When I was a kid, I had a Tamagotchi. This little plastic egg that beeped at me when it was hungry. I fed it, played with it, kept it alive. It wasn't real, and I knew it wasn't real, but I genuinely cared about that thing. Millions of kids did. There was something about having a small creature that depended on you — something that was just yours — that made it feel like a friend.
I've always been drawn to that. Real pets, virtual pets, companions in video games. I wasn't the most social kid growing up. I didn't have a big group of friends to fall back on. But I had pets — real ones and digital ones — and they kept me company. They didn't judge, they didn't leave, they were just there. That mattered more than I realized at the time.
Years later, I'm staring at my phone and two things hit me at once.
First — my home screen looks exactly the same as it did in 2007. Icons in a grid. Nothing alive, nothing personal. Every phone on the planet looks like this. We carry the most powerful device ever built, and its face is a parking lot of squares.
Second — we have voice assistants now, but they're either a faceless app you forget exists, or a box sitting on your counter. When companies tried giving them a face, they made them look human — or worse, weirdly attractive. Nobody made them feel like a companion. Nobody gave them a soul.
Growing up, my teachers told me I'd never have a computer in my pocket. I needed to memorize the multiplication table, memorize phone numbers, carry a calculator. Then the smartphone showed up and put a camera, a calculator, a calendar, a notebook, a library, and a GPS into one device that fit in my jeans.
Pally is that same idea, one layer deeper. Your phone unified your desk. Pally unifies your phone. Weather, timers, reminders, grocery lists, device controls, smart home, information — all through one companion that knows you. Not scattered across twenty apps you forget you installed. Not through a faceless assistant you have to go find. Through the pet sitting on your screen, ready the moment you tap it.
So I started building.
I'm not a Silicon Valley engineer. I'm a journeyman electrician who got laid off when work dried up. Instead of waiting around, I opened a code editor and started learning. Six months, five days a week, eight to fourteen hours a day. No team, no investors, no office. Just me, my keyboard, and an idea I couldn't let go of.
There were months where it felt like I was writing a grand speech for a presentation I didn't know anyone would show up to. Burnout, roadblocks, little to no reward. But I kept going because the idea wouldn't let me stop. I built the entire app myself, and it's now submitted to Google Play.
That's Pally. A virtual pet that lives on top of your apps — not hidden inside one. It walks while you text. It sits down when you tap it and listens when you speak. It's your personal assistant, your daily companion, and your fitness partner — all in one. Walk in real life, earn stars in the app. Your steps become currency. Your companion grows with you.
I could have built this to make money. Ads on every screen, paywalls on every feature, psychological tricks to keep you scrolling. That's what most apps do. But I was learning something around the same time I started building Pally — that one of the most meaningful things you can do with your life is serve other people. Not perform service for a camera. Actually help.
I don't need to be rich. I want to provide for my family and live comfortably, and there's a limit to how much money that takes. Everything beyond that can go back into making this better and helping more people.
So Pally is ad-free. And the vision doesn't stop at your phone screen.
If enough people carry Pally in their pockets, something interesting becomes possible. Neighbors who've never spoken could connect through the app. Imagine streets where people share what they grow in their gardens — turning unused front lawns into something that feeds a community. Technology that brings people together on their own block instead of pulling them into a screen and leaving them lonelier than before.
And if those communities are connected — really connected, not just following each other — then when something goes wrong, when disaster hits, those networks become something powerful. People who already know their neighbors, who already share and cooperate, can mobilize to help in ways that strangers on social media never will.
That's where this is heading. Not tomorrow. Maybe not for years. But that's the direction.
It starts with a pet on your screen. It grows into something that matters.
I'm Alex, and I'm building Pally because I think technology should enhance your life — not drain it. If that resonates with you, come walk with us.