There's always a story and ours (Rytyu's) starts as a love story. When I first met the lady who is now my wife, Christabel, we were, for a time, separated by about as much distance as the Earth can put between two people. I remained in London as she left for New Zealand and I had no real way of knowing that I would ever see her again.
As I do, when I meet someone with whom I have an extremely rare connection, I fell totally, completely, truly, madly, deeply (sorry) head over heals, can't sleep for the missing of her, consumingly and utterly in love. I have remained like this, a believer in Fairy Tales and magic and the power of love to overcome all else and to this day I am a romantic dreamer.
During this period of enforced absence, with complete disregard of any other form of communication that could possibly convey the depth and sincerity of my feelings, I took to writing letters to my beloved; every single day. I was hoping to woo her and have her fall for me, in any similar way. She reciprocated with her own beautiful words and it eventually, evidently worked as we were reunited, first in the tropics and then in California where we spent a good few years bathing in the total freedom of a new culture and young love.
During this time Christabel introduced me to the work of Nick Bantock and his Griffin and Sabine trilogy. This is a marvellous work of amazing imagination and beautiful talent combined in a book series recording a correspondence between two lovers. I'll say no more, but I urge anyone with an ounce of romanticism to read the books. They are a completely rare treat and a great testament to the quality of dialogue that can result from this age old means of communication.
We kept those precious letters and we still have them to this day. Something about those moments stayed with me as I poured out my heart and sent those words on their way knowing that I would finish another three, at least, before the current one arrived in the hands of my love. The magic was that I new that the opening and reading of them and the thoughts conveyed in them would hopefully serve to show my love, care, commitment and strengthen our resolve to one day be together.
Of course, like many of us I grew up with email and text and then the onslaught of a multitude of ways to communicate over thousands of miles, instantly and almost without limits to what could be attached or embedded along with my words.
However, it always stayed with me that none of these mechanisms of communication retained the critical elements of the experience that count and resonate and make you save letters in a box for a lifetime. The effort has to be there, you have to put something into producing a letter but I also accepted that the devices we all carry are now able to generate any image we can conjure and any words we can imagine, in any format or colour.
Then, I theorised that effort had to be coupled with the notion that the writing I send has to at least "feel" like mine and so I wanted to retain some sense that the handwriting I use was a representation of me.
Finally I wanted to allow people to use technology for what its best at. Making things quicker and more convenient and not standing in the way of producing a letter wherever I was.
The net result was that I carried around an idea for a letter writing app for about two years and every time I told someone how I might achieve it they seemed to think I was onto something if I could execute it in the right way. I even came up with a name. Rytyu (Write you).
After a few false starts trying to eliminate the hand made element of producing a letter so that the user never saw any paper, I realised that although it could be done that I was depriving people of any real sense of creating the letter and so I started playing with the simplest possible means to allow the customer to print and make a Rytyu with no special equipment and the least fuss. This evolved into what we released on 1st November 2014.
The Rytyu app allows you to use many of the features of your iPhone like your contacts to pick your sending and recipient addresses, your photos in case you want to add some colour and the voice dictation service to produce simple beautiful handcrafted letters. When you set up the app you are guided through some questions about you to allow Rytyu to suggest some appropriate handwriting fonts. We have fonts for children and adults and we think they look great on paper. They also have the advantage of never smudging, sloping or being spelt wrongly. Once they are written and saved, the last page of the Rytyu becomes the envelope and we have made sure that they are simple enough that a five year old can make them. The envelopes can also be personalised with some wonderful illustrations and a seal with your own message if you wish.
To make Rytyu I had to find someone more technical than me to write iOS Xcode and a Designer who could bring the experience to life in a way that was easy to use and intuitive to follow. Luckily I found Stuart and Polly who are credited in the app and on this site. They both worked extremely hard on Rytyu and although it seems like a simple application it actually hides a lot of complexity from the user (like, I hope, all great products).
We have been brewing up for launch and I am excited to get to use my network to help me get the word out. If you think you might write a letter, personal or business or you want to make sure a few people see your message then Rytyu allows you to do all those things too and that is why we think it's great for families, friends and lovers. We also believe it's a great micro marketing tool for small businesses who want their message to get seen and read.
I just hope you enjoy the act of making a Rytyu as much as we do and that when you drop it in the postbox that you get that feeling of excited anticipation that you just don't get from any other means of communication. We like to say that you use Rytyu, because your words matter.
Now go make someone's day.
Justin.