We started our small business  – The Life Writer – 8 years ago with a mission: Make life story writing easy, affordable, and available to everyone.

It’s been easier said than done.

Because to make it easy, affordable, and available we had to use the latest computer and internet technology. We needed to create a life story writing software app.

No problem, right?

Well…

My wife and I, co-founders of the company, are in our 50s and we ain’t exactly up to speed on the latest software code (yes, I did take a FORTRAN class back in the day, but I was lucky to get a C).

We could not write any of the software code ourselves and had to hire outside software suppliers to do that.

No problem, right?

Not exactly…

Software fees aren’t cheap ($50 – 100 per hour) and we’ve learned after working with 5 different companies that their actual capability and business ethics vary by a wide margin (imagine the Grand Canyon).

Some companies have been okay, some have been really bad, and all have been pricey.

From the very beginning we wanted to use automatic voice transcription with our app, so that users would not have to type their life story in by hand.

They could simply speak it (the computer’s microphone will automatically transcribe their words into text). But getting software companies to even consider adding “auto voice” was almost impossible (imagine asking a stranger for $10,000). They usually ran in the opposite direction.

Until we found a provider that can handle the task.

You want to add automatic voice transcription to the app? …Yes (holding my breath).

Okay, no problem.

You want to add a new picture book format to the app? …Yes (holding my breath).

Okay, no problem.

You want to modernize your site and go to Drupal 8? (updated software language) …Yes.

We got you. No problem.

Thank you very much all you talented software developers for enabling us to finally deliver a software app that makes life story writing easy, affordable, and available to everyone.

We couldn’t have done it without you!