What do you actually get with Tell Me?
Someone with a business brain asked me a question about Tell Me last week. "What's the end product? What does the buyer actually get out of this?" I thought the answer was obvious. It's Tell Me. You ask your parents questions, they answer. What more is there to say? But the question stuck with me, so I sat down and properly thought about it. And what I realised is that Tell Me has two points where you feel the value. One is right now. The other is later.
The Now
Tell Me gives you an insight into your parents. What makes them laugh, what makes them cry. The good times and the hard times.
It works like this: every so often Tell Me sends your parent a question on WhatsApp, and they answer however they like. A voice note, a video, a few lines of text, a photo. That's it. No app to learn, no sitting down for an interview.
I thought I knew everything about mine. I was wrong. There's a whole stretch of their lives I wasn't there for, before I was born, and a whole stretch I've been too busy to ask about since. Tell Me has opened both up.
The number of answers that have given me more questions. "Tell me more" is a phrase I use a lot now.
And it's changed the conversations. You know the one I mean. "How's work?" "Fine." "Anything interesting happening?" "Not really." Then you end up talking about the weather. I don't have that conversation any more. Now I get to say, most weeks, "I never knew that, Dad. Tell me more."
That's the now. It's lovely, and on its own it makes Tell Me worth every penny.
Later
But it's not why I'm building it.
The real reason is the bit nobody wants to say out loud, though everyone knows it's there.
Some day the answers I'm collecting will be one of the most precious things I own.
The problem is, nobody can tell you when later is. It could be twenty years from now. It could be before the end of the decade. It might be next week.
And "it might be next week" is the reason to start asking now, rather than at some better moment that keeps not arriving. There are a thousand reasons to put it off. A thousand "I'll get round to that" moments. Maybe you're thinking Christmas would be a good time to bring it up.
I hope there's time for a thousand stories. It might only be ten. I'd rather have the ten.
The archive
So here's the answer to the question I was asked.
What you get is an archive. Every story they've told you, kept. Not a transcript of their voice, the actual recording, because a transcript loses the laugh, the pause before the bit they weren't going to tell you, and the way they say your name. Video, if they sent one. Every photo they attached to an answer. Searchable by name, place and theme, on your phone, whenever you want it. Read it, watch it, listen to it, at two in the morning if that's when you need it.
We look after the interface, the backups and the preservation. And you can download the whole thing at any time, in ordinary files that play without us. It's yours. It doesn't live in a box on a shelf and it doesn't disappear if your phone does.
There's no finish line, either. This isn't a year-long project with a book at the end. You keep going for as long as they have stories, or you stop when it feels right. Nothing you've collected goes anywhere.
Why it'll last
One more thing, because if you're going to trust something with this you deserve to know.
Tell Me holds my parents' stories. I have a reason for it to live on.
If you've been meaning to ask, ask now. Tell me more.
The stories you've never heard
Tell Me sends your loved one a couple of warm questions each week. They reply with a voice note. You keep their stories forever.
See how it worksMore from the blog
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