Founder: Amelia Lin
Amelia grew up in a Chinese American family. Her parents often shared stories about life in China, how they met, and what it was like to move to America. Amelia had a feeling that these memories would become increasingly important to her as she grew older and begged her mom and dad to record them. Once she even approached them about writing a book, and while they were flattered, they insisted that it would take up too much of their time and would have to wait until retirement. Amelia wanted to create a way to record these stories not only for her, but for her kids and their kids too. She started thinking about how she could use her background in technology to create a product that would make recording and sharing memories fun and easy for her family and families everywhere.
Saga is an app that turns family memories into a private family podcast. The company uses voice (vs. video or written) to emulate how storytelling has been done for centuries and cut down on some of the self-consciousness that comes with video. Saga also realized that there is something really powerful about listening to a loved one's voice. The company uses prompts to inspire recordings and spark memories. All of the audio recordings are saved on the app and are shared with family members, so that you can hear each others' collective answers. The result is like getting a podcast of your family's best stories.
"My lesson learned was I'm glad I kept holding on. I am a very stubborn person by nature, and if I decide I am going to try to do something, I will do everything I can to try and make it happen. I think a lot of the founder’s journey is, really, can you hold on long enough for things to turn around--can you just keep holding on?" - Amelia
Sources: StarterStory, Medium, Saga website