The First Chapter
What do you get the parent who has everything?
One guided conversation with them, recorded and kept. Their voice, their stories, and why they made the choices they did.
$349, paid once
A recorded conversation, not a financial product. Nothing to buy online, and no obligation to ask.
What is The First Chapter?
The First Chapter is one 45-minute guided video conversation, recorded and turned into a keepsake your family keeps. You choose the person. We prepare the questions around their life. They talk, and we handle everything after that.
What you get
- A 45-minute guided conversation. A video call with Andy. The questions are prepared around their life beforehand, so it feels like being asked about, not filling in a form.
- An edited video. The conversation, tidied up and easy to watch. The long pauses and false starts come out. Nothing that changes what was said goes in.
- An audio file. The same conversation as audio, for a drive, a walk, or a quiet evening when watching a screen is not what you want.
- A written keepsake summary. The conversation in print, so it can be read, copied, and kept somewhere a file cannot be kept.
- A private family-sharing link. One link you send to the people you choose, so nobody has to pass a large file around or work out how to open it.
A holiday gift
The present they open in December. The voice you keep forever.
Give The First Chapter for Christmas or Hanukkah. Book the conversation this fall and the finished keepsake will be ready in time for the holidays, or tuck the news into a card and record together in January. Either way it is $349 once, and the full $349 comes off the $2,500 Legacy Vault if your family ever wants more.
How much does it cost?
It is $349, paid once. Nothing renews and there is no subscription. If your family later decides to build a full Legacy Vault, the entire $349 comes off its $2,500 price.
The subscription services that email your parent a question a week run about $99 for the year, and the writing is still theirs to do. Hiring a videographer for a family history session usually starts around $800. The First Chapter sits between the two: a guided 45-minute conversation, professionally edited, in your hands within two weeks, for $349.
How does it work?
Three steps, and only one of them asks anything of the person being recorded.
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Book it
You reach out and we find a time. We ask you a little about the person first, so the questions are theirs and not a generic list.
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They talk
A 45-minute video conversation with Andy. Nothing to prepare, nothing to bring, and no right answers. Andy asks, they talk, we record.
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You receive it
You'll receive the edited video, the audio, the written summary, and the private link within 2 weeks of the conversation.
No homework. No weekly emails to ignore. One 45-minute conversation, scheduled at your convenience.
Why does this matter?
Because almost none of what a person knows ever gets written down.
Families keep the photographs and the paperwork. What goes missing is everything in between: why they left the town they grew up in, what the hard year was actually like, what they thought they were doing when they made the decision everyone still talks about. That knowledge is held in one person, and it is not written anywhere.
Most people mean to ask. It stays on the list because there is no natural moment for it, and because "tell me about your life" is a strange thing to say to your own mother over dinner. This is a way to give that conversation a time, a place, and someone else to ask the questions.
If you would rather start on your own first, four of our free guides are built for exactly this. What I'd Want to Ask My Parents if you are the one with questions, and What I Want You to Know if you are the one with things to say. On the practical side, If Something Happens to Me and The Beneficiary Check-In cover what a family needs to find rather than what they need to hear. All four are free to read, printable if you want them on paper, and none of them asks for anything in return.
For the person being recorded
If someone is giving you this
It is a conversation, not an interview. Someone asks you about your life, you talk, and that is the whole of it.
Almost everyone says the same thing first: my life has not really been that interesting. It is almost never true, and it stops mattering about five minutes in, once somebody is actually asking.
There is nothing to prepare and there are no right answers. If a question does not suit you, say so and we move on. If you would rather not be on camera at all, audio on its own makes a keepsake just as good.
And if you would rather do it on your own, you can. We send the questions and a meeting link, and you record the answers whenever you like, with nobody else there.
It is not published anywhere. The recording goes to the people your family names, and to nobody else.
What happens if we want more later?
Your First Chapter is already stored in the Vault. Upgrading means continuing, not starting over.
The Legacy Vault is the larger version of this: not one conversation but an ongoing record of a person's voice, values, wishes, and the family information everyone needs and nobody can find. It is $2,500 once for the whole family, and the full $349 you paid here comes off that, so it is $2,151.
There is no pressure to go further, and plenty of families never do. One conversation is a complete thing on its own.
How do you care for the recording?
You own what we make, you can take it with you, and you can have it deleted whenever you decide. Here is the whole of it, in plain terms, because you are handing us someone's voice and you deserve to know exactly what happens to it.
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It is yours to keep.
Everything we deliver, the edited video, the audio file, and the written summary, is yours to download. Put it on your own computer, copy it to a drive, keep it wherever you keep the things you would hate to lose. You never need us or a login to reach your own copies.
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It never expires.
One payment, and that is the end of it. The private sharing link does not run out, there is nothing to renew, and there is no subscription waiting behind it. Kept forever means kept forever.
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You decide who can reach it.
Nobody sees the recording unless you say so, by name. The private link goes to the people you choose, and you can tell us to change that list whenever you like.
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You can pass it on.
You name who the recording should go to. Once your passing is verified, access transfers to them, so the keepsake ends up belonging to someone rather than sitting in an account nobody can open.
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You can have it deleted.
If you want it gone, say so. You, or whoever represents your estate, can ask for permanent deletion at any time. We confirm the request in writing and finish it within 30 days.
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Nothing changes without you.
Every change to who has access waits for your confirmation. Even your advisor cannot finalize one alone.
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We check it is really them.
Your family signs in with a personal link plus a second check, so only the people you named get in.
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It is stored securely, and access is limited.
The recording is kept on secure, access-controlled systems, held to the standards used for sensitive financial and legal records. Only the people you have approved can reach it.
One thing worth being clear about, because the Legacy Vault works the other way around: your First Chapter opens from day one. The sharing link is yours to send the moment you receive it, and nothing is held back until anything happens. It is a gift you are meant to give now. The full Vault is the part that waits.
Our guarantee
If the keepsake is not something you are glad to have, tell us and we refund the whole $349. No form to fill in and no reason required.
Questions
- Is this financial advice?
- No. The First Chapter is a recorded life conversation, not a financial plan or a recommendation. Nothing in it is advice about your money, your investments, or your taxes. It is a keepsake.
- Who conducts the session?
- Andy Ward, a Financial Advisor at Oaks Financial Services, who spent nearly 20 years as an educator before moving into financial planning. Asking good questions and listening to the answers was the job then too.
- What if my parent is camera-shy?
- Most people are, for about four minutes. The questions are prepared in advance and the conversation is guided, so nobody is left staring at a camera wondering what to say. If video is genuinely not for them, audio only is fine and the keepsake still works.
- What if my parent does not want to talk?
- Common, and worth taking seriously rather than talking them round. Most reluctance is about being put on the spot, which is the thing the guided format removes: the questions are prepared, someone else asks them, and nothing is expected in advance. Offer it once and leave it there. The invitation tends to matter more than the pitch, and plenty of people say no in October and yes in March.
- Will anyone actually watch it?
- You will, and sooner than you think. This is not something filed away for later: you get the video, the audio, the written summary and a link you can send the same week, so it usually gets watched over a holiday while the person who recorded it is sitting right there. That is the point of giving it now rather than leaving it for someone to find.
- What do we talk about?
- Their life, in their words. Where they grew up, how they met the people who mattered, the decisions they are glad they made and the ones they are not, what they want the next generation to know. We prepare the questions around the person, using what you tell us beforehand.
- How long until I receive everything?
- You'll receive everything within 2 weeks of our conversation.
- What if I want the full Legacy Vault afterward?
- The full $349 comes off the $2,500 Legacy Vault, which brings it to $2,151. The conversation you already recorded is kept and carries over, so starting the Vault means continuing from there rather than beginning again.
- How much does it cost?
- It is $349, paid once. There is no subscription and nothing renews. If the keepsake is not something you are glad to have, we refund it in full.
Ready when you are.
Ask us about The First Chapter and we will tell you plainly whether it fits. If it does not, we will say so.