May 18, 2026
Why I'm building a baby tracking app
I became a dad last year, and it changed my life.
I’ve been lucky enough to live my adult life in focussed phases. I spent my 20s, in Bangalore, building a startup with friends, almost exclusively focussed on work. The time I did spend not working was spent playing football on the pitch or FIFA on a PC. I didn’t invest much in relationships. Although now that I think of it, spending time with family and loved ones was something I never did compromise on. Nevertheless, my 20s were about work. I made the most of it. I learnt how to build products and run a company. I sold my startup. At last, I found some time for life. I spent that time, wisely - some may say, on dating apps, and met my wife on Bumble.
As I entered my 30s, the startup grind was behind me. I was enjoying the work-life balance that you get when you work at a big company. Life was good.
And then it got better. We had a kid.
Nothing prepares you for life as a parent. I was scared. My wife jokes that I demanded the nurses at the hospital give me a crash course on how to hold an infant, how to burp them, how to change a nappy… and so on. I read all the parenting books I could digest.
Most parents I met told me that reading a book won’t teach you how to parent. “Every baby is different” they said. They probably meant that reading a book won’t prepare you for when your colicky little one cries at 2am for no reason and there’s nothing you can do. That demotivated me, until one friend explained to me that it’s good to have a framework and follow it rather than just try random things and see what lands - and that’s where books help. That gave me my confidence back - that I was right to read books and have a framework to prepare myself for being a parent. There’s tons of experience gained by parents of past, and it’d be dumb not to learn from it.
Talking of experience, our parents generation had troves of it. They had raised kids without these books. And they’ve seemingly done a good job. Having no mobile phones sure gave them a bit of an advantage - can’t have screen time if there are no screens. But for all their talk of “this is how we used to do it…”, the scientific sceptic in me just couldn’t trust it without proof, without data, without peer reviewed studies. So I read. Books, Reddit (r/sciencebasedparenting, r/beyondthebump…), ChatGPT (and later Claude) - in that order.
And so in Feb 2025, our extra-small baby boy decided to show up one month ahead of time. The early days are a bit of a blur. They were so stressful in the moment but you miss them when they’re gone. We were in survival mode at first. No matter how well prepared you are, there’s so much you need to figure out on the fly. In my previous founder life there used to be this one saying that building a startup is like jumping off a cliff and then figuring out how to build a plane… well that’s exactly how I felt, just that we literally had to keep a human alive. And I can’t really talk for my wife here, but I assume for her it was many times more stressful along with a boatload of other emotions that a postpartum body and mind has to go through.
We had Amazon orders coming in everyday. We had underestimated how many clothes we’d need for him by at least a multiple of 5. A few months later, I actually ended up making a list of everything we bought for him to help out some friends who were expecting - and it was no less than 55 different category of items that we had bought in the first 6 months. This seems so trivial, something we should have planned for, but like I said… nothing prepares you for it.
Our almost preemie baby found it hard to latch, so we had to pump and supplement him with formula. Doctors told us to breastfeed him as much as possible. The hospital gave leaflets in their parting goody bag to remind us that breast is best. We did feel a little guilty feeding him formula. But I remembered the very first parenting book I read - Bringing up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman - where she explains that mothers should never get into the trap of feeling guilty for not being able to nurse their child. Fed is best. A happy mom raises a happy baby.
Side note: I ended up going down the rabbit hole of the breast milk vs formula debate. There’s no denying that breast milk is better. But the demonization of formula might trace its roots back to the 70s when BigFormula (Nestlé) was pushing parents in poor countries, that didn’t even have access to clean water, to use formula. Contaminated water and formula don’t make a healthy concoction. So WHO stepped in and pushed back. The push back is still felt by parents in the manners I described above.
We moved to London when he was 6 months old, in search of a greener life, whilst still being able to follow our professional pursuits. The one thing I noticed here was that most parents by default were a lot more prepared and knew what to do. In India it felt like I was reading a lot and doing a lot of things that parents weren’t doing but should’ve been doing. But here, everyone has the baseline knowledge and have their basics sorted. I’d love to understand why that is, and how we could teach this to more parents in India.
Our little one is now 15 months old, happy and thriving. We’ve had plenty of challenges along the way, plenty of nights without much sleep… and a lot of questions that ended with “…is this normal?”
Becoming a dad is the best thing that has happened to me. I love this one essay by Paul Graham on having kids - where among a lot of other wisdom, he drops this gem - “…after kids you practically have happiness on tap”. That couldn’t be more true.
Becoming a dad has also changed me. I’ve become greedy. I don’t want to do things that would take away any precious time I get to spend with him. And it’s also true that after kids it’s harder to be as productive. Luckily, recent progress in AI has made up for that loss of productivity.
I’ve had a pretty long break from work… and have been itching to get back building. After spending the last 10 years building enterprise SaaS products in a VC backed startup, I’m confident that I don’t want to do that again. I want to build slowly, build for the long run, on my own terms. I want to build something that has every pixel designed to perfection, every screen designed with intention, something that hopefully is not boring. Even if I fail, I want to learn and hone my craft while I’m at it.
To decide what I want to spend my time on, I just asked myself what I’ve already been spending the most of my time doing, and what I will spend my time doing over the next few years. And the answer is simple - parenting. The meaning of that word for me was different when my little one was an infant and it’ll change as he grows. But I’m certain this is the area I want to build in.
It’s also a fresh break from building for other techies or startups, and focussing on a persona of users who aren’t always pampered with options. Parents have tough lives, but technology still doesn’t do enough to help them.
I’d even go as far as saying that technology sometimes ends up being net negative and maybe we’d be better off without it. We all could do with a lot more time with kids outside in parks and playgrounds rather than in front of the telly or trying to hide the phone from their eyes. But here we are, in our busy lives, and technology is not something we’re able to avoid.
My first order of business is to build a better baby tracking app for busy parents. The apps out there today are functional, at best… and anxiety-inducing nudge-machines, at worst.
There needs to be a better app for parents to effortlessly track baby’s feeds, sleep, diapers… but one which reminds you when you can stop tracking. An app that doesn’t tell you when the baby needs to sleep, but teaches you how to listen to the baby’s cues and spot patterns so you can learn not to depend on an app.
I’m calling it Wobble.
It’s 2026, so it uses on-device AI for instant voice logging, and a sync database so any logs you make are shared in realtime with your partner. The app works offline too. You can also ask Wobble any questions you have… all the ones that end with “…is this normal?” and you’ll get reliable answers backed in science… with citations.
The app is still in its shaping-up phase, and I’m looking to talk to parents who have an opinion on this topic, or have experiences they can share. If you do, I’d be eternally grateful if you can take this survey.
If you’re not that person but know someone who does, please share this blog and survey with them. Lots of love!