Dez did not begin as a product. It began as a necessity.
There was no grand launch. No roadmap. No team. Just a scrappy prototype built over three days at my kitchen table for one person I loved.
My brother lives with schizophrenia and has had job for over 20 years, more recently turned into a part-time role. After our mother passed away, our circumstances changed overnight. A full-time carer was no longer possible. He needed support to manage daily life and keep his part-time job. And I needed support to keep going as his caregiver.
So I built something simple with vibe coding — an app to help him manage the basics: medications, routines, and reminders.
He is not a digital native. But he adopted it immediately.
Within weeks, I saw something I had not seen in a long time. His confidence began to return. He remembered things on his own. He moved through his days with more certainty. And for the first time in years, I slept a little easier.
What surprised me most was this: when I reminded him to do something, he would often agree, but not follow through. When it was on Dez, he did it. If anyone asked, his answer was simple: "It's on Dez." He even chose the name himself.
One of the first things he told me was that it made his day easier to see and understand. I had structured it as a guided flow — clear, predictable, and calm. It reduced the mental friction of daily life.
My approach was shaped by years in technology, and by time spent working with children living with autism, ADHD, global developmental delay, and speech delays. I had seen firsthand how the right structure could unlock independence — and how the wrong tools could do the opposite.
I began sharing this experience at AI and healthcare events. Caregivers, clinicians, and families approached me. They asked if it could help someone with ADHD. With dementia. With autism. With other lifelong conditions.
That was when I realised this was not just about us.
But the truth is, that first version was still built from my perspective as a caregiver. It solved what I needed. Not fully what he needed.
Dez exists because caregiving is not a checklist. It is a relationship. And the tools we build must understand both sides of it.