Walk into every call clued up.

Hi, I’m Yoel. I’m a software engineer in London, and Aside is just me.

I built it because I kept walking into sales calls not quite clued up. Either I hadn’t read enough about who I was talking to, or I’d spent an hour preparing for a twenty-minute call. Neither is a great way to spend a Tuesday.

So Aside helps you prepare, then sits in on the call with you. Your goals are dots that fill in as you cover them. One line suggests your next move. And when they ask the question you were dreading, the answer you prepared is already there.

It sits just under your camera on purpose. On a call, especially one-on-one, you don’t have time to read, and you don’t want to look like you’re reading off your screen. It should be something you take in at a glance, while you keep looking at the person. It’s hidden from screen sharing, so only you see it.

No bot joins your call. A stranger in the participant list changes how people talk. Aside listens to your computer instead.

Recordings stay on your computer, too, and English and 24 European languages are transcribed there (add another language and every call is transcribed online, as on computers too slow to keep up, but for notes-only calls on the free plan). If we don’t need something in the cloud, it doesn’t go there. That’s most of my privacy thinking in one sentence. (The actual policy is longer.)

Notes are free. Notes made on your computer cost us nothing to run, so charging for them felt a bit cheeky. Live guidance and summaries run on AI models that cost real money, so Free gets 2 guided calls a week and the paid plan is for every call.

Before this, I was a software engineer at Airbus Defence & Space. These days I build small, focused tools that make computers do the work, like Notes Thing, a recorder that keeps your notes timed to the second, and OpenLookAway, an open-source reminder to take a break from the screen. There’s more at yoelgal.com.

It’s early. If something’s missing, tell me.

Yoel