Over two years ago, with the help of my cousins Jeff and Neal, we came up with the idea of keeping a personal diary online. The groundwork to make this possible had already been laid by Neal, who founded FamilyLearn Inc. FamilyLearn is in the business of helping families preserve, search, share, and learn from their own stories. FamilyLearn’s main tool for doing this is MemoryPress.com (it used to be called iMemoryBook.com). MemoryPress is a web-based publishing application that enables families to colaborate in compiling memory books for and about loved ones.
Using the same technology as MemoryPress, we created Pyxlin. The non-sense name was an obvious result of a shortage of good domain names. It was derived from our tag line: “journaling in pixel and print.” Pyxlin was supposed to and did improve my journal keeping in many ways. I could access it from anywhere so I wrote more frequently. I type much faster than I hand-write, so I included much more detail. I inserted digital photos so they would be fused to the stories behind them. And thanks to the foundation laid by MemoryPress.com, Pyxlin even enabled me to publish my journal into a hardbound book.
I was really excited. I told all my friends and family. Despite my enthusiasm for the product, I’m confident I was the least qualified person working at FamilyLearn. Fortunately though, I was surrounded by gifted and helpful people. I studied everything I could about business and marketing. I used class projects as an excuse to do market research for Pyxlin. I made a package to sell Pyxlin in stores and got it into BYU’s bookstore. We ended up selling at multiple different conferences and a few universities too.
Unfortunately, the project encountered a snag, or should I say a series of snags, that took the wind out of my sails. Due to an array of technical road blocks that I don’t pretend to understand, Pyxlin was not in a position to scale and therefore could not be opened up to the public. Our bootstrapped little company was forced to put all of its resources into programming and development. With Pyxlin closed to the public and absolutely no marketing budget, I was forced to wait patiently for the programmers to find and implement their solutions. Being that I know nothing about programming, I helped where I could doing user testing and user-interface design, but the process was painfully slow.
Being a single student, I was able to squeeze by living on the few sales from the bookstore and from the different conferences. Last summer, however, I got married and immediately needed more income. I was obliged to leave FamilyLearn for a more steady income. Since then, I have been almost completely disconnected from FamilyLearn and from Pyxlin.
Today, Jeff contacted me with some very exciting news. Pyxlin is finally open to the public! Now anyone can experience the same improvements in their personal journal keeping as I did!
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