Beside
CTO
content researcher
engineer
Overview
Beside is a small companion for the hardest moments around eating — before a meal, in the middle of an urge, and afterwards. It asks plain questions. You answer in your own words, or you don’t. That’s the whole thing.
Mission
Beside
What we're building
Beside is a recovery companion for people living with eating disorders — small, self-help tools that sit with someone at the hardest moments of the day. The first product is a journaling app with prompts grounded in documented CBT-E and DBT skills, built deliberately with zero numbers, zero food photos, no weight or portion fields, and no streaks or scores. It is a companion, not treatment, and it will say so plainly.
It is for adults — eighteen and over — and we say so rather than assume it. It is meant to be usable anywhere in the world, not just where we happen to be: reachable on real hosting, with safety resources that fit the person's own country rather than defaulting to a US-only line. Entries never leave the person's device, so nothing sensitive crosses a border — the region-sensitive parts are the safety resources and the language, not the data.
Current focus
The MVP is the journaling app, reachable by anyone with a link:
- A three-moment check-in flow — before eating, during an urge, after eating — each with a short, plain-language prompt from CBT-E/DBT skills (urge surfing, emotion check-in, chain analysis).
- — browser storage, no account, so nothing sensitive leaves their phone. Export and erase included.