How's it going? I'm Mike and I'm stoked to share the story behind Lovd, the personal scrapbooking app I've been building. It's all about sharing, organizing, and exploring your memories in a more intimate way than just a list of photos.

The Spark: My Dad's Retirement Party

A few months ago, I attended my dad's retirement party. My brother had put together this incredible slideshow showing my dad's entire life. From the awkward teenage years, his time doing bomb disposal in Somalia, to rocking the dad-bod at the beach. There were so many pictures I'd never seen before, and that moment really hit me: we all have so many photos just sitting around, never truly revisited or shared.

After the party, we all posted the photos we took in our family group chat. Sound familiar? These precious memories, these fragments of our shared history, just sitting in another digital drawer.

So, I got to building something that not only focuses on meaningful sharing; memories with the people you actually care about, but also creates a platform that helps families and friends come together to make, share and relive these moments. Not just another giant feed to follow everyone and their dog (don't worry, you can still tag your dog).

The Vision: What is Lovd?

Lovd is a a space where you can explore your memories in a more interesting way than just a grid on your profile. Using the photos from your camera roll, you can create a timeline & map of your life, add events, notes and albums - and then share it with the people in those memories.

Social media overwhelms us with stuff from people we barely know, while our most precious memories get lost in cloud storage and the cycle of 'in' platforms.

Your relationship, your family, your friends. Your memories, with the people you care about.

Core Features

• Timeline View: Organize your photos, albums, events and notes (like recipes or music).
• Map View: Pin your pictures on a map, because who doesn't love seeing all the places you've visited?
• Collaborative Sharing: Invite your loved ones to add their own photos and notes - it's like building a group scrapbook.
• Privacy & Control: Decide who sees what - no public walls or random strangers lurking.

Future Aspirations

I'm just getting started, but here are a few ideas I'm excited about:

• Presentation Mode: A slideshow view that plays through your events automatically, perfect for parties or just reminiscing.
• Journey mode: Watch a trip play out on a map, with photos and notes appearing as you navigate through time.
• Planning events: Pre-planning, inviting and collecting photos for events.

Join the Journey

Try it out, stay tuned for more updates and thanks for reading! If you have questions or cool ideas, drop a comment or hit me up here. I'm always ready to chat about memory-keeping and what we can do to make it even more awesome.