Let's get one thing straight: we didn't set out to build a relationship tool.
We set out to save our own relationship. The product part happened by accident, like most good things.
The Before
Picture two people in tech — deeply ambitious, reasonably successful, absolutely terrible at work-life boundaries. We met at a conference (cliché), fell in love over late-night coding sessions (bigger cliché), and eventually moved in together.
The first year was magic. The second year was fine. The third year was... efficient.
We had systems for everything. Shared calendars color-coded by category. A Notion database for household logistics. Automated grocery lists. We were crushing it at being roommates.
The only thing we weren't doing was actually connecting.
The Wake-Up Call
One night — a random Tuesday, nothing special — one of us said something terrifying: "Do you even like me anymore? As a person?"
Silence.
Not the comfortable kind. The kind where you realize you've been running on autopilot for months, maybe years, and suddenly you're standing in the middle of your optimized life wondering how you got here.
We didn't have an answer. That was the problem.
The Experiments
Being tech people, we did what we always do: we tried to solve it.
We read the books. Gottman. Esther Perel. That one about love languages that everyone recommends. We tried couples therapy (useful, expensive, hard to schedule around two demanding jobs). We tried "date nights" (which kept getting cancelled or turned into another planning session).
What actually worked, surprisingly, was something much simpler.
One week, frustrated after yet another surface-level "how was your day" exchange, one of us grabbed some index cards and wrote a bunch of questions. Weird questions. Deep questions. Silly questions.
We made a rule: every Sunday, we'd each draw a card and actually answer it. No phones. No distractions. Just us and whatever question came up.
The first few were awkward. We'd forgotten how to talk about things that weren't logistics. But somewhere around week three, something shifted.
We were curious about each other again.
The Cards Got Better
Those janky index cards evolved. We kept adding questions — ones that sparked good conversations, ones that made us laugh, ones that led somewhere unexpected. We threw out the questions that felt flat or repetitive.
Friends started asking about them. We'd mention the "Sunday cards" thing at dinners, and couples would get this look — that hungry look of people who recognize something they need.
"Can we see your cards?"
"Can you make us a set?"
At first we just sent photos. Then we printed a few copies. Then it got ridiculous, and we realized we might actually be onto something.
Growing Us Is Born
We didn't want to build another productivity app. The world has enough of those, and frankly, productivity was part of our problem.
What we wanted was simple: a tool that helps couples actually talk to each other. Not about tasks. About each other. About the relationship. About the stuff that matters but keeps getting pushed to "later."
The card deck became the first product. Fifty questions across five categories — some for appreciation, some for curiosity, some for repair after conflict, some for dreaming together. Physical cards, because we'd learned the hard way that screens were part of the problem.
Then came the app. Not to replace the cards, but to add something cards can't do: audio. A space where you can actually listen to your partner's voice, record your answers, and create a kind of ongoing conversation that lives beyond any single session.
What We Believe
Here's the philosophy behind everything we build:
Small, consistent rituals beat big, occasional gestures. A 15-minute weekly check-in does more for a relationship than an annual romantic vacation. Consistency compounds.
Curiosity is the antidote to contempt. The moment you think you know everything about your partner is the moment you start drifting apart. There's always more to discover.
Relationships need maintenance, not just repair. We wait until things are broken to pay attention. What if we just... didn't?
Tech should bring you together, not just keep you informed. Shared calendars are fine. Shared grocery lists are fine. But they're not intimacy.
Where We Are Now
We're still figuring this out — the business part, the relationship part, all of it. Some weeks we nail our Sunday cards ritual. Some weeks we don't. We're not relationship experts; we're just two people who almost lost something important and are trying not to let that happen again.
Growing Us exists because we needed it. If it helps you too, that's the whole point.
And if you see us at a coffee shop on a Sunday, cards spread out between us, awkwardly answering questions about our fears and dreams — say hi. We'll probably be slightly embarrassed. That's part of the process.
Want to try the rituals that saved our relationship? Start with our weekly check-in guide or read the longer version of how and why we started Growing Us.
Update: We just launched the Growing Us app on Android and iPhone — your AI couples coach, free to start.
— A & A