Built by someone who gets it

Why I built EstateHelm

After decades of building software at scale, I found myself struggling with a surprisingly mundane problem: keeping track of everything that makes life run. Which bank accounts do we have and where? What subscriptions are we paying for? Who's the emergency vet for our pets? What are the login details my spouse would need if something happened to me?

The more I talked to friends and colleagues, the more I realized everyone had this same problem. Important information scattered across spreadsheets, notes apps, email threads, and memory. No single place to organize it all—and certainly nowhere secure enough to store the sensitive stuff.

I looked at existing solutions and found two problems. First, most household management tools treat your data carelessly—storing sensitive information like account details and family contacts in plaintext on their servers. Second, the more security-conscious tools were either too complicated or too expensive for regular families.

So I built what I wanted: a secure place to organize household information with real encryption—the kind where even I can't read your data. Not because I promise not to, but because the math makes it impossible.

The hard problem: emergencies

The trickiest challenge isn't organizing information—it's making sure the right people can access it when they need it most. What happens if you're in an accident and your family needs to find insurance information, contact your employer, or access critical accounts?

This is where most solutions fail. Either they're not secure enough to trust with sensitive data, or they're so locked down that your family can't get in during an emergency. I'm actively working on secure document handoff—ways to ensure trusted family members can access what they need, when they need it, without compromising security during normal times.

Small team, big experience

Yes, EstateHelm is a small operation. That's intentional. I'm not trying to build a billion-dollar startup—I'm trying to build a useful, trustworthy tool that I'd want to use myself (and do, every day).

Being small means I can make decisions based on what's right for users, not what's right for investors. It means your data isn't being monetized, sold, or mined for insights. It means when something needs fixing, it gets fixed.

If you have questions or feedback, I'm genuinely interested—reach out at [email protected].