Sketch of a book
The story of
where we began
PDF from Basic upward. A printed copy is a planned add-on, $29 to $69, and not orderable yet. Family Legacy adds your own branding on the cover.
Early access · An AI biographer
Never forgetwhere you came from.
Originstory stays with a family and helps them keep the stories that would otherwise leave the room. Hand the phone to a grandmother or a child. It changes its tone, asks the question that was about to be lost, and keeps what they tell.
There is no app to install yet. The archive itself is still being built. We write when your seat is ready.
The cards beside the introduction are a sketch of an archive taking shape, not a recording from a real family.
01How a session goes
From the kitchen table to a record the family can keep.
Four movements. None of them ask a person to perform. The point is to stay in the conversation long enough for the forgotten part to surface.
01
Hand it over
One tap, then the phone belongs to the person telling the story. The interviewer softens for a child and gives an elder more room. They do not need an account of their own.
02
Hold, and speak
Press and talk. When you let go, Originstory asks one follow-up — a name, a room, a season — while the memory is still in the air.
03
Let the record take shape
Photos, letters, and files you already have teach the next question. A tree and a timeline grow beside the years that are still missing.
04
Pass it down
A book. An audiobook. Later, a short clip or a keepsake you can place in the room. You decide who can see it, and you can always take it with you.
02What it is for
Built to listen longer than a person can, and to stay quiet when it should.
The pieces below are the product in alpha. Where something is not built yet, it is marked.
In the room
One tap, then hand the phone across the table.
Sign in once. Hand-the-phone mode changes pace and vocabulary with the age of the person holding it, so a child and a grandparent are not spoken to the same way.
Capture
Hold to record. One question comes back.
Speak while the moment is open. The follow-up is short, and it digs for the detail a person was about to skip.
Heirlooms
A photograph, a video, a tin.
Upload the object and Originstory asks what it remembers: who last held it, and why it was kept.
Already written
Questions that learn from what you upload.
Bring a GEDCOM, letters, or an export you already have from 23andMe or MyHeritage. Those names belong to their owners. The files only teach the next question.
The shape of a family
A tree and a timeline, built as you talk.
Stories settle onto people and years. You can see the branch, and you can see where it thins.
What is missing
Memory gaps, named plainly.
The years no one dated. The sibling who is only a mention. Originstory keeps a list of what is still worth asking, without inventing the answer.
Return
Social prompts coming soonA reminder on a quiet Sunday.
Calendar reminders are part of Basic and above. Prompts tied to other social apps are coming later, and only if you connect them.
Come back
Streaks, badges, a family board, quests.
Gamification is there so someone returns while the person who remembers is still nearby. Free includes the basic set. It is not a scoreboard for a life.
Coming soon
Ambient listening
Off unless a family turns it on. On-device first. Never the way a session starts.
Ask my ancestors
A conversation with the archive itself, once there is an archive to ask.
Short clips and AR
A vertical telling, and later a keepsake you can set on a table. Both still ahead.
03Try the pace
A preview of the interviewer. It does not keep what you type.
Ask it the way you would hand someone a phone. If a language model is connected, the questions are live. If not, a scripted biographer still follows the story, so you can feel the pace.
The biographer
Checking the interviewer…
I’m here. Start with a person, a kitchen, or a year — even a fragment is enough.
Please don’t type a story you need kept. This preview is not the archive.
04What leaves the phone
Something a person can hold, hear, or hand to someone else.
Exports are part of the paid plans. Ordering a printed book is not open yet.
Audiobook · Premium
A voice reading the archive.
Premium and Legacy include an audiobook export. An ethical, consent-based voice for those readings is marked coming soon. It is never implied, and it is never on by surprise.
A short vertical clip
A telling that fits a phone, cut from a story the family already approved.
An AR keepsake
Something you can set back in the room it came from. Later, on Premium and Legacy.
The book cover above is a design sketch, not a family’s published volume.
05Around the table
The phone moves. The story stays shared.
In the room, one phone is enough. The tone follows the person holding it. Across a family, seats are separate: someone can listen without being able to rewrite, and someone else can tend the record.
Free is a single keeper. Basic adds view-only sharing. Premium is full collaboration and editing. Family Legacy is that same care for a group of up to twenty, with a person to help you begin.
Seat 1
Storyteller
Holds the phone. No account required for the person who is only speaking.
Seat 2
Listener
View only. Basic includes up to five people who can read and not edit.
Seat 3
Keeper
Can edit the record. Premium includes up to ten. Legacy widens the circle to twenty.
Roles in a shared archive. Illustrative, not a real household.
06Privacy and ownership
The story belongs to the family. The software is only the room it lives in.
End-to-end encryption
Stories are designed to be readable by the people you choose, not by the company hosting the software.
An on-device path
Capture can stay on the phone. When ambient listening arrives, it is opt-in and on-device first.
Granular sharing
A person, a branch, or the household. View, or edit. The default is the smaller circle.
Yours, including on Free
Access to your own data and your downloads does not expire, and it is not a paid feature.
07Planned prices
Plain prices. Your stories stay yours on every plan.
Joining the alpha does not start a charge. These are the prices the product is being built around.
A new account includes a 30-day Premium trial. No card. When it ends, the account becomes Free on its own unless you choose to stay.
Free
For one person, starting the archive.
$0
No charge, and it stays that way.
- Unlimited AI questions and capture
- 1 user
- Basic family tree
- 5 full stories
- Basic gamification
- Eternal access to your own data and downloads
- 500 MB storage
- No PDF or book exports
- No family collaboration
- No AI rewrites
- No smart reminders
Basic
Room for the whole telling, and a book.
$4.99per month
Billed monthly.
- Everything in Free
- Unlimited stories and storage
- PDF exports
- View-only family sharing, up to 5 people
- Calendar reminders
- Offline mode
Premium
Most popularThe household edits together.
$9.99per month
Billed monthly.
- Everything in Basic
- Full family collaboration and editing, up to 10 people
- AI enhancements: rewrites and summaries
- Ethical voice (coming soon)
- Audiobook and PDF exports
- AR exports (coming soon)
- Priority support
- Custom question packs
Family Legacy
Premium for a wider circle, with a guide.
$199per year
This plan is billed yearly.
- Premium for the group, up to 20 members
- Dedicated onboarding
- Bulk exports
- Custom branding in books
- Print-on-demand
Compared, line by line
| Included | Free | Basic | Premium | Family Legacy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI questions and capture | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| People on the plan | 1 | 1, plus 5 view-only | Up to 10 editing | Up to 20 |
| Full stories | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage | 500 MB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Family tree and timeline | Basic tree | Included | Included | Included |
| Gamification | Basic | Included | Included | Included |
| PDF export | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audiobook | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| AR export | No | No | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Family sharing | No | View only, up to 5 | Edit, up to 10 | Edit, up to 20 |
| AI rewrites and summaries | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Ethical voice | No | No | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Calendar reminders | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Offline mode | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom question packs | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Priority support | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Onboarding, bulk export, book branding | No | No | No | Yes |
| Your data and downloads | Yours, always | Yours, always | Yours, always | Yours, always |
Invite three families who become active, and you receive one free month of Premium.
Printed books are an add-on from $29 to $69. Ordering is not open yet. On Family Legacy, print-on-demand includes custom branding. The print itself is still the add-on.
08Questions
Before you hand over an address.
If yours is not here, write to hello@originstory.si. The mailbox is still a placeholder.
Not yet. There is no App Store or Play Store listing. Join the alpha and we will write when a seat opens. Joining does not start a charge.
09 · The alpha
Save the story while the person who knows it is still in the room.
Join the list. We open seats in waves. There is no store listing, and asking for a seat does not buy a plan.