It had to feel warm, not clinical.
- It had to work offline — in the car, at the park, at grandma's house.
- Parents had to be able to upload their own photos.
- It had to respect family privacy, completely.
- No ads. No tracking. Ever.
That's OwnMyDay.
Why we keep going.
Because our family taught us what this world feels like from the inside. Because every parent who writes in saying “the bedtime battle is gone” makes the late nights worth it. Because Sue's patients deserve tools that take them as seriously as she does.
If OwnMyDay helps your family — or your students, or your clients — feel a little calmer tomorrow morning, then we're doing the thing we set out to do.