

If You Can't See Your Folks - nickbaum
http://www.ifyoucantseeyourfolks.com

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nchuhoai
This is just a gut reaction, but this service does not go well with my
stomach. I live 4k miles away from my parents and 9k miles away from my
grandparents. I see my parents only once or twice a year. But it's a treat
everytime I do.

If I were to use this service, I would have to think that my parents think
they are not important enough for me too keep up regularly with. Like I'm so
mad busy that I can't skype them or email with them, so I pay someone $50 to
do it on behalf of me. And I'll have a database of stories stored in the
cloud, instead of you know, memories in my brain.

Maybe disregard this comment, but this seems like the technical, MVP,
software-eating, wrong solution to a very emotional and personal problem. How
much more of human contact and relationships do we want to outsource to
technology?

Related: [http://vimeo.com/70534716](http://vimeo.com/70534716)

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chrischen
What's the alternative? To just not do it at all?

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nchuhoai
Skype and email yourself. If you don't have the time to do that, likely you
dont care enough (you as in some person, not you you)

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nickbaum
Agreed, you should absolutely call your parents (I call mine about once a
week). StoryWorth isn't meant to substitute for a relationship.

I don't think it's an either/or though. One important part of StoryWorth is
that these stories are saved for future generations. For example, my paternal
grandmother died before I was born, and I would love to be able to read her
stories today.

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ceejayoz
> One important part of StoryWorth is that these stories are saved for future
> generations.

Is this actually promised anywhere on the site? What happens if you stop
paying the $49/year? What happens if they go out of business?

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nickbaum
Great question. You can download all your stories at any time (pdf and mp3),
so you're never locked in. I spell this out at www.storyworth.com/privacy.

These stories are really important to people, so it's really important to me
that people don't lose access to them.

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chasb
You should probably let people know up front that it's a $49/yr paid service
after 30 days.

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nickbaum
Hi chasb, thanks for the feedback. The two links in the header are 'pricing'
and 'privacy', because those are the two questions that come up most often.

What I've found is that if people sign up (a) either their parents start
writing stories, in which case the price is not an issue or (b) their parents
don't write stories, in which case they can just let the trial expire. Because
of this, I'm optimizing for trial sign-ups so people can judge the value for
themselves.

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chasb
Ok. Interesting. You guys were YC W11, right? What happened between 2011 and
April, and how have things been going since April?

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joebo
Some easy way to capture a written reply would be good too. Voice is personal;
email not as much. Handwriting is personal for me. Maybe it's a smart phone
app that makes it simple to take a picture of a letter or note card. Maybe it
makes sense to suggest replying on a 3x5 card or something (instead of a a
full sheet of paper) and maybe that simplifies the photo issue. The digital
record is captured and then a physical one can be kept. It can also be
extended to have your parents take a picture of a picture of their favorite
memory

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nickbaum
Hi joebo, I like these ideas. In fact, one of my friends uses a service called
Presto that prints out the question emails for his grandmother, and she
answers on the back and mails them to him!

I still think you get a lot of the personality through the writing, and people
can also add pictures when they reply. Another thing I'm thinking about is
encouraging people to record voice-versions of the stories they write in text,
so you have both (and of course transcription for the other direction)

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ceejayoz
This would be a nice way to collect bank security questions.

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jtyoder2
Excellent service, great way to get to know your folks better.

