Version 1.0 - Friends & Family

Almost every product or business venture starts somewhere, and that somewhere is usually the suckers who don't have the heart to say no -

Friends and family.

Don't believe me? Search "Start-up fundraising stages" and you'll see something along the lines of -  

Pre-seed stage - when only your grandma and grandpa believe in you.

You know what I always say - grandma and grandpa can't say no if you download it for them on their phone and they don't know how to delete it!

There is no shame in this phase (also, Bezos's parents did REALLY well with their initial investment). There are thousands of companies that spend millions of dollars trying to get our attention, our clicks, and our dollars. Nobody is going to buy your product just because you made it. Except grandma.

Who has two thumbs and needed two friends & family stages?

GodSpeaks. (Alright, I suppose the four of us have 8 thumbs)

We launched the Friends and Family version of GodSpeaks twice. Once in 2019 and then again in December of 2022. We never raised money, but we did get our friends and family to download the app and tell us what they thought about it. Nobody said no and that's what friends and family are for :).

The issue with 2019 wasn't that we didn't love the idea, it was that we weren't fully committed. Nate and I both still had our professional gigs that we were holding on to and we couldn't build a business on the side without compromising our values, which isn't an option if you read what our values mean to us. 2022 is different because we are all in.

What did this version do?

As little as possible.

• Sign in
• Record text
• Light & dark mode

That's about it.

But it did exactly what we needed it to. People downloaded it and used it. They gave us feedback on what features they wanted most.

Over the next several months we added the reminder notifications (kind of the whole point of the app) and cleaned up quite a few things. We were encouraged by -

• 75+ people signed up
• 900+ entries added
• People telling us the loved the idea

And we learned a few things from people who signed up and never added a memory - friends and family who didn't say no, but kind of said no ;)

All of it helps us get to the next version - Market Ready.