Independently built,fiercely private.

I didn't always have a fear of public speaking. In junior high I gave a speech to almost my entire school and barely remember feeling nervous. I loved the spotlight.

Then came 12th grade social studies. I was up in front of the class when a wave of panic hit me like nothing I'd ever felt. I spent the next few minutes struggling to breathe, trying to get through the presentation. That was the first of many.

College made it worse. To graduate, I had to pass a speech class. After dreading it for years, I finally enrolled. The first day involved an impromptu speech. I panicked and dropped the class after day one. I started to seriously wonder if I was going to graduate.

I'd been journaling since I was 15. Whenever life got loud, I'd sit down and write until it made some kind of sense. So when the speech-class crisis hit, I did what I'd always done. I wrote about it. Eventually I decided to stop running from it.

Around that time, I had a call with my grandpa. Wise man. I told him everything: the phobia, the dropped class, the worry I wouldn't graduate. He mentioned Toastmasters, an organization that helps people become better public speakers. I signed up that week.

My first meeting was terrifying. I got up and spoke in front of a dozen retired folks (some Toastmasters clubs are full of them). Me, a shaky 19-year-old, in a room of 70+ year-olds. I loved it. Every time I stood up nervous, they'd cheer me on.

Within a few years I was officer in two clubs, had finally passed the speech class, and started my university's first-ever Toastmasters chapter. Over the years since, I've given wedding speeches in front of hundreds of people, including my own.

The confidence I'd built in Toastmasters, plus a deep love for writing code and building things, helped me land a wonderful job at a local tech company, surrounded by other nerds. By 2014, my girlfriend Lindsay (now wife) and I were living in a trailer in the middle of wine country, California. Beautifully simple life. Small space, big views, not much else needed.

One morning, in the most cramped shower you can imagine, an idea hit me: I want to build something for people going through what I went through. People facing fears, unhelpful thought patterns, feelings of helplessness. Not clinical, not stuffed with features. Just a quiet, well-made space to write, reflect, and feel a little lighter.

Because almost everyone is dealing with something. And most of the time, they just need a place to put it.

I found the perfect name. KindMind. Two syllables, instant meaning, impossible to forget. Only problem: somebody already owned the domain. And they wanted what was basically my entire life savings for it.

As an early-career engineer, that was a terrifying amount of money. I thought about it for two months, went back and forth, and finally took the plunge. Twelve years later, no regrets. It's given me so much purpose and joy.

I've been building KindMind since 2014. The first users signed up in 2015, and I haven't stopped since. More redesigns than I care to admit, and a genuinely unreasonable number of hours obsessing over the details.

Today, KindMind is a journaling toolkit with guided exercises inspired by psychology research, all protected by zero-knowledge encryption. Independent, intentional, built to last. Just me, a dude in Oregon who thinks the world could use a little more kindness, starting with how we treat our own minds.