About Your Nutshell Ltd

A wake up call to help you sleep soundly!

A note from Rob, Managing Director

Whilst on holiday in August 2006, with my family, I awoke in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. In a dream my father had died and not only did I feel emotionally devastated but I was overcome with regret that I hadn't taken the time to know more about his life. What he'd done as a child, what he loved (and hated) about school, how he felt about his father, and so on. As I gradually became fully awake, I was filled with joy in realising he was still alive and I that had a second chance, but equally filled with an urgency to do something about it.

I got up about 2am, and by 6am your Nutshell was born (although the working title I'd given the concept back then was "Sleep Soundly", for obvious reasons!).

In structuring the questions in such a way that I ensured I found the answers I needed, it struck me that a website might be the way to record this information for ever, and ensure its safety for his grandchildren and great grandchildren too.

Over breakfast I reviewed the idea with my wife Nadine and my boys, Simon and Stephen, and their enthusiasm (tempered with their usual view that their Dad is nuts) gave me the determination to succeed.

Shortly after arriving home from holiday, a close friend died suddenly in his early forties, and his wife was left not only with young children to look after and her own grief to manage, but all the technicalities of his personal finances, business appointments and legacy to sort out too. She was operating in a vacuum; they hadn't expected anything like this to happen to them, and consequently hadn't discussed such things. She didn't know to whom funeral invitations should be sent, whether he had wanted to be an organ donor, where all the policy documents were to cover their mortgage payments, and so on.

This at a time when all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and pull the duvet over her head.

Seeing what she was going through led me to expand the idea that I'd had previously to incorporate recording in one safe place everything that was important, and to remove as much of the uncertainly and worry that goes with the unexpected or even expected departure of a loved one.

The person, or persons, left behind should be able to grieve without the added stress of wondering if the arrangements being made are those which their loved ones would have chosen. Unfortunately, funeral arrangements can also be the cause of family arguments.

So, as well as thoughts and memories of their lives to date, I also wanted to have somewhere where people could record where everything was, what to do in certain circumstances, their wishes, etc etc..

I spent the next 12 months refining the concept whilst holding down a job and setting up my own consultancy business, but decided in September 2007 that if I was ever going to develop this concept into a website from which thousands of others could benefit, then I needed to find people with the skills I lacked to complete the project.

In October 2007 I shared the idea with two trusted colleagues, Becky, a Brand and Marketing Expert and web database specialist Andrew.

Together we refined the concept further, and the Brand "your Nutshell" was born on 8th November. The name came from the simple fact that as we developed the various services to include a "real time memory function" (your Year), a life history or lifebook service (your Life), the safety box function (your Money) and the requests and desires service (your Wishes), each individual compartment could be said to be summed up "in a Nutshell".

While we were developing the website and broadening its scope to include anything which might be wanted "in a Nutshell", Becky's Grandmother died over Christmas 2007 and the wake turned into a wonderful sharing of memories. Every member of her close family had experienced different sides of her, and stories were shared, relating to each other and her past, which they realised had never been heard before and which could be lost altogether if they were not recorded.

It's only human not to want to discuss difficult subjects especially when things are going well, but, sadly, as the old saying says, death is one of the very few certainties in life.

We all make New Year's Resolutions about putting our finances in order, checking that our insurance policies are up to date, filing everything so it can be easily accessed.

When Christmases come around and we meet up with, or think about, distant family and friends, or someone dies, and we often realise that we have not always shared our memories of them with others.

We sometimes get around to planning a holiday and can't remember some of the things we wished we'd taken last time, or the money we spent, or the things we meant to do on another trip.

There are other times when we wished we had a way of leaving private messages to those we love, not to be opened until after we've gone so we won't get embarrassed. All of these things are easily kept in a diary or a secure record - but do we always get round to doing that?

This realisation reinforced the agreement between us that there was a need for all of these things to be gathered and stored securely online - not lost or accidentally thrown away or, heaven forbid, burnt in a house fire - which could be fun to keep up, and would be seriously helpful to others should we be taken seriously ill or injured, or even - whisper it! - die.

So we focused on getting your Nutshell launched for the benefit of all as soon as possible with a trial in May 2008 and a full public launch in September 2008.

We hope you find your Nutshell an important summary of you, in a nutshell - who you are, what you do, what you remember; and that the virtual filing cabinet becomes an integral part of your life.

Thanks for your involvement.
The Team, Your Nutshell Ltd.

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