A lake house, a Google Sheet,
and a group text nobody answered.
When our family bought a lake house, we co-owned it with two other families and couldn't have been more excited. Then the coordination started.
Who's going which weekend? Did anyone stock the fridge? What needs to get fixed before the next visit? We searched for an app that could help and couldn't find anything built for families like ours. Everything out there was designed for rental hosts or professional property managers, not three families trying to share a vacation home without losing their minds.
We tried a shared Google Sheet. It didn't work well on a phone, was hard to update on the go, and honestly, nobody was keeping it current. The group text became the default. And the group text, as anyone who's managed a shared property knows, is not a system. It's just noise.
He said he could probably build an app.
Our son Harris was 10 years old. He'd been playing around on Base44, a no-code app builder, mostly making things for fun. When we talked through all the problems we were having with the lake house, he listened for a moment and said he could probably build something to help.
We said sure. We didn't expect much.
Within a day, he had a working app. We started using it, gave him feedback, and he'd update it. Every trip to the lake surfaced something new. "It would be great if we could track expenses." Done. "Can we add a departure checklist?" Done. Over time it evolved into something that actually worked beautifully for our family.
"Every time we went to the lake, we thought of something else that would be helpful. Harris just kept building."
A friend said, "I want that too."
The moment we realized this could be something bigger was when a friend heard about what Harris had built and said she wanted an app like that for her own property. That was the signal.
We decided to rebuild it properly and bring it to everyone. But we knew our lake house was just one version of how people use shared properties. So before we launched, we brought in beta testers with different setups. Different property types, different family dynamics, different ways of using their homes. Their feedback shaped the product in ways we never would have thought of on our own. Not everyone uses their house the way we do, and Dwelly is better because of that.
Harris
Built the original version at age 10 using Base44. The reason all of this exists.
Whitney
Sales operations and GTM background. Leads all marketing and go-to-market strategy.
Doug
Supply chain apps and IT background. Handles all technical infrastructure and development.
Dwelly launched May 1, 2026.
Built for families like ours.
The same modules Harris sketched out at the lake house are all there. Reservations, grocery lists, expense tracking, arrival and departure checklists, maintenance logs, property contacts, and inventory. Everything a co-owning family needs in one place.
Harris is 11 now. He still uses Dwelly every time we go to the lake. And every time we go, we still think of something new.