writr was the biproduct of a small team who met in Hamilton, New Zealand. When we first came together, we didn't know exactly what we would build. The theory was: Let's find the right people, then find the right problem to solve.
This theory turned into the development of writr — a journal that asks you questions to enable & promote personal growth. But it didn't start here.
First things first
We wanted to prove that we could work well and build something together, collaboratively. Windows 8 had recently launched alongside the Windows Store. And at the time, there were really no great apps available on the Windows Store and we saw an opportunity to build a product that took advantage of the newly announced Windows Surface.
Typing (e.g. note taking) was a big drawcard for the Surface. Particularly because it was portable, marketed toward students/professionals and actually had a decent keyboard. Now, we knew Microsoft had a foothold in this space with their own applications; Word and OneNote. But we identified a gap: Writing for pleasure and development, growth and exploration.
Let's build a journal
We began to explore this space, and set out to build a journal that would be great at capturing life's moments: Photos, location tagging, sharing on social media etc. First, there were a few questions we needed to answer:
Research
In an effort to answer these questions we spoke to people who kept journals and spoke at length about their motivations and goals for journaling. We orginally assumed that journaling was all about documenting your life and soon discovered that this was not the case.
Journaling to journalers was very much about improving their lives through the art of self-reflection.