About

It started with half an onion.

A household app built for the brain that carries everything — and never quite has enough hands to write it all down.

You're making a recipe that calls for half an onion. The other half goes in the fridge. Three days later it's still there — and somewhere in the back of your mind, you already knew there were other things you could have made with it. You just never had the space to think that far ahead.

That's the thing about running a household. It's not that you're disorganized. It's that you're already holding so much that there's no room left for the thing right in front of you. The thought that surfaces at the wrong moment. The task you know needs doing but can't quite get out of your head and onto a list. The dinner question that shows up every single night, like it's new.

The ADHD tax is real. It's the thought that cost you $75 because you forgot to write it down. The groceries bought twice because the list never made it out of your head. The appointment that slipped because there was no time to log it.

The mental load isn't a productivity problem. It's a weight problem. And most apps just add more weight.

Half-An-Onion was built to help carry the weight. It isn't about adding more rigid structure or another complex system to your plate. It's a tool built for the way your brain actually works when it's tired, full, and still trying to hold everything together. No clicking through menus, no "organization" chores.

Just speak. Let the chaos sort itself out.

The truth? The founder didn't set out to be a tech CEO. She set out to stop drowning.

She had spent nearly twenty years in National Security and technology, dedicated to building software that worked for real people under real pressure. Yet, back at home, her ADHD brain was still losing the daily battle with the mental load. Eventually, standing in her own kitchen, she asked the question that changed everything: "Why shouldn't I be the one to build the thing I need? I know the problem. I can learn the tech. And I'm tired of waiting for someone else to get it right."

She built Half-An-Onion in the margins of her life. In the quiet, small hours after her daughter went to bed — the only time her brain finally had the space to breathe and focus.

What it actually solves

For every brain that holds
the whole house together.

🎙️
The thought that vanishes before you can write it down
Just say it out loud. The Slicer — Half-An-Onion's AI — breaks your voice into individual slices: tasks, grocery items, reminders. One sentence becomes six things, each filed exactly where it belongs. No typing. No organizing. Just speak and let go.
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The to-do list that lives only in your head
Your Cutting Board is a visual board that works the way your brain does. Active tasks sit front and center. Things that can wait simmer quietly in the back. Urgent ones get a little heat. Drag something to the Compost Bin when it's finished. It's the closest thing to clearing the mental counter for real.
📤
The thing that needs doing — just not by you
Drag a task to someone in your Circle — your partner, your teenager, anyone in your inner circle — the task populates in a text and you hit "send". They get a link. They mark it done. You get notified. No follow-up needed. No holding it in your head until it happens. The loop closes, and you can finally let it go.
🛒
"What's for dinner" at the end of an impossible day
Grocery items from your voice go straight to The Basket. The app knows what's already in your pantry and helps you build meals around what you have — including the half onion. Cart handoff* sends your list directly to your store. The circle completes itself.
* Cart handoff currently supports Kroger. Additional stores coming soon.
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Your data belongs to you. Full stop.
Your tasks, your lists, your pantry — all of it lives on your device. Not our servers. Half-An-Onion can't sell what it doesn't have. Voice audio is deleted the moment it's transcribed. We don't hold your life. We just help you carry it.

And a little more than that.

💚
For the families who need it most
Sponsored Pro access for SNAP/WIC households is coming — not a discount, not a watered-down version. The whole thing, free. Because the families with the least margin for error deserve the best tools.
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It's the things we meant to use. The plans that almost happened.

On an individual level, food waste is a heavy, quiet weight. It's the money we shouldn't have spent and the guilt of throwing away what we intended to nourish our families with. It happens in the margins — the half-onion, the wilting greens, the leftovers that got buried.

The numbers are stark: the average family of four spends nearly $3,000 a year on food that never gets eaten. According to the EPA, 96 percent of households' wasted food ends up in landfills or down the drain — almost none of it composted.

Half-An-Onion exists to help you catch those moments before they become waste. Not with more "organization," but with a little more breathing room. Because keeping a few things out of the trash isn't world-saving — but for a tired caregiver, it's a small, real victory that counts.

The name

A half an onion is the universal symbol of the thing you started but didn't finish. The ingredient you bought but didn't use. The task you meant to write down, but never completed.

It's every good intention that ran out of time. Every plan that almost happened. Every version of "I'll get to that later" that you're still carrying.

For all the halves you're still holding — the unfinished, the almost-done, the meant-to-get-back-to. The everyday incompleteness that caregivers carry quietly, without anyone noticing the weight.

For all you're holding.
Half-An-Onion

Built in Virginia by a mom who loves running her household — and was overwhelmed by it. The long lists she couldn't find time to untangle. The dinners she couldn't easily plan. The ingredients that quietly demanded to be used before they went bad.

She has an ADHD brain, a background in technology and national security, and a kitchen that once felt like it was working against her.

Independent — no investors, no pushy ads, no data sold. Just a tool that tries to hold a little of what you're carrying.

See what it does →