Women have always found ways to feel safer. Group chats. Check-in texts. Pretend phone calls. Keys laced between the knuckles. A fake boyfriend on the other end of the line.
We shouldn't have to.
For decades, the answer to women's safety has been: build harder. More cameras. More blue lights. More escorts that close at midnight. Hardware for a problem that's human.
None of it works. Not because the intent was wrong. Because the design was wrong.
Safety isn't a building you walk into. It isn't a button on a wall. It isn't a 45-minute wait for a van that goes one place.
Safety is who's next to you. Always was. We just built the version where it actually shows up.
Every woman walking home alone passes another woman walking home alone. Same route. Same hour. Same fear. Just on opposite sides of the street.
The fix isn't more institutions. It's introductions.
"I started this because my friends and I are tired. Tired of texting 'home safe?' Tired of fake calls. Tired of the workaround."
I built sidexside the way I wished it existed when I was a freshman walking back from the library at 2 a.m.
It isn't perfect yet. But it's built by someone who's actually walked it. That's the difference.
sidexside launches Fall 2026. Be the first to walk.
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