Orlando, Fla. (November 15, 2021) – Your baby shower, wedding, or anniversary was a collaborative experience, so why shouldn’t the way you capture those memories be too?
Today, they can be with the launch of Mylestones, a new platform providing a new way of putting together Memorybooks that allows everyone who wants to contribute the ability to add messages, photos, videos and mementos into one book. The book can be either print, video or virtual.
“We’ve all found ourselves struggling to gather all the messages, photos, mementos or video clips for a photobook or scrapbook. It can be a difficult tracking down and wading through them to create one unified book,” explains Keren Peters Atkinson, CEO, Mylestones. “Market research indicates that women love creating a gift or project together. It not only makes the design process easier, but also more fun and creative.”
A Mylestone’s Memorybook can either be a Printbook, a Videobook or a Virtualbook. Similar to traditional photo books, a print Memorybook can feature photos, along with unlimited text and PDF scans of mementos. Video Memorybooks are similar to a photobook but contains video clips and JPEG photos combined into a video story that plays in a book with an LCD screen inside instead of pages. Virtualbooks is an online version of either a Printbook or Videobook available for viewing by anyone that is given the link to the book.
Two experiences led Atkinson to create Mylestones.
After her husband passed away, her coworkers delivered a box of letters expressing their heartfelt sympathy. She looked for a simple way to showcase those letters along with photos of her husband in an easy-to-access format. No solution existed.
Then when her son — a child perinatal doctors had said would not live — was turning 18 years old, friends and family wanted to memorialize that miracle by sharing heartfelt messages and photos. Again, Peters Atkinson looked for an easy way to collect and compile the messages and pictures in a keepsake book. And, again, no photobook was designed with groups in mind.
Finally, in 2020, with the rise of remote work and increased social distancing, Peters Atkinson realized there was a need for a platform where a group of people who are apart from one another could be a part of making something deeply personal together. Mylestones was born, combining the best features of photobooks, scrapbooks, greeting cards and social media posts into an easy-to-use platform catering to groups.
The Mylestones team developed every aspect of the business from its impactful brand to the website with all its unique features including:
- a private mailbox for each book so that contributors can submit materials directly to the platform,
- a whiteboard design space so that groups can design a book together,
- video conferencing tools so that they can see and hear one another as they work together on the design in real time, and
- a crowd funding payment system so that each contributor can help pay for the cost of the gift, making it affordable for everyone to participate.
Every feature of the Mylestones platform was designed to strengthen relationships. “We know 80% of photobooks are made by women because they are the archivists of their families, but they also like collaborating on projects that strengthen relationships,” Peters Atkinson says. “We see it in knitting circles, quilting bees, paint parties, pottery classes, book clubs and scrapbooking.
“The Mylestones platform provides women with an easy way to create a group gift to commemorate a special occasion. But it’s also a fun way for them to bond with those contributing to and designing the book,” she adds.
Peters Atkinson knows about the power of community. As a Hispanic entrepreneur whose parents emigrated from Cuba to the U.S. in the 1960s, Peters Atkinson was encouraged by her large family to study and work hard. She did and was awarded full academic scholarship to attend Florida International University where she earned her bachelor’s degree in communications and then went on to get her master’s degree in leadership at Nova Southeastern University. She went on to have a long career in marketing, helping take several startups to market, before recognizing the timing was right to turn her own nascent idea into a startup business.
To experience Mylestones, please visit its website, https://www.mylestones.com/
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For more information, please contact:
Mylestones: Keren Peters Atkinson, 877-692-6655, keren@mylestones.com
About Mylestones: Mylestones is an online design and publishing platform that allows a community to mark a big life moment by contributing to and crafting a Memorybook. Each book is one-of-a-kind… capturing and presenting the personal and meaningful video or written messages, photos and mementos shared by that person’s ‘inner circle’. The group can then design the book together on a shared Whiteboard design space combining their materials with embellishments from the platform’s Media Library and using the site’s videoconferencing system to see and hear one another. And, they can share in the payment by using the platform’s unique crowd-funding tool. For more information, please visit Mylestones.com.
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UCF Business Incubation Program: Michael Weiss, UCF Business Incubation Program, 407-408-4297, Michael.Weiss@ucf.edu or Alan Byrd, Alan Byrd & Associates, 407-415-8470, Alan@ByrdConnections.com
About the UCF Business Incubation Program: The University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program is a community resource that provides early-stage companies with the tools, training and infrastructure to become financially stable, high growth/impact enterprises. Since 1999, this award-winning program has provided vital business development resources resulting in over 300 local startup companies reaching their potential faster and graduating into the community where they continue to grow and positively impact the local economy.
In 2017-2018, participating firms have helped sustain more than 6,725 local jobs and had a cumulative impact of over $725 million on regional GDP and over $1.3 billion on regional sales. During the same period, the program has returned more than $12.00 in state and local taxes for every $1.00 invested in the program. In addition, for every $1.00 of public investment the firms also produced $118 of additional regional GDP and $226 of regional sales. For more information, visit www.incubator.ucf.edu.
