Why I built PostNotes
PostNotes didn't start as a product. It started with a diagnosis.
At the end of 2025 I was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I've written software my whole life, and suddenly I was facing a problem that had nothing to do with code. I wanted my son to have everything he needs from me: my words, and the things I want him to know. And I didn't want him stuck in months of paperwork at the worst moment of his life.
I looked for something that already did this. There are tools out there, but I didn't like how they work. Most of them use a "dead man's switch". They email you every so often, and if you stop answering, they assume you've died and send everything out. I was never comfortable with that. Missing a few emails doesn't mean someone is gone, and something this important shouldn't be left to a timer.
So I did what I usually do when the thing I need doesn't exist, and built it myself. PostNotes never releases anything just because you've gone quiet. A message goes out when someone you trust confirms it's time, using a link you set up. You choose who can do that, whether it's family, a lawyer or a friend, and when they're allowed to. If it ever happens by mistake, it can be caught and undone. A person makes that call, not a countdown.
What I insisted on
It's yours, and only yours
You can encrypt any message in your browser before it's saved. You pick a password, and PostNotes only ever stores the encrypted version. Nobody here can read those messages, me included, because we never have the key. It's optional and you decide for each message, since the password is one more thing your family will need from you. But when you do use it, there is genuinely no way for us to open it.
Released by a person, not a timer
A message is delivered when someone you trust confirms it through a link you set up. You decide who that is, when they can use it, and how to undo it if it's used by mistake. Nobody pings you, and nobody tries to guess what your silence means.
Nobody has to make all the calls
After someone dies, somebody has to tell everyone else. It's one of the hardest and loneliest jobs there is. On PostNotes you can leave a list of email addresses, and when the time comes, those people are told. Your family doesn't have to sit by the phone breaking the same news again and again.
Built to outlast me
PostNotes has to keep running long after I'm gone. That's the whole point of it. I'm not doing this alone, there are other people behind it. Keeping it going, and keeping your words safe for as long as they're needed, is a promise I'm making to my own family as much as to yours.
I wrote the very first message on PostNotes for him. It's private, and it will reach him when I can't tell him myself. Every feature and every safeguard here exists because I needed that one message to be safe.
I understood all of this the day I got the news. But this isn't only for people who've had bad news. None of us gets to choose what happens to us. We can choose what we leave behind for the people we love, so they have a few words from us and a little less to carry alone.