GoGettie
Why GoGettie exists
GoGettie started with a simple observation: the technology that's supposed to make life simpler has become too much.
Phones come bundled with everything a person could possibly want. It's up to each of us untrained users to tame the beast or accept an avalanche of unwanted information, images, texts, calls, alerts, and distractions. And the beast can never really be tamed, because the product itself has to be, by definition, for everyone.
GoGettie is intentionally the opposite of everything for everyone: one screen, the faces of your family, and nothing else. Your voice plays live if they're there, and waits for them if they're not. Video connection is instant, regardless of who's on Android and who's on iPhone. There are no feeds, no ads, no tracking, no strangers, no shiny social pressures — and no social presence beyond family. It's also why GoGettie is invitation only: the simplest way to keep strangers out is to never let them in.
How GoGettie thinks about communication
For the people GoGettie is designed for, communication is the primary reason for the phone. Everything else is secondary at best, or unwanted at worst.
The person who wants GoGettie may be perfectly tech savvy. They're often choosing it for someone they love, because that person shouldn't need a second degree in IT just to dial back all the unwanted pressures of a modern phone.
A note from the founder
Hi, thanks for visiting. I'm a mom of three kids living far from my parents, my sister, and my nephew, all of whom I miss all the time.
In the past year, it became obvious to me that phone communication, while undeniably critical, was far too broad for what I actually needed. Spam calls spoof local numbers and get more convincing every month. Important texts from my kids land silently because I forgot to turn off Do Not Disturb. A text announcing a sale at some store I once gave my number to arrives with the same urgency as a text from my teen saying they can't pay for the subway and could they have $3.
With two of my kids older and out by themselves, my husband at work much of the time, my younger daughter sometimes home while I run one of the older kids somewhere, and the rest of my close family a thousand miles away, I check my phone constantly for fear I've missed someone's important call or message. And 95% of the time, it's nothing urgent. There's a time and place for sales, delivery updates, and everything else our phones bring us. But it isn't every moment of every day. It's exhausting. I found myself thinking again and again: I wish I knew when it was family.
As my parents — and I — grew older, some of the things that had once been merely annoying started to feel genuinely difficult. The fact that my extended family is on Android and my immediate family is on iPhone didn't make things any easier. When Skype was discontinued, Teams became both too much and not enough for the simple video calls we wanted. After reading a Wall Street Journal article about families using AI to build apps that solved problems in their own lives, I set out to do the same. It was one way I could feel like I was helping, even from a thousand miles away.
Today, GoGettie is a simple, cross-platform, video-enabled app that I built using AI. Thanks to the technology, coding turned out to be the easy part. The rest of the process — the architecture, the permissions, the user interface, and everything in between — has been genuinely challenging and genuinely rewarding.
My own family has helped me trial and test it, and now I'd love to share it with you and see what you think. I'm hoping for ideas, suggestions, and genuine feedback, with the goal that we can all find some relief in knowing that, when something matters, the people we love can cut through all the noise and reach us.
— Dawn
The company
GoGettie is built by ReVenture Studio Inc., which is still just the founder for now. I'd love to put my email address right here — but unwanted messages drowning out wanted ones is half the reason GoGettie exists. So instead: to learn more or join the pilot, request an invitation, and a real person (me) will reply.