What will our kids know about our parents?
“Tell me a story about Grandpa when he was a boy” said my 5 year old son at my father’s funeral.
To my dismay, I realized I COULDN’T. We never talked about his childhood … even the basics, like his favorite subject in school … or anything about his first job. And I sure didn’t know anything about his dreams growing up … what made him who he was. 😩
Even though my kids were alive when Dad passed away, they would grow up thinking they never knew Grandpa.
I looked through his photo albums … but all I saw were a bunch of people I mostly didn’t know or events I knew little about. I needed the stories behind the pictures — the context … the narrative.
But it was too late. All I had was some useful life learning.
How do we get the stories?
I thought “The world could use a service where everyone, everywhere had a way to easily create, share and preserve their stories … stories they could revisit themselves … and stories that keep their memory alive after they’re gone.”
More than just pictures or video, we need the stories — sometimes short, sometimes long. Sometimes just fun, sometimes thoughtful.
Writing wasn’t the solution. Few people start … and even fewer continue. It just takes too darn long. And it’s hard to stay motivated!
Social media wasn’t the solution — that tends to be a river rushing by of happy faces and highlight reel moments. And it was way too public. I hungered for something more authentic … more intimate.
And something better than just emailed or texted pictures/video that I’ll never find again.
And it had to be easy 😀
“Must-have” features
I wanted the following:
EASY AND VISUAL: Really easy to create and view stories — even for Grandpa — with each story made up of any combination of pictures, video, text and audio.
PRIVATE: Tight control over who sees what — the ability to choose to share every story differently, each one just with the people who will care about that story.
COLLABORATION: Most of the time, it’s not just about me. I often want to let people add content to the story as collaborators — like my wife when we were on a trip. We both took tons of pix/video!
A CURATED COLLECTION: Not an everyday diary — that was too much work. And not just a few precious moments — they’re only a small part of life’s journey. And especially not a repository for every picture and video I ever take (I admit I’ll probably never organize them!).
I wanted a collection of many life stories and experiences that would be easy to find, relive, share (or not) … memoir-worthy stories!
The need for LifeTales
There was nothing out there with this combination of important features. So we created LifeTales — a service specifically tuned to helping you capture and preserve a person's story … so your kids (and their kids!) will know, for example, who your parents really were.
Our Mission: Help everyone, everywhere, preserve their stories for their descendants
Harvey Beck
CEO & Founder
