The Why

When life feels too heavy to move forward

We’ve all had times when our minds feel tangled.

Thoughts keep piling up, but nothing feels clear.

We want to act, but we don’t even know where to start.

For me, this wasn’t just a bad week — it was a long season of life.

I didn’t set out to build a product.

I was simply trying to find a way to function again.

What started as a personal coping method slowly became Unravel — a tool to untangle your thoughts and turn them into clear, actionable steps.

Here’s how it began.

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The turning point

Then, something happened that completely broke me.

Someone I deeply loved — a companion who had been part of my life for over a decade — faced a sudden, life-threatening health crisis.

In that moment, the weight of everything I’d been carrying came crashing down.

The sleepless nights, the constant mental fog, the silent battles I’d been fighting — it all felt like too much.

I was flooded with guilt and fear.

Had I been so consumed by my own struggles that I failed to give enough care when it mattered most?

It was the moment I realized I could no longer keep pushing life forward on sheer willpower alone.

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The first step back

When your mind is overloaded, writing can feel impossible.

But I knew I needed some way to process my thoughts.

So I started speaking into recording app on my phone.

In bed, late at night, I would record my thoughts — raw, unfiltered, unstructured.

The next day, I’d transcribe them and read them back.

It wasn’t about perfect phrasing — it was about seeing my own thoughts laid out, so they stopped swirling endlessly in my head.

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Building from survival to system

Thankfully, my loved one recovered enough to come home — and I was deeply grateful.

That moment reminded me that if I wanted to be present and dependable for the people (and beings) who matter to me, I had to start taking better care of myself.

That’s when my late-night recordings evolved into the seed of a bigger system:

• Capture my thoughts as voice notes

• Use AI to transcribe and clean them

• Organize them into themes and next actions

• Track my progress across calendars, to-do lists, and notes

It was messy — I used multiple apps, switching between recording tools, AI transcription, task managers, and calendars.

But even in that imperfect state, the system helped me keep moving forward.

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The birth of Unravel

I realized I wanted one place for all of it:

Record → Organize → Act → Track, without friction.

So I began building Unravel — first for myself, then for anyone who’s been where I was:

A place where your scattered thoughts become a clear starting point.

A tool that doesn’t just store your ideas, but nudges you toward action.

If you’ve ever felt buried under your own thoughts but still had the desire to move forward, I hope Unravel can be the same gentle push for you that it was for me.

This is the beginning of both my recovery and my product journey.

I’ll share every step here.