I didn't set out to build an app. I set out to find a decent coffee.

It was paternity leave. Our first wee boy had just arrived, and for the first time my partner and I had time on our hands mid-week — the perfect chance to try all those viral Glasgow cafés that are mobbed at the weekend. Great food, lovely interiors, exactly like the photos. But you see the world differently with a baby in your arms.

The places that looked perfect on Instagram often weren't built for families at all. One café had its baby-changing table buried under storage, with high chairs that looked like they hadn't been wiped in days. At a popular bar with brilliant food pop-ups, the changing table in the men's room sat directly opposite the urinals — close enough that if someone came in for a pee while you were changing your baby, you'd be touching back to back. Your wee one, out in the open. We started half-joking that somebody should rate these places on whether they actually work for a family, not just whether they photograph well.

Instagram ratings and family-friendliness are two completely different things.

That joke became ChangeCheck.

What we built

ChangeCheck is a free app that helps parents, carers and families find venues that are genuinely family-ready — and check the things they actually care about before they leave the house. Is there a clean changing table? A high chair that isn't a wrestling match? Step-free access for the pram? Every place gets a ChangeCheck Score that rolls all of that up, built from real check-ins by people who've actually been there — not marketing.

I started by listening. I took the idea into parent communities on Reddit and Facebook and got blunt, brilliant feedback. Since then a small community of parents across the UK has helped me test and iterate, version after version, right through a big redesign. In June 2026, after a lot of nights and weekends, ChangeCheck launched properly on both the App Store and Google Play.

Treasures

One of my favourite parts is Treasures — the little things you don't find everywhere but that make a real difference. Spotting an IKEA Antilop high chair in the wild (because the hulking wooden ones are a nightmare). Height-adjustable changing tables. Dad-friendly changing facilities with no urinal in sight. A play area you can actually see your kids in. Parents tag them, and other parents go looking for them.

The bit I didn't expect

One of our most engaged users is a mum who's a wheelchair user. She's finding real value, because there's so much crossover between the accessibility needs of wheelchairs and prams — step-free doors, room to turn, a lift that actually works. It turned out the thing we built for tired parents is useful for a lot more people than just us.

I've built ChangeCheck around our own family while trying to stay a present dad — coding after bedtime, testing on days out, fixing bugs at the weekend. Any modern parent knows that pull: wanting to build something, and wanting to be there. ChangeCheck is my attempt at both.

Right now, like any new app, the thing that makes it better is people. Every parent who checks in makes the next family's day out a little less of a gamble. That's the whole idea — and it's only getting started.

— Grant Houston, founder of ChangeCheck