Why we built The Life Before Me
A parent's stories should not disappear. We are two founders building the service we wished we'd had, a patient way to capture a parent's life in their own voice and turn it into a book the family keeps.
The story behind the product
Three years ago, I sat with my grandmother and listened to her tell the same five stories I had heard my whole life. A few months later she was gone. So were the hundreds of stories she never told me, and any chance my children would ever hear them. That loss is what The Life Before Me is built to prevent.
The tools that existed when we looked treated this as a writing project. They asked an 82-year-old to type into a form, or record into an app she would never have figured out how to install. Our parents and grandparents do not want a project. They want to be heard. The technology had to disappear.
So we built something that meets a storyteller where they already are. They tap a link, talk on a tablet, take as long as they need. A patient voice asks the kind of questions a curious grandchild might ask. We shape what they say into chapters their family will read for generations. Six weeks later, a printed book arrives. What's underneath is new. What it preserves is as old as families are.
The founders
Jonathan Saunders
Co-founder
Jonathan leads product, brand, and go-to-market. Before The Life Before Me he founded Concentric Lab and spent more than a decade in product leadership across consumer and enterprise software. He started this company after watching his grandmother's stories disappear with her. He cares most about how the product feels to the person being interviewed; everything else has to serve that.
Tamas Kalman
Co-founder, CTO
Tamas leads engineering, infrastructure, and the conversation system. He has spent his career building software that has to work for people who don't want to think about software. He approaches The Life Before Me the way a craftsman approaches a private commission, with a deep conviction that what we make should outlast the version of the website that delivered it.
What we believe
Every story is worth keeping
Most older parents say “I haven't done anything interesting.” That is almost never true. The Life Before Me is built around the patient, specific questions that turn an ordinary life into a chapter your grandchildren will read.
A book is permanence
Apps change. Logins expire. A hardcover on a shelf is what your grandchildren will hold. We are not optimizing for screens. We are optimizing for the family library.
Their words, not ours
We shape what your storyteller says into prose worth keeping (every line rooted in something they actually told us, in their own voice, in their own time). We do not invent.
How it works
Your parent needs no account, no download, and no password to remember. They tap a link in a text or email, and a quiet voice asks about their life on whatever tablet or phone is nearby.
Your first 3 stories are free. No credit card required.