About

I built Alongside because I needed it and it didn't exist.

I was injured. I'd been playing football, running, tennis — trying to keep myself fit. And then I couldn't. The injury changed everything, and nothing I found could adapt with me. Apps kept telling me to push. AI gave me generic answers. I couldn't afford a physio. And walking into a club or booking an appointment — the energy that takes, the exposure of it — that wasn't something I could do easily.

I just needed something that understood where I was. That could work around what I could give, not demand something I couldn't.

It didn't exist. So I built it.

But the injury was only part of it.

I've spent a lot of my life feeling like the rules changed when I wasn't looking. Feeling judged. Feeling like I was supposed to just know things that nobody taught me. Feeling shame when I couldn't keep up, or couldn't adapt, or had to stop.

I know what it feels like to not be thought about. To be simplified. To feel worthless and forgotten in a system that wasn't built for you.

Alongside was built to reject that. To reject the notion of 'normal'. We're all normal — perfectly, differently, normal.

Every decision in this product comes from that place.

No streaks. No punishment for absence. No comparison to who you were last week. A coach that speaks to you first, before it asks anything of you. A coach that changes what it offers when you're struggling — not because you asked it to, but because it noticed.

This is a product built from love and care. For the people the other apps forgot about. For the version of me that needed this and couldn't find it.

I hope you find it useful.

Graeme

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