Fittingly, it started with a stranger.
I was half-listening to a radio show when a woman said something that stuck. After every date, she'd pull out a little notebook and write down everything — what was said, how she felt, the small details she didn't want to lose.
And I thought: that's it. A journal for your relationships — the dates, the friendships, the family, everyone who walks into your life — that you can reach for the second something happens. Not a ritual you sit down for. Something that's just there.
"A journal only works if it's safe."
So I started building. And couldn't stop.
First the obvious part: write anything, anytime, tag how you feel. Then it hit me — half our relationships live in chat windows now. So I added OCR: screenshot a conversation and Sonder turns it into text you can keep. Months later, search a single word from that screenshot and the whole day comes back.
Then one more thing: if people are going to pour their lives in here, they shouldn't do it alone. So I added Sonder AI — a confidant that actually reads your journal and talks back. It listens, spots the patterns, and hands you your week as a gentle summary. Like texting a friend who was paying attention the whole time.
But here's the part I care about most.
A journal only works if it's safe. The moment you suspect someone else might read it, you start lying to it — and a journal you lie to is worthless. So I made two promises I won't break: your data is never sold, and your words are never used to train AI. What's yours stays yours.
Sonder is the first product I'm taking all the way to production — and honestly, it's the one I've wanted to build for a long time. Something that helps real people make sense of their relationships, and themselves. Quietly, safely, on their own terms.
It's in final testing now. Almost there.