Why We Created LifeTales — Part 1

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’re on a trip. We both take 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) … some that might be memoir-worthy and others that are just things I want to remember with friends (like that great restaurant we went to!).

The need for LifeTales

There was nothing out there with this combination of important features. So we created LifeTales. And one of the features we’re excited about launching in 2019 is Grandparent's Story — a service specifically tuned to helping you capture and preserve your parents’ stories … so your kids (and their kids!) will know who your parents really were.

Harvey Beck
CEO & Founder