We built it for our own families first.
Our story
HeartTold took shape over breakfast at the Park Hyatt in Toronto. We were two old friends catching up, and we soon realised that preserving our families' stories had been on both our minds, for different personal reasons.
For Andy, it began with his uncle's 70th birthday. For Scott, it began with wanting to capture his mum's stories for his children, and his own, in the years to come. As we talked, we understood we had been circling the same problem from different starting points, and the conversation brought the two ideas together.
There are some wonderful memoir and storytelling products out there. But none combined everything we wanted for our own families: scheduled calls to several relatives, almost no effort for the person telling the story, thoughtful follow-up questions, and a family record that grows as people talk.
We wanted more than a finished book. We wanted a living family vault that keeps growing as relatives share their stories, with the people, relationships and photographs inside them coming together into a family tree. We wanted AI to sit quietly underneath it all, so that years from now a child could simply ask, “Tell me about Grandma,” and receive an intelligent answer drawn from the family's own memories. If Grandma had chosen to preserve her voice, they could hear it in her voice too.
Not a book to put on a shelf, but a place a family can keep coming back to for generations. That was the HeartTold we decided to build.
A note from Andy
For me, HeartTold began with my uncle's 70th birthday. I wanted to give him something more meaningful than another card or present: a memoir created from the memories of the people who know him best.
My mother, my aunt and his cousin are each contributing by phone. HeartTold calls them, listens and turns what they say into chapters I can watch taking shape. When we give him the memoir, he can begin adding his own stories too.
What surprised me was how much more it became than a book. People and relationships mentioned in conversation began forming our family tree. Old photographs found their place beside the stories behind them. A great-grandparent who had only ever been a name became someone I could place.
I wanted a family record that could keep growing, and that future generations could read, hear and ask questions of. I could not find that combination elsewhere. So Scott and I decided to build it.
— Andy
A note from Scott
My mother is eighty, and she has always been our family's history keeper. She tells me about her parents and extended family growing up in a small country town, the people and experiences that shaped her. She also tells us about our family's beginnings, and raising four boys under challenging conditions.
For years, we listened and assumed we would remember it all. Then I realised I had never properly captured any of it.
I looked for something that could help, but everything seemed to require too much technology or felt like filling out a form. Mum needed something simpler: a familiar voice asking a question, giving her time to answer, and drawing memories out with follow-up questions.
So I built HeartTold.
One day Mum mentioned some heart tests she had coming up. She suffered a severe heart attack fifteen years ago, and it brought home a truth I would rather avoid: she will not always be here.
It isn't only her stories I want to keep. It's her voice, her humour and the particular way she sees the world and naturally speaks to us.
With HeartTold, our family will be able to explore those memories through a conversation grounded in what she chose to share. But the “after” is not really the point. The point is now, listening properly, and asking the questions we keep assuming there will be time to ask later.
HeartTold began with someone I love. I built it for all the Mums and families like mine.
— Scott
Start with the people you love.
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