Why I'm building Kinnun

I always wanted to be a mom. Life had its own timing, and I had my first daughter at 38. It has been the most magical experience of my life.

My own mom raised me mostly on her own after my parents divorced, and I have so many good memories of her. In my mid-twenties, she was diagnosed with cancer. I took care of her, and she got sick very fast. Sitting with her at the end, I didn't even know what I wanted to ask. I was still so young. I didn't have the questions yet.

After she was gone, I became the keeper of our family's photos and keepsakes. My brother lives with a serious mental illness, and my mom spent much of her life making sure he would be okay. I wanted to keep everything safe, and I wanted my brother to be able to see it in a way that was easy for him. So I started digitizing our family's photos.

The questions came later. In my late twenties, I wished I could ask her what dating was like for her, how she decided to get married, and how she decided to get divorced. My thirties were so different from my twenties, and new questions kept coming. Then I had my daughter, and suddenly there were questions I never could have imagined asking her. What was she like as a new mom? Was she scared? What did she wish someone had told her?

That's the thing about the questions we want to ask our parents: we usually don't know them until we're living through the same moments.

I want my daughter to have my answers for whenever her questions come: at 16, at 30, or the day she becomes a mom herself. In my own voice, kept safe and truly hers.

I've spent my career in tech. I've worked at Microsoft, I teach AI at ECPI, and I co-founded The AI Collective Hampton Roads. I've seen how much our photos and data are worth to the companies that hold them, and how easily apps change, get sold, or shut down. I didn't want my family's memories to depend on that.

So I'm building Kinnun, a digital box that does two things:

A private photo box for now. Your family's photos and videos, shared with the people you invite, today. Nobody else can see them.

A history box for later. The stories, video letters and voice notes you record for your kids, opened when you choose: on a birthday, when they become a parent, or after you're gone.

Everything is locked with your child's own key. When you're ready, you pass it on, and it's theirs.

One promise from me: you'll never see a child's face in anything we use to sell Kinnun. That includes my daughter's.

Real moments from my first months as a mom.

Kinnun is for the questions our kids will someday want to ask us. If you want that for your family, I'd love for you to be one of our Founding Families.

Erin Marie

Become a Founding Family