Why I Built Wish Box

Can you still remember what you did with your friends 10 years ago? Have you ever talked about places you wanted to visit or things you wanted to do together, only to forget them later? Or reached the weekend and realized you had no idea where to go?

Have you also gone a long time without doing something you genuinely wanted to do?

Where Wish Box came from

The idea for Wish Box came from two small moments.

• While organizing the photos on my phone, I came across pictures from 10 years ago. Everyone looked so different. I am not someone who naturally records everything, but that moment made me understand why memories matter. The record is not for the present self, but for the future self.
• I also came across a discussion about how to keep a relationship feeling fresh. One answer stayed with me: keep a wish box, put in things you want to do together, and pick one from time to time. It is simple, but it creates a way to step out of work, chores, and routine for a while.

I kept noticing the same pattern in everyday life. My partner and I often struggle to decide what to do on the weekend. Friends talk about trips they want to take, but months pass and nothing happens. We say things like "we should do this someday," and then when we finally have time, we cannot remember what that thing was. These ideas are not unimportant. They are just easy to lose in daily life.

That made me wonder if wishes and memories could live in the same place. What if there were a digital wish box that helped people save the things they wanted to do, and also keep the moments that came after, so they could look back on them later?

What Wish Box is

Wish Box is a life-recording tool that my friend Pye and I are building. At the beginning, it was simply something we wanted for ourselves.

It is not designed as a highly social product. It feels more like a wish box and a photo album kept in a drawer. At its core, it has only two parts:

• Wish Box: you can create different wish boxes for different relationships. For example, a Friends box with close friends, or a Love box with your partner. Then you add things you want to do, draw one, and make it happen.
• Memory Wall: after completing a wish, you can save the moment with words and photos. Those moments stay there for you to revisit later.

In the simplest terms, Wish Box is just three actions:

1. Add something you want to do

2. Make time to complete one wish

3. Keep the moment and come back to it later

If an experience feels worth sharing, you can also publish it to the Square. But that is not the center of the product. The focus is still on recording life with the people who matter to you.

The vision

I hope Wish Box helps people live a little more intentionally, and hold on to the small things that make life feel real.

For a product like this, the only thing that truly matters is the data people leave behind. So if you ever want to leave, or if Wish Box one day stops operating, we will do our best to provide data export for you.