Dear Members,

​In light of mounting public concerns for digital privacy all across the Internet, we've decided to make some sweeping changes to our business model in order to better serve and protect our members.
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Merge is now a pure subscription service that we, the business, sell to you, the customer. Trust, transparency, and privacy are the most important things when it comes to both relationships and the digital services we use. On Merge, you own and control your personal data. We will not serve ads and will NEVER sell or share your personal data, identifiable or non-identifiable, to outside third party marketers, advertisers, researchers, or developers. Data and content submitted to Merge by you will only ever be used internally to improve your app experience. 

A subscription still covers both you and your partner, and the first week is free. You may cancel anytime. If you cancel during the first week trial, you will not be charged. You may also request to have your personally identifiable information permanently deleted at anytime.*

We want more than anything for all couples to have access to our service, but we must take into consideration our needs as a business. When we weighed out whether or not we were willing to ever sell any of your sensitive data, whether identifiable or not, to third party marketers, advertisers, researchers or developers, as many companies do, we decided that it was not in our best interest ethically or economically. Relationships are private, and your trust is everything to us. 

Therefore, we are announcing that we have done away with the freemium model. We have switched to a transparent, simple, old-school buyer-seller model, and are completely cutting out the potential for any irrelevant third parties to ever get their hands on your information. This means that all new members must subscribe upon sign up. All existing members must subscribe to continue using the service. All premium features are now standard. The first month is free for all members, new or existing. Current subscribers, there's no change.  For those existing members who have been enjoying the freemium version of Merge, and wish to stop using the service and have their personally identifiable information permanently deleted, please contact us at [email protected]. 

Thank you and we look forward to embarking on this new chapter with you.

Sincerely,
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Your Merge Team

*Edit Sept 30, 2018: Back when the GDPR was passed by the EU, we offered a monthlong free trial and unlocked all premium features to help transition members from our prior freemium model to our subscription model.  Now that enough time has passed to transition those members, we have moved into a weeklong free trial with all features unlocked.  We have learned that most of our members are able to decide within one week whether or not Merge will work for them.  You will not be charged if you decide to cancel before the trial ends, and you can easily do that from within the app.  Thank you for your understanding.

Our mission is simple: provide a platform for couples to seamlessly collaborate and coordinate on daily household tasks in order to reduce negative, tedious, and repetitive confrontation over the small things that come with living together, thereby giving time back to couples to focus on what matters most: each other.  

Relationships are not made up of a few big memorable, picture-perfect moments; they're made up of everything in between: the day-to-day routine with all its highs and lows.  Living together with our partners can be challenging at times.  We both bring with us different habits, for better or for worse, and these can sometimes cause a great deal of friction.  Many of us tend to harbor our frustration only for it to come out uncontrollably and unexpectedly.  This can lead to anger and resentment, and sadly, too often, breakups.  

Two people may love each other and care about each other deeply, but that does not make living together easy.  It's important to understand early on that communication is everything when it comes to maintaining a healthy relationship, but most of us are adverse to confrontation, especially when it comes to reminding our parters about chores, tasks, pet peeves, and the like.  This is where Merge comes in.  By helping couples tackle the small stuff (that easily builds up) without the unwanted confrontation, Merge becomes a quintessential tool for every relationship's success.  Whether you've just moved in together or you've been married for years, Merge is guaranteed to immediately start improving communication.
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Try Merge today for free.  It's currently available for iPhone and iPad.

While version 0.2 for Merge incorporated only a few changes and bug fixes, version 0.3, which is due to be released in the next day or so, is the first version that begins to incorporate all of the incredible feedback provided by Merge couples.  The updates include:
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• Tasks are now easier to create: add tasks without a required due date (they appear under today's tasks)
• Create multi-line tasks in Home and Shop
• Add clickable website addresses, phone numbers, and street address to Home and Shop tasks
• Send reminders to your partner for overdue and incomplete tasks and tasks without a due date
• The ability to copy and paste text into new tasks
• User interface improvements
• User experience improvements
• Tons of bug fixes

During the app release period (version 0.1 - 0.9), Merge will be updated weekly.  Please continue to send your feedback by leaving a review on the App Store or emailing [email protected].

Steven Rueter
Creator of Merge
Founder, Kindred, Inc.
[email protected]

My girlfriend and I have been living together for four years, mostly in small, tight spaces, like our former “Trendyloin” apartment in downtown San Francisco, which we were renting at the time for almost half our total income.  We recently moved north of the city where we hoped our money would go a bit further.  As my girlfriend took a new job, I sat back down at my computer and began to design new app ideas.  Having tried and failed on multiple occasions—first with a family organizer, then several games, a Christian dating app (yes, it’s true), a fitness dating app (no joke), and most recently a travel app—I was starting to notice a trend: the apps may have been good ideas and some even well made, but that’s all they were.  They had no real daily use value, and therefore, nobody used them.
 
What I needed was to come up with something more real-life, more relevant and closer to home.  I needed an idea that solved a personal, as well as universal, problem that most importantly could be done from an iPhone.  I immediately thought of my relationship with my girlfriend.  Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but the truth is my relationship is great.  However, even great relationships come with their challenges, many of which are as trivial as tending to the laundry pile occupying the bedroom floor, or the stack of dishes soaking in the kitchen sink.  Usually both would build up until one of us broke under the pressure (or stench) and cleaned them up. Micro-resentment  ensued.  Most of our friends are in relationships or married at this point, so I figured we couldn’t be the only ones with these small but compounding issues.  I asked around and learned that this hunch of mine was correct—even my mom and stepdad, who’ve been married for 20 plus years, are still facing the same kinds of nagging issues.
 
The next step was to check the App Store for the competition.  There’s no sense in building something if it already exists, unless you can dramatically improve on it.  After my brief competitive analysis, I did find other couples apps.  Some were based on the cute premise of keeping a couple’s journal and tracking each others’ whereabouts, which is fine, but also something I would never use.  Others that were more productivity-focused were all lacking what I needed.  Nothing was really that useful, so I decided to pursue the idea of  improving my relationship by focusing on the small, day-to-day challenges of being in one.
 
After six weeks of conceptualizing, designing, and coding, and another four weeks of testing with my incredibly patient girlfriend, friends, and family, I unveiled Merge—a shared to-do-list app for couples living together. Merge provides one simple interface for a couple to communicate and collaborate on things that need to get done: create tasks and assign them to your significant other or yourself; track the progress of those tasks until they get done. Live life!
 
I released Merge on the App Store in the last week of August and the following weekend submitted it to Product Hunt, the premiere website for early adopters and discovering new products.  Hundreds of products are submitted to them on a daily basis, and although I had had apps featured in the past, I wasn’t expecting anything.  To my astonishment, I woke up on Monday morning to find Merge was the most up-voted and commented-on product of the day.  I immediately dove into the feedback and responded as quickly as I could.  I was most surprised by the gleeful rejoice of certain people that such a product had been built, and was equally as grateful for the sharp, constructive feedback I was getting, like how the user interface needed some work.  Based on the amount of signups that followed, I’ve learned that there is a need for Merge.  I’m a long way off from proving business viability, but this kernel of concept validity is certainly an exciting start.
 
If you think a shared to-do list could be useful in your relationship, I encourage you to try Merge.  It is free to download here.
 
For more in-depth reviews and feedback, please check it out on Product Hunt here.
 
Want to see Merge on Android?  Please let me know by emailing me.
 
Steven Rueter
Creator of Merge
Founder, Kindred, Inc.
[email protected]