Why I Built ShiftCoach

ShiftCoach started with a conversation on a night shift break.

I was sat with the team I work with, and over that period a lot of us were going through our medicals. Like many shift workers do, we started talking honestly about health, tiredness, sleep, energy, and the impact shift work has on your body over time.

The more we spoke, the more obvious it became: shift workers deal with a completely different lifestyle, but most health advice and most health apps are still built around people who work nine to five.

That never felt right to me.

I have worked shifts for the last 20 years, and I still work shifts to this day. I know what it feels like to finish work when other people are waking up, to try and sleep when the world is moving, to plan meals around awkward hours, and to feel your body clock constantly being pulled in different directions.

On that break, I had a lightbulb moment.

If we felt this way, surely other shift workers around the world felt the same too.

That was the moment the idea for ShiftCoach started.

I decided to try and build the health app I wished already existed. An app made specifically for shift workers. Not for perfect routines. Not for people with the same schedule every week. Not for a standard nine-to-five lifestyle. But for real shift workers dealing with nights, days, early starts, rotating patterns, fatigue, recovery, meals, sleep, and everything in between.

I had no experience building apps. I am not from a tech background. I am a steelworker.

So building ShiftCoach has taken a lot of trial and error. There have been plenty of mistakes, late nights, learning curves, and moments where I had to figure things out from scratch. But because I live the shift-work lifestyle myself, I knew exactly why I was building it.

I wanted ShiftCoach to be useful in real life.

That is why I have tried to include the things I feel shift workers actually need: body clock awareness, fatigue insights, meal timing, recovery support, sleep tracking, hydration, shift planning, and guidance that understands irregular schedules.

ShiftCoach is not about making people feel guilty. It is not about chasing perfection. It is about helping shift workers understand their body better, spot patterns sooner, and make smarter decisions around health, energy, and recovery.

At the heart of the app is the idea that your schedule matters.

Your shifts can affect when you feel alert, when you feel drained, when your high-risk windows appear, and when your body needs recovery. ShiftCoach is built to help make those signals clearer, so shift workers can feel a little more in control.

This app is personal to me because I am still one of the people I am building it for.

I know there are millions of shift workers keeping hospitals running, factories moving, warehouses open, roads safe, care homes staffed, and essential services working while the rest of the world sleeps. Those workers deserve tools built around their lives too.

As ShiftCoach grows, I want it to become a trusted companion for shift workers everywhere. A place where you can track your rhythm, understand your fatigue, plan your meals, support your recovery, and manage your shift life with more confidence.

I am also building ShiftCoach with the people who matter most: shift workers themselves.

Your feedback, ideas, and suggestions are incredibly important. Whether it is a feature you wish existed, something that could be clearer, or a problem shift work creates that most health apps ignore, I want to hear it.

ShiftCoach is being built to solve real problems for real shift workers, and the best way to do that is by listening to the people living that lifestyle every day.

Together, we can make ShiftCoach the only health app shift workers choose.

I built ShiftCoach because shift workers matter. Their health matters. Their energy matters. Their sleep matters. Their time matters.

And they deserve an app built around them.

— ShiftCoach Founder, Adam