My Product Is Unexpectedly Being Used to Help People with Dementia | Hacker News Reader

My Product Is Unexpectedly Being Used to Help People with Dementia

nanagram.co

283 pointsaacook62 comments

I signed up for this the last time it came up on HN. Although I’ve had trouble on my end with mailing addresses and uncooperative nursing homes, Alex at Nanagram has been absolutely fantastic and proactively helpful.

It’s been a niche use-case for me - getting photos to the two grandparents that can’t get on board with smart phones - but as far as it goes, it’s a phenomenal product for that niche. It’s definitely allowed me to keep grandparents involved with my newborn in a way that would otherwise not be nearly as convenient. The closest alternative would be to make a point of sending a snapfish order every few weeks; with NG, I just text a photo to them at the same time I’m texting my other relatives.

My only wish is that they could somehow foolproof their packaging to get past the front desk at nursing homes, but I don’t know if that’s possible. NH seem to just not be built for accepting mail for their residents.

It’s a good service, run by good people.

Thanks so much for the kind words. I'm working on some new packaging. Nursing homes tend to be pretty sensitive about HIPAA and mail. I had a dream to get NanaGram into nursing homes as a group activity, hammered on sales a while and put it on the back burner. I'll probably revisit it soon. The general idea is people would open their photos together, making for a way for residents and team members to get to know each other better. All of the photos would come in one box to avoid delivery issues.

All that said, I'm working on some new packaging and will reach out to you by email to get you hooked up in a beta so we can improve your delivery.

> The general idea is people would open their photos together, making for a way for residents and team members to get to know each other better. All of the photos would come in one box to avoid delivery issues.

Thank you very much for thinking this way. This is the sort of entrepreneurship that's genuinely good for the world.

Add chocolate to the boxes ;-)

And a note: "take care of the grandmas/grandpas and also make sure these photos gets delivered to their rooms and there probably be another box next month."

I'm joking but I feel I'm not too far away from a useful idea.

It's a lovely idea, but with forethought into allergy concerns in medical facilities and shared homes (especially in international market), as well as maybe import/health code related stuff, I wouldn't sidetrack the original vision for it.

I like the idea of adding more goodies to the shipments! Hoping to get to that soon. That, and greeting cards.

The key challenge with the experiment was a sales challenge. At the time, I didn't have too much runway. The sales cycle was longer than I could afford.

But speaking of chocolate, one idea I had was to send giant chocolate bars to the nursing home directors to get their attention :)

I really like this product. As others have said, Alex is excellent at customer service. He’s taken my actual phone calls, and really helped out. He’s even implemented some features that helped my sister contribute from Scotland (with no overseas SMS). I continue to recommend it constantly.

Thank you! I love talking to customers on the phone. I subscribe to the idea of building a product or feature for one person. You kickstarted what eventually became an international email product. Now we've got customers delivering all over the place. Pretty soon I hope to start shipping worldwide. Thanks for sharing us with your friends.

Might it be cheaper/easier/more ecofriendly to print in the destination country?

(Which probably might not be possible for any country, but for example in Europe it might work pretty well. Many printers offer the services you'd need I think. Or just one printer per continent might also be ok.)

Although there might be other problems of course.

We're doing that right now with most international destinations. We just don't have a Canadian printer. It's likely I'll start printing them here in the Boston area for Canadian users. The US and Canada offer super fair postage rates for first-class mail.

Thank you for a product that focuses on a real need for the elderly. It might seem like an inconsequential thing to some, but I’m sure this kind of thing can considerably improve the quality of life for older people.

My mom has always embraced technology, but as she gets older, I can see her struggling with increasing anxiety using her computer and iPad, etc. I can imagine some day this being the perfect thing for her.

It’s so easy to forget our older loved ones, and it’s easy for the elderly to slip through the cracks of our society. I’d love to see more companies out there solving problems like this that improve the quality of life for the elderly.

Bravo for a product that brings joy and makes the world a little nicer place.

Thanks so much! Susan Pinker gave a fantastic Ted talk about this topic: https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_pinker_the_secret_to_living_...

The #1 factor to leading a long and happy life is the frequency of your social interactions, both with close friends and family and acquaintances. I'm certainly getting reports of people talking to their grandparents more since they started sending photos and it warms my heart.

There's quite a bit happening in this space which has recently been coined by some as "elder tech." Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan's fund Initialized are investing in the space in startups like https://www.joinpapa.com.

On a tangent, the BBC has a site to assist with "reminisce therapy" using material from BBC archives.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2017-02-bbc-rem-arc-dementia-m...

https://remarc.bbcrewind.co.uk/index.html

Awesome, haven't seen this yet. Thanks. The UK seems to be leading the way in elder care. Last year, they appointed a "Ministry of Loneliness." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/world/europe/uk-britain-l...

Hi again. Thanks for sharing this with me. I'm surprised it hasn't been posted to Hacker News yet. I just posted it.

This really should exist in the US too. I assume the footage is all BBC footage.

Thumbs up everything about this product. I just started a side project that has minimal interface goals for a low(er) tech use case, and this is lovely.

Nice! Best of luck with launching.

Good to see you ship to Canada too. I'm in Japan where Mixi has a service called [Nohana](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19966877) that's similar (but an app), but looking forward to checking yours out, maybe with the help of my brothers back home. Nice work!

Sweet! I haven't heard of Nohana yet, thanks for sharing. Japan seems like it would be a great place to expand to soon.

BTW, I'm hoping to drop the price for Canada in the next couple months!

@aacook this is awesome! I just showed it to my sister and we're going to sign up for my Grandma's birthday next month. One request: Snapchat is our native photo sharing app (and I assume that's true for many other millennials) any chance there's a way to send from snapchat in the works?

Thank you! I've explored other platforms. One of the reasons I've been hesitant to rely too heavily on social tools is NanaGram is often used for photos that never make their way to social. That said, Whatsapp has an API but it's invite-only and I've had no luck getting in. It's too bad because it would be a perfect medium. Hopefully in time.

Snapchat would be a great fit. I looked it about a year ago and it wasn't feasible. I'll take a look again!

In the meantime, we do support email by giving you a unique NanaGram email address.

Making the UX on explaining/teaching the user how to add a custom email as a contact, or doing it for them, will be huge.

Thanks! I had a step in the initial onboarding to let folks add their NanaGram recipient as a contact via a contact.vcf file. I user tested with 5-6 people and couldn't quite nail it. Had other priorities at the time and decided to back burner it. The concept of downloading a vcf file, opening it, etc is foreign to many people. Another challenge to nail was the copy around adding a contact record for the recipient, as many people were confused (I already have a contact for my Nana!) This kind of address book integration seems easier to do in a native app. Soon, I hope!

I also work on a product that's been unexpectedly beneficial for dementia, amount other things (Marco Polo). As a researcher, it's been a revelation about how often products are useful in ways we don't design for, and the inverse, how products designed for a purpose can end up having negative or even counterproductive effects. (Social Media might fall into both categories). This is a good argument for design and user research in general.

Awesome! My wife and her family are crazy about your app. Her mom discovered an unknown half-sister through an Ancestry.com match. They used Marco Polo to get to know each other. My wife's mom also sends monthly printed photos via NanaGram.

Just sent this to my mom. I think your product looks really useful, joyful, well-priced, well-built and well-run. I think if you keep it up, you'll be really successful! I'm rooting for you!

Nice! Thanks so much for the supportive words. There have been a few times were I've considered "giving up" (putting this on the back-burner to take on contract work and pay the bills) but I've been fortunate with things like this HN thread. I'm also lucky to have a crazy supportive wife and family.

Costco sends photos for free when you order from a computer. I regularly send a handful of photos to my older relatives and pay just 17¢ each. Print quality is much better than places like Walgreens, IMO.

Nice, thanks for sharing! Do you have to be a member? It's free shipping with no order minimum?

NanaGram works best for people with siblings or cousins who want to send a curated pack of photos to their loved ones. The account owner can invite people to send in photos and everyone can tailor reminders (1 week, 3 days, 3 hours, etc from the monthly ship date).

The other nice thing is the interface, since most of the time there isn't one. We give you a unique phone number and all you have to do is text your photos to the number.

I'm hoping to release a couple low-priced solo-sender plans soon.

No minimum! I literally send 3 photos for the cost of a stamp. You do have to be a member, I think.

That's pretty cool. Thanks for this. I tried to sign up but it won't let me through without a member number (http://bit.ly/2YDIHaD). Maybe Costco is able to do this using member fees to offset the costs.

I am offering a way for people to try us completely free right now. It's on the home page. You can also just text 3 photos to 617-622-5124.

I wonder if Costco ships internationally. Thanks again for the heads up.

Costco doesn't ship internationally. I used them to make the mugs for a Kickstarter once, and I had to pick up and separately mail all the international orders.

I appreciate your letting people try this for free! I would pay a little extra to get their good quality printing and matte option. Of course, the convenience you offer would also be great!

Bah this was on my todo list for a while -- ended up subscribing today finally!

So amped to have you on board.

It's a great idea and I wish I'd known last Christmas when I had to print and post 5-6 photos to 5 recipients with a total cost of ~£100. My hustle also costs something but it's not priced in.

Only one question if I may. How can I know for sure you delete the photos? Is the business GDPR compliant? If I am based in the EU, do my photos need to go to server in the US? I'd prefer if they didn't have my young daughter's pics...

Thanks for these details. We take privacy extremely seriously. Most international folks use the email version of our product. In that case, they'd go from your mailbox to ours (Google Apps / Gmail) and then onto our server (Digital Ocean, NYC). We never use your images for marketing or promotion, unless in specific cases where we have your permission. For example, when people post reviews with their loved ones holding NanaGram prints. We don't get that many requests for deletion, but when we do, I run a full delete on your data.

Thank you, what a great idea! :)

Thank you! I can't take credit for the idea. That goes to my brother Andy. He'd originally dubbed the prototype "Instagrandpa" but we thought Facebook might get upset and went with NanaGram.

Good for you, because that's a fantastic name.

Thanks! I wrote a little bit more about the story around the name at https://nanagram.co/blog/the-grandma-test

Is an API on your roadmap?

Not yet. What would you use it for? Alternatively, drop me an email via the button on the bottom right of the home page.

Mostly curious. I have an old photo sharing site and was wondering what kinds of integrations are possible.

As someone who is dealing with a mother with actual dementia, the term "tool to fight dementia" is deeply misleading at best.

It's fine as a product, but it does nothing to "fight" dementia. It's a convenience and that's it.

"Fighting" implies that it has some therapeutic value that can stop or slow down the progression of the disease, and this does nothing. It's just an easy way to flip through pictures. After watching my mom go from a brilliant pharmacist to an incontinent, paranoid, angry stranger in the span of 6 years, I guarantee you there is absolutely nothing that flipping through a photobook will do that will do to fight dementia.

It's great for grandparents and older folks because it's familiar and convenient and easy to change. It's not a tool to fight dementia.

To say it's misleading is unfair considering the language is pulled from one of the testimonials the author has received. I don't interpret "fight" to mean "help cure the disease," but rather "help alleviate the effects."

I am truly sorry to hear about your mom's dementia progression. I can only imagine. Wishing you and your family strength.

A few of my customers have mentioned it's helping them. I observed first-hand that going through fresh photos seemed to help my grandma too. She had dementia, although hers didn't progress as far as your moms. Maybe the photos didn't help but instead it was the frequent interactions with her loved ones that did. Also, maybe products like NanaGram help in the early stages of the disease but not later on.

I'm not a psychologist and dementia is an extraordinarily complex disease. I'm most definitely not trying to mislead. I drafted a few different variations on the title and ended up going with this one to get the point across.

I appreciate what you said, and I don't assume bad intent.

However, I would urge you to be careful with the words that you choose, especially when it comes to a topic like this. I have no doubt that your product will make those with dementia happy and having actual tangible photos is easy for anyone to use. Seeing photos of loved ones or just photos in general even if they don't recognize the people anymore. Anyone will get happy looking at a picture of beautiful child. We have an iPad for my mom just for that purpose and my siblings will go through pics with my mom all the time. She no longer recognizes my wife or my son (she confuses my son with me now all the time, and she talks to the iPad thinking that she is communicating with the person on the screen). But no doubt seeing those pictures makes her happy in that moment.

But dementia is an extremely cruel disease, worse than any other because it robs people of their humanity over many years and leaves families with huge bills and extreme guilt.

Photos won't help. Exercise doesn't help. Neither will omega fatty acids, various other pills or diets, 40 Hz light therapy, etc. It will continue to progress until the person is only alive in the clinical sense, but will be nothing like what their family remembers. Photos make people laugh and smile, but that's not help in any sense more than watching a funny tv show would help.

Thanks so much for all of your feedback. I won't take it lightly. Looks like HN edited the title. I edited mine too. I'll be thinking of your feedback when writing future posts.

I've spent a couple of (very satisfying) years in the medical industry and spent some time with tech (and non-tech) writers because I'm reasonably good with words. I can certainly confirm what docker_up is saying; there is a connotation of "fighting" that implies some sort of therapeutic value, and it's one that readers commonly expect.

Just like docker_up, I'm sure there's no malice on your part -- reading your post would clarifies that (the source is obviously a testimonial that wasn't written by you), but basic common sense would be enough to figure that out, too. However, it may be worth looking into an alternative formulation just to steer clear of malicious readers.

And now that we got this stuff out of the way, hey, congratulations on your wonderful, wonderful project! Reading about companies and entrepreneurs and whatnot on HN usually makes me bitter and cynic. This does not :).

Thank you. Really appreciate this kind of feedback as it helps me grow. Topics like these are tough to write about. I often hesitate to publish. I'm glad the post brightened your day.

IMHO it's a good thing that you find yourself hesitating to publish. Responsible people think twice about publishing a written piece on any subject, and this is a particularly sensitive subject. Our industry has developed a culture where they slap the "analysis paralysis" label on any kind of serious analysis, and I don't think that's good for us.

I walked that walk and agree with you. My mom was the smartest person I knew until one day when she wasn't, didn't answer the phone, aunt found her on the floor incoherent, and for the next 6 years we cared for her in our and then her home next door. She never again recognized family.

Music from my mom's youth was the only thing that survived up until language was gone. Old photos maybe were recognizable to her for only a few months out of the six years we had her but she was great at covering up the dementia in retrospect I think she was essentially cold reading the conversation we were having into "recognizing" people in the photos, her immediate family.

There's a link to BBC archives another HNer posted that would have been wonderful to have in a US version. I dislike raining on Alex's product in a thread he should be proud of but from a product standpoint I believe the BBC thingie for US audiences could be more useful to caregivers and those suffering from dementia.

Thanks for adding your perspective. Also so sorry to hear about your mom.

Music really is an amazing thing. I meant to touch on it in this post but didn't get to it. My grandma's favorite song was "papa loves mambo" which we'd play on the Echo Show. She loved singing the "Uuuuh"s! They brought musicians into her assisted living nearly every Friday. I went to 7-8 of them and it was such a beautiful thing to see everyone singing along and smiling.

I don't mind this kind of feedback. It's honest and helpful.

I'll have to watch those BBC archives soon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com