My Breast Friend
From hospital bed to app store, building a breast-check reminder that could save lives.
A women's health app backed by national press and a Strictly star.
Gemma was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer and decided to turn her experience into something positive. She conceived My Breast Friend, an app that makes breast self-checking feel normal and easy. We built it in three months, engineered it to handle a potentially viral launch backed by Amy Dowden (Strictly Come Dancing), and delivered a product that 100% of beta testers rated positively.
100% positive beta feedback
Engineered for 1M+ sign-ups per hour
From concept to IOS and Android in three months
It has been a privilege to have worked on My Breast Friend. It is genuinely rare to be given the opportunity to work on developing an app that has the potential to help save many lives.Darren Sarre
The Challenge
Not all our projects start with financial services. This project started with one woman's cancer diagnosis and a determination to do something about it.
When Gemma was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in 2024, she was struck by how little awareness existed around regular breast self-checks. She wanted to build an app that would change that. Something that made checking feel normal, easy, and non-intimidating. Not clinical. Not scary. Just a friendly reminder and a clear guide.
But building a health app isn't simple. The platform needed to handle sensitive data securely and comply with GDPR. The content had to be medically accurate without feeling like a clinical leaflet. And there was a ticking clock: Amy Dowden, whose BBC documentary 'Strictly Amy: Cancer and Me' had put breast cancer awareness in the spotlight, was backing the launch during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. That meant potential national media coverage and a surge in downloads the platform had to be ready for.
Our Approach
Gemma wasn't a passive client. She personally led early design and UX development, sketching user journeys during hospital treatment. Her vision was specific: a friendly, inclusive tool that reminded users when to check and guided them through self-checks in plain language.
Our development team worked hand-in-hand with Gemma, translating her designs into a functional hybrid mobile app. We used Vue and Capacitor with a secure Laravel backend, enabling iOS and Android builds from a single web-based codebase.
Security was non-negotiable. We implemented end-to-end encryption, minimal data collection (only what was needed for reminders), one-time password login, and ran multiple in-depth code security audits. Load testing in the production environment made sure we were ready for what came next.
Working with ProStack, our hosting partner for mission-critical projects, we built an architecture capable of handling over 1 million sign-ups per hour. That wasn't theoretical. It was built for the real scenario of Amy Dowden's public endorsement driving a surge in downloads.
Language and imagery were carefully crafted for inclusivity. Users can choose terms like boobs, chest, or pecs. The tone is friendly, conversational, and supportive. The app meets WCAG accessibility standards with strong colour contrast, clear typography, and intuitive navigation.
Over 30 beta testers, women of diverse ages and experiences, trialled the app before launch. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Minor refinements to navigation and content clarity were made based on their input.
The Outcome
My Breast Friend launched three months after the concept was first sketched out. It's now live across the UK and Europe on both iOS and Android.
The architecture was engineered for 1M+ sign-ups per hour, ready for the viral potential of national press coverage and Amy Dowden's endorsement.
100% of beta testers gave positive feedback, highlighting the app's simplicity and empathy-driven design.
Future phases will explore deeper educational content, AI-powered symptom tracking, and potential NHS integration to connect users directly with healthcare professionals.
This is what happens when personal experience, smart technology, and genuine empathy come together. The app helps users understand their normal and spot changes early, which is, quite simply, a product that could save lives.
