Our story
It started with a questionnot an app
I'm Rich. This is how Queenie and I ended up building Attuned, in the order it happened.
February 26
A question from Queenie
Attuned didn't start as an app. It started when Queenie asked me to properly learn how to support her through her cycle. She didn't mean "let me know if you need anything". She wanted me to actually understand what she goes through each month.
I'd have told you I was a pretty present husband back then. I provide, I check in, and we talk openly. But there were plenty of nights when I was home without really being there, and I hadn't noticed. So I said yes, and honestly, I thought I'd read up for an evening and be done.
Learn about her cycle. Actually understand it.
That week
The guide that missed the point
I read, and put together a tidy four-phase guide: what happens in each part of the month and how I could show up. I saved it to our family folder and took it back to Queenie.
Her ask was deeper than that. She wanted to understand what she needed from herself, not just what I could do for her. My next try was a list of self-care tips, and I knew straight away it wasn't right. My note on it says: "Not yet. These feel surface level still."
surface level
A few days later
Six real questions
So instead of reading more, I wrote six questions to ask her. Things like whether she feels guilty when she rests. She answered every one honestly, and her answers changed everything I'd written.
None of it was a complaint about me. It was how much she'd been carrying on her own that I'd never seen. That's when it clicked. She shouldn't have to ask. I wanted to notice her before she had to ask to be noticed.
Late February
Ten minutes a day
One thing kept coming back: ten minutes a day of real, undivided time together. Phone down, actually with her.
I wanted to promise it. I also wanted to be honest that some days I have less to give. That tension, between showing up for your partner and being honest about what you've got left, ended up at the heart of Attuned.
0of 10 minutesphone down. actually with her.
One afternoon
A mug of something warm
One afternoon I made her a warm drink of turmeric, ginger, cacao and cinnamon and brought it to her without being asked. She said it was the perfect gesture.
Then I got curious about why it helped, which sent me down a whole new path: what to eat in each part of her month, and what Traditional Chinese Medicine says about the same thing. The two agreed more than I expected. But the real lesson was simpler. In the hard weeks, don't make her ask. Anticipate.
Early March
A little system for our home
I'm a systems guy. Building things that make life easier for the people I love is how I show it. So I didn't want to rely on my memory. I wanted it built in.
At the time I had Kit, an assistant I'd set up to help run my work and our home. Over a couple of weeks, Kit and I turned the guide into a small system for us. It gave me a heads up before the harder week so the groceries were already in, nudged me to take those ten minutes, and asked us both each evening how we were doing. It wasn't fancy, but I was guessing less and Queenie was asking less.
- Where she is in her month
- A heads up before the harder week
- Groceries in before she needs them
- Ten minutes together
- How are we both doing tonight?
her private stuff stays private Around the same time
The bedsheets
Then someone in Queenie's audience told her something that stuck with both of us.
It wasn't really about bedsheets. It was what we'd been working on, in one sentence. The work isn't only the doing. It's the noticing and the remembering, and then still having to ask. How many couples are stuck right there? That's when I started wondering whether what was helping us could help them too.
We change the bedsheets every week. He knows that. I don't want to have to remind him.
Someone in Queenie's audienceMarch 13, just after midnight
Keel, then Tend, then Attuned
Just after midnight I started sketching what our little system would look like as an app any couple could use. Once a day, each of you says how you're really doing, privately. If one of you is struggling, the other gets a heads up with something specific that would help. No asking, no guessing.
By 1 am I had a plan and a shortlist of names, and I picked Keel. That afternoon Queenie told me Keel wasn't warm enough. She was right, so I switched to Tend: "We can always change it later." The next night she pointed out that Attuned, the name we'd passed over, was the one people would actually feel. We bought attunedapp.io that evening.
- Keel
- Tend
- Attuned
March 13, that afternoon
The first thing it ever said
The first code was written that same afternoon, and this is the first thing the app ever said back to me.
I was moving too fast and shipping things that hadn't been properly tested, and I could feel it. So I stopped and set a rule that still holds today: design it, approve it, build it, test it, then use it.
attuned
Talk to Attuned...↑ChatJournalSettingsthe original UI, a glorified chat bot March 14
Stuck on the first screen
The next day was a blur of building: onboarding, a journal, nudges, notifications and dark mode. That evening Queenie tried it for the first time and got stuck partway through onboarding. My note from that night: "This can't happen ever. No one will use the product if they can't get past the onboarding."
A few days later she hit bugs on her Android phone. Not a great look when the whole point is showing up for her.
stuck. right here. March 17
An equal say
That week I made it official. Queenie has an equal say in every decision about Attuned. She wrote the line that still sums it up best.
Attuned: to be in harmony with your partner's needs without them having to say it.
QueenieMarch to July
Building it together
We kept building through the spring, with a weekly Attuned stand-up to keep us honest. April was our biggest month: notifications, nudges that respect your time zone, a proper icon and our first Android test builds.
Queenie wasn't watching from the sidelines. She drafted a guide for testers, asked for a weekly feedback form and planned the beta launch. In July she came up with an idea that's still on our list.
626 changes
tap a month
April
A wake up call
I'd love to say building it fixed me. It didn't. In April, Queenie wrote me a letter about the things that had started slipping again.
It was a wake up call. Building something to help me be present doesn't count if I'm not actually present.
some things stay between us September 2
Starting over
By September I had to be honest about the app too. I sat down and went through every part of it, and my notes from the next day are blunt: "This architecture was half baked to begin with." And: "We will not release on V1. V1 was PoC."
So we rebuilt it from the ground up in three weeks: proper sign-in, a new database, full export and deletion, and tests that prove one partner's private words can never reach the other. That privacy wall was the idea we'd started with in February, finally built properly.
held together with tape
Early October
It felt like a chatbot
Then I looked at the app and said what I'd been feeling for a while: "The UI just feels like a chatbot." We tried several directions and picked the one that puts a quick check-in first instead of a chat window.
We fixed something else that month too. In production, on my own account, the app kept talking to me about MY cycle. Cycle features now follow who actually has a cycle, not anyone's gender.
Today
How it works now
Each evening you say how full your tank is. It takes a few seconds. If it would help, your partner gets a gentle heads up about how to show up. Everything you share stays with you. Your partner only ever sees the heads up, and it comes from Attuned, never "from you".
Try it here. Nothing is sent.
How full is your tank tonight?
What you seePick one. Nothing is sent.
What your partner gets…
Today
Where we are
Seven months, more than 600 changes and one full rebuild later, Attuned does what that first guide was trying to do.
It hasn't made me a perfect husband. But I notice more, I guess less, and Queenie has to ask less.
Try it with your partnerit takes a few seconds a day
Get the appFree during the beta · iPhone and Android