Our Story

Part One: "Hearing" God

#realtalk - my wife and I don’t always agree. Big surprise, I know, but it’s where this story starts. Despite our occasional tiffs, we have been anchored, since our first date in 2006, by the importance of remaining in Jesus (John 15:4). Especially, “Hearing” God, and responding to His “voice.”

Andy & Mackenzie - Fall 2006

Why the quotation marks, you ask? Turns out hearing God is not an exact science and agreeing that He speaks doesn’t mean you agree on… anything else. This was especially true given our different backgrounds. Mackenzie is the youngest of two, I am the oldest of seven. Mackenzie grew up having a relationship with God, while I had very recently given my life to Jesus. She is sweet and wonderful. I am intense and have, let’s call it child-like faith, that was and is still maturing.

We had so much to learn, but we did agree that God was (is, and will be) our anchor. We believed that prioritizing God was essential for our relationship because it was essential for us as individuals.

Part Two: How do we do this?

Fast forward a couple years - we got married - Woohoo! How do two love birds with a perfect marriage share their deep conviction for knowing God?

Haha - J/k.

More like - How do we get through the growing pains of marriage? How do we grow as professionals (that word is a stretch) and members of our community? How do we actually consider our trials to be "pure joy?"

By remembering what God said, of course!

I know it is that simple, but it wasn’t that easy. We could see that God was active in our marriage, and though there were tough times, He was recognizably kind and good. We wrote down testimonies… sometimes, but they ended up in journals, or on spare bits of paper all over the place. Certain powerful moments were a centerpiece for a season, but then took a backseat and some probably haven’t surfaced since. I often wonder how much I’ve forgotten.

I’ve become much more consistent at journaling over the years (shout out to my journalers!), but how many journals can you carry around before you need a chiropractor? Notes on my phone? Sure, as long as I don’t mind scrolling through a thousand half-completed household to-do lists.

Andy's Journal Collection

We didn’t lack conviction or desire, but we lacked a reliable method and discipline. For example, at one point, Mackenzie attempted to build “The Ebenezer Collection" for our church. A collection of stories that represented the faithfulness of God to our community. We wanted something that could be shared with new members - “Our story is your testimony too!” But that project became daunting and eventually left behind (not like raptured Left Behind, but… you know what I mean).

Part Three: A partnership that sort of... almost...

Meet Nate & Jen!

Nate & Jen

Nate and I often get confused for brothers. Given that Nate is one of twelve, I could probably sneak into a family photo and blend in. And despite the fact that we joke about our partnership being like a dating relationship, or a couple going to prom, or even a marriage (our wives are definitely not jealous), it didn’t start out so smoothly. I love doing intense things. Nate loves doing things intensely. I love to start and figure out the rest as necessary. Nate loves to figure things out and start when ready. What brought us together was a shared love of Jesus, an appreciation for excellence, and steak - Nate makes amazing steak. I could sell a cold, day-old Nate steak at Outback for $100 to someone who just finished a filet.

Was this the beginning of a duo that would become an unstoppable force? Not exactly, or at least not yet. A fully functioning prototype was built (by Nate) and then it sat, and sat some more, and continued to sit for over 2 years. Because, well, that is a longer story, but life is hard sometimes.

Part Four: All in

Nate and I finally joined forces (for real for real) in 2022.

Nate & Andy - Fall 2022

At that point, I started calling my prior professional ventures, "naming the animals.” I've felt God inviting me to something beyond my understanding - like when he told Adam, “It’s not good for you to be alone,” but I spent 15 years naming professional endeavors that could not fulfill the promises God has for me.

When we started, we had two goals (well, let’s be real, we have a million goals, but these two are relevant to the story) -

1. Develop products that make a difference (aka GodSpeaks)
2. Generate enough revenue so that we can keep pursuing goal #1

We launched a beta version of GodSpeaks on November 4th, 2022 and the "Friends and Family" version (1.5.41) on December 2nd, 2022. What does that mean? It means every conversation went something like…

“Yes, we do have GodSpeaks on the App Store, but…”

And listed off a couple excuses for why we are proud of it, but it’s not quite ready. This was mostly intentional as a common piece of wisdom from silicon valley is -

If you aren’t a little embarrassed about your product, you waited too long to release it.

We launched the "Market Ready" version (1.8.x.x) on May 26th, 2023. What that means is that we ate our veggies (password resets, security, etc.) and have more time to listen to our customers and make things awesome.

We said yes to a handful of distractions in the process of building GodSpeaks, but we have said no to many more. We care deeply about the excellence and integrity of Godspeaks as a product, but we also know that we carry an incomplete and yet nearly insatiable vision for what it could be. By releasing it with many features still in our heart, but not in the app, we are inviting partnership from our community to help shape the product.

Part Five: Faithful with little (1 loaf, half a fish)

This is Godspeaks - a simple offering to a vast community of believers with a rich history of God inviting us to hear, respond, and remember. We are committed to seeing this story play out. We’ve said on multiple occasions - we would rather stay faithful to our calling to remind people of what God has done in their life, then develop a product with more broad appeal that loses its purpose. We see every person who signs up, every memory they entrust us with, every time the they look back through their moments, or are reminded through a notification, as a powerful testimony of God’s goodness, and our choice to remain in Him.

If you haven’t already, join us!

If you have, thank you! Feel free to let us know what you love about GodSpeaks, or what we can do to make it better!

In awe of Jesus,

Andrew & Nate