From simple SaaS product to social impact: the YourPING journey so far

CREATED BY STEFFI LEWIS Published: 16/10/2026 @ 09:02AM #JoyceVincent #LonelyDeath #SocialIsolation #TheGuardianArticle #HumanStory

Late last year, I read an article in The Guardian about Joyce Vincent, a woman who died alone in her London flat and wasn't discovered for more than two years. It stayed with me ...

What started as a simple Sunday morning idea is becoming something with the potential to help thousands of people!

Not because I believed the same thing would happen to me, but because it left me with a much simpler question: if something did happen to me on a Friday night, how long would it take for my bestie to notice? Then, one Sunday morning in January, I woke up with a thought.

I could write something that answers that question!

I'm a software developer. That's what we do. We see a problem and immediately start wondering whether it needs a database. I started researching what was already available. Some apps did something similar, but many were US-based and packed with features I didn't want.

There were hardware solutions, services specifically aimed at older people with relatively expensive subscriptions, and some rather more woo-woo options that seemed determined to get me talking to people and occasionally left me wondering whether they thought I had mental health issues. I didn't want any of that. I wanted something incredibly simple.

If I keeled over on a Friday night, I didn't want my friend Kirsty to discover something was wrong because I hadn't appeared on Monday morning. I just wanted something to ask me if I was OK and, if I didn't respond, tell someone. That was it.

By early February, we'd had one of my traditional “I have an idea!” conversations with ChatGPT, and I started turning it into software. At that point, YourPING would be another commercial SaaS product. A useful one, certainly, but essentially something I'd originally designed because I wanted it. How little I knew back then.

One of the first people I explained it to
was my best friend Kirsty!

She's usually quite cynical about me disappearing down coding rabbit holes, so I wasn't expecting fireworks. Instead, she said something that stuck with me: “Well, this is the one. It really hits different from everything else you've created.” Then, after thinking further, she asked another question: “Do you think this would work for my mum?”

That question changed things immediately. Until then, I'd assumed the subscriber would also be the person checking in. Suddenly I needed a “Who are we checking in on?” section because someone might subscribe to YourPING for somebody they cared about.

My little system for checking whether I was OK had become a way for families to reassure each other, but networking brought the next big change.

I met the CEO of a charity, and we started talking about whether YourPING could work with groups. He explained that not all of their service users had smartphones. That sent me back to the code again. I added a reply number so somebody receiving a check-in by SMS could simply reply Y or N. No app. No mobile data. No links to click. No complicated technology.

That's when something else clicked!

SMS wasn't simply another way for YourPING to send a message. SMS was at the heart of YourPING. Messages can be retried until they're delivered, which makes the service useful in areas where mobile data or signal is unreliable. It works with basic mobile phones. You don't need to install anything or learn anything new.

While trying to solve one accessibility problem, I discovered one of the product's fundamental principles: don't add technology where technology isn't needed.

That conversation also got me thinking about how YourPING could work for charities, community groups and other organisations supporting groups of people, so I built Group Mode. Then I hit a problem code couldn't solve. I'd worked out how YourPING could support a charity technically, but I didn't know how it should work commercially. Could this simply be a SaaS business selling charities discounted subscriptions? Did it need to be something else?

I spoke to the CEO of a local charity supporting vulnerable children. YourPING wasn't appropriate for her particular service users, but she told me something equally valuable: “It's not appropriate for my service users, but it's a brilliant concept.” Then she helped me think about what needed to happen next. We discussed whether YourPING itself should become a charity. Charities can have trading arms, so structurally it was possible, but that didn't quite fit what I wanted to achieve.

I don't want YourPING to depend permanently on grant funding. My vision is for YourPING's retail side to generate sustainable income that covers the organisation and its operations.

That means grants and funding from charities and other organisations can be directed as closely as possible towards actually delivering check-ins in communities. That conversation introduced another possibility: a Community Interest Company, limited by guarantee. Ididn't immediately rush off and create one. I researched. A lot!

I talked it through with ChatGPT and Gemini. I asked people in my networking groups who already ran CICs about their experiences. I spoke to my contact at Milton Keynes Community Foundation about initial grant funding and how organisations like mine fit into that world. The more I learned, the more it felt right. Not just for YourPING, but for me.

I'm in the last decade of my career, and I realised YourPING
could be different. It could become my legacy!

By legacy, I don't mean having my name engraved on something or everybody remembering who created it. I mean building something useful that can continue doing its job after I've retired or, to put it rather less delicately, shuffled off this mortal coil. Something that can carry on without me.

And that's where The YourPING Foundation CIC came from. But this isn't the triumphant end of the story. It's simply the beginning.

The CIC has been formed. We're setting up the bank accounts. We will appoint two additional directors soon. Next, we'll run free pilot programmes with charities, community groups, and social enterprises to learn, gather evidence, demonstrate demand, and start building the case for grant funding. There's still a lot to do.

But if I could go back to that Sunday morning last January and talk to the woman who had woken up thinking “I could probably write this”, I'd tell her: “You're going to create something that's beautiful in its simplicity, has a clearly defined mission and could potentially help thousands of people across the country.” I don't need to add, "So, keep going", because I already know she will.

There's no way I could have known all of this would come from feeling worried after reading a news article about a lady in a London flat who died. I thought I was going to write a little SaaS product.

Instead, I seem to have started a journey, and we're only at the beginning.

Until next time ...

STEFFI LEWIS
Founder & Creator of YourPING

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About Steffi Lewis ...
Based in the charming village of Hanslope in Buckinghamshire, UK, I bring over 30 years of experience in web development. From creating my first website for the Open University in 1993, through being part of the dot com boom, to my explorations in SaaS and AI over the last few years, my journey has been a rich tapestry of web projects, big and small, both funded and bootstrapped. YourPING was created around a very modern idea: in a world of remote work, automated living and digital communication, it has become surprisingly easy for people to quietly drift off the radar. Bills are paid automatically, shopping arrives online and many people can go days without speaking to someone directly, even while remaining connected to the world through screens and social media. Designed as a calm and supportive daily check-in system, YourPING helps provide quiet reassurance for people who live alone, work remotely, travel frequently or simply value their independence. Using browser notifications, SMS backup alerts, email escalation and trusted contacts, the platform is intentionally simple to use without complicated gadgets, wearables or intrusive monitoring. At its heart, YourPING is not about fear or surveillance. It is about modern independent living and the simple comfort of knowing that if something feels unusual, somebody will notice. My head is in the cloud, my heart belongs to the web, and my soul is filled with such beautiful code 💚

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