Family admin shouldn't be a second job

I'm Simon, and I'm a dad of three. Like a lot of parents, I didn't realise how much invisible work goes into running a family until I was buried in it — the school newsletters, the clubs and pick-ups, the "what's for dinner", the shopping that never quite covers the week, the appointments that sneak up on you.

Over the years we've had nannies and childcare help too, and that added a whole other layer of coordination: who needs to know what, and when. Even with brilliant people around us, someone still had to hold the whole picture in their head. More often than not, that mental load just sat there, humming away in the background, never quite switched off.

I went looking for something that could carry that load. Calendars were just calendars. To-do apps wanted me to do the organising. Nothing understood a family the way a really good, unflappable helper would — someone you could simply tell things to, and trust that the details would be handled.

So I built it. Poppins is the family helper I wished we'd had: you talk to it in plain language — in the app, on WhatsApp, by text, or by forwarding an email — and it sorts the calendars, reminders, lists and meal plans for you. The name's a nod to the original Mary Poppins of the books: practical, a little bit magic, and always arriving exactly when she's needed.

That's the whole goal. Less juggling, fewer dropped balls, and a bit more time to actually be with the people the admin is all for.