Connecting Families, One Story at A Time: Interview with Amelia Lin, Founder of Saga
As our world becomes more plugged in, families are constantly finding ways to stay connected and share memories. Thanks to technology, families are able to connect over Zoom or other online platforms but there doesn’t seem to be a platform for sharing the stories and compelling memories that families keep near and dear. With stints at Udacity and Goodreads, Amelia Lin is working to bring families together with Saga.
Saga is an app to stay close with family and friends, by voice recording and sharing your answers to fun conversation starters. Voice record your answers to fun prompts like “What’s the biggest trouble you got into as a kid?”, then hear each other’s answers. It’s like getting your own personal private podcast. Those of you who are curious can started at trysaga.com/join
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
What inspired you to start Saga?
Amelia Lin: Saga comes from a really personal place for me because it’s a project that I started for my parents. For about 10 years, I begged them to find some way of recording the incredible memories and stories that they had shared with my sister and I growing up. They used to tell us these stories about growing up in China, how they met, and what it was like to move to the United States to start a new life.
I had been thinking of different ways to save these memories because I had this growing feeling that they were going to be super important as I got older. I thought it would be a great idea to write a book. But when I approached my parents with the idea, they were very flattered but would talk about holding it off till retirement because it was such a big project.
Knowing how precious time was, I wanted to get these saved but also wanted to make it easy for my parents. So I needed to find a way that was really easy for them, didn’t feel like a chore, and also would let us record stories even when we were apart, with me in California while they are still back in Texas.
How does Saga specifically approach storytelling, and what makes the best stories?
Amelia Lin: I think the first thing that we did fairly uniquely in our approach was our focus on audio. When’s the last time you heard your best friend’s voice? Voice is the way that stories have been told, for millennia, but it was a bit of an idiosyncratic choice because we’d have conversations with investors and they would ask why not take a photo? Why not video? We had tried a lot of different formats but loved that there was something natural about the human voice and storytelling.
Another thing that we loved about audio was it took away from the self-consciousness that happens over video. We found that for older storytellers, especially women, they were less comfortable being on camera. Recording just their voice removed that self-consciousness — they could even be in their PJ’s in their favorite comfy chair!
Voice is the way that stories have been told, for millennia, but it was a bit of an idiosyncratic choice because we’d have conversations with investors and they would ask why not take a photo?
Why did you decide on a prompt-based approach?
Amelia Lin: After many hours of research and feedback from our customers, we learned quickly that prompts were a big help in inspiring recordings.
Prompts spark memories for people and are a beautiful way to reminisce over the good times. They elicit that reaction of “Oh my gosh, I haven’t thought about that in 30 years,” when parents are asked about their childhood best friend or what it was like bringing your newborn child home for the first time.
Prompts spark memories for people and are a beautiful way to reminisce over the good times. They elicit that reaction of “Oh my gosh, I haven’t thought about that in 30 years.
With your experience in building Saga, what are you excited about with the emerging industry of audio-based apps?
Amelia Lin: If you would have told me five years ago that we were going to be routinely listening to strangers talking for hours at a time from our phones, I would have thought that sounded absolutely bizarre. But that’s what podcasting has made normal! The rise of podcasts has made voice audio part of our daily consumption.
With Saga, we asked ourselves if people are already listening to strangers, what if you could get a personal private podcast from the people you care about?
The pace of the ecosystem of tools and platforms surrounding voice is also accelerating. This growth is incredibly exciting and opens up some use cases that past audio platforms have not been able to cover.
With Saga, we asked ourselves if people are already listening to strangers, what if you could get a personal private podcast from the people you care about?
What is one of the best stories that you’ve heard from Saga users?
Amelia Lin: There are so many stories but this one is absolutely wild. One of our storytellers from the United Kingdom, Sue Stockdale, had stumbled on the app. She had traveled extensively and wanted to use Saga to record stories about traveling to the North Pole. It turns out that she is a polar explorer! She was the first woman to ever reach the North Pole, has an incredible podcast, and even her own Wikipedia page to boot. I couldn’t have imagined someone like her wanting to record on Saga. Go check out her podcast Access to Inspiration.
We’ve also partnered with incredible organizations like Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages to record the stories of Japanese-Americans during WWII, and hospice programs like DreamCatchers to record and build connections with hospice patients at end of life. Join JAMP’s project Nikkei Narratives and go listen, there is an incredible story from 90-year-old Jim Ichinaga in there!
You are an alum of the All Raise Seed Bootcamp. What was that experience like and what were some lessons you learned along the way?
Amelia Lin: Yes! A friend shared the application for the All Raise Bootcamp. I remember applying and didn’t feel like I was ready to fundraise or if this idea was even good enough to be considered for venture capital. Even when we got accepted, I kept telling myself, “I don’t think we’re ready. I don’t think we have the traction. I just don’t think we’re good enough.” Then I thought, I will go to the bootcamp just to get some advice once I’m confident to fundraise.
I’m so glad that I did, because it opened me up to the most open and honest conversations I’d ever heard about what fundraising was really like, and getting extremely tactical about this stage in company building.
I’ve spent my whole career working in technology startups, so I’m not a stranger to Silicon Valley or this idea of fundraising. Even with this experience under my belt, I still had no idea what step one of fundraising was like. Being part of the All Raise bootcamp helped clear that fog
I still remember going to my co-founder shortly after the last All Raise session and saying, “I think we’re ready. I think we can do this.” I’m very grateful for All Raise for having turned my mindset around at that crucial point.
What is motivating you right now?
Amelia Lin: Hearing from our users and their families is always the fuel that motivates me to keep going. This has been true for me at every company that I’ve worked out but it’s extra special at Saga. Nothing makes my day more than hearing from a user who just learned that their 90-year-old grandfather was at the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge or a user talking about the two-hour phone call that they had after listening to their mom’s recording about her travels to Italy. The fact that we are playing such an integral role in deepening connections is an honor.
Nothing makes my day more than hearing from a user who just learned that their 90-year-old grandfather was at the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge or a user talking about the two-hour phone call that they had after listening to their mom’s recording about her travels to Italy.
Any advice that you wish someone had given you early in your founder career?
When I was starting Saga, I reached out to every founder friend I had and asked them, “What advice do you wish someone had given you when you were starting out?” There were two pieces of advice that were far more common than the rest.
The most common piece of advice was to find a co-founder. Not just because it was better to have two pairs of hands on a project but because it’s really valuable to have emotional support and personal rapport with another person embarking on the founder journey with you.
The second most common piece of advice was to make sure you’re working on something you love. Don’t be tempted to work on a startup idea because you think it is sellable and you’ll make a lot of money when you’re not actually interested in how this product can make the world better. The founder journey is already difficult and stressful, so to not work on something that excites you is honestly not worth it.
From my personal experience as a founder, I would also advise an early founder to give people the chance to pleasantly surprise you. I wouldn’t be here today without the support of people who really believed in me and the idea because I didn’t see that in myself at the beginning. Time and time again, I remember just being pleasantly surprised over and over by friends who were willing to help me once I asked because they knew how much this project meant to me. Even if I thought the answer would have been no, taking the risk to ask was always worth it.
Don’t be tempted to work on a startup idea because you think it is sellable and you’ll make a lot of money when you’re not actually interested in how this product can make the world better.
What are some things getting you through quarantine right now?
You’ll laugh, but the highest return on investment my partner and I have made during quarantine is getting a bird feeder! We just set it up outside and wait for the birds in our neighborhood to come by as we work inside all day. It’s practically turned into a nature documentary because we’ve started noticing which birds come at which times.
Abena Anim-Somuah is a contributing writer at All Raise. When she is not working on the Business Development team at Ada Support, she is avidly baking and elevating Black culinary creatives on Instagram , listening to a podcast, or digging into a good book. You can find her on Twitter.
