Why I Built NightLog™

I was about seven years old when my grandmother taught me something I didn't fully understand until I was an adult.

We lived in different states. I didn't get to see her often, and I deeply missed her; we had a very stong bond from an early age. One night I told her on the phone that I wished I could be there with her. She didn't say "I know" or "soon." She said: "Honey, can you grab Daddy and step outside?"

So I did. My dad and I went outside together. She said "Now find the moon." I found it. "Okay Grandma, I found the moon." And she said, I remember this exactly, "Well, guess what? I am looking at the same thing you are."

"So even though we can't see each other right now, we can step outside and still be looking at the same exact thing, together."

She was sitting on her front porch looking at the moon. And I was standing in my backyard looking at the same thing. That hit me right in the heart, and I don't think I had words for it at seven years old, but it mattered to me deeply.

My grandmother has since passed away. And every single time I look up at the moon, I think of her.

But my dad made sure I never stopped looking up. He was a pilot, the kind of person who felt genuinely closer to the heavens when he was in the air; and that's a direct quote from him. That love for what's above us came home with him. He'd take me outside on clear nights and just point up. And sometimes, out of nowhere, I'd hear him holler from the other room like something was wrong "Hey!!" and I'd come running and it would just be him pointing at a full moon through the window. No explanation needed.

He never made a lesson out of it. He just kept pointing. And somewhere in all that pointing and sharing of the moon, something settled into me that I didn't know was there until much later.

She knew the story. She knew exactly what she was handing back to me. That moment stopped me cold because she had chosen to carry forward a tradition. She decided that something her father gave her was worth keeping and it meant the world to me. So I bult this.

I built NightLog™ because of her. Because of that phone call. And because my grandmother started something and my dad kept it alive and my daughter handed it back to me, coming full circle, and I realized that other families deserve to have that. Not just parents and kids in the same house, but also parents who are away, calling home from a work trip at 8pm, both of them stepping outside to find the same moon. A grandparent in another state. A kid who grows up and moves away and still has a reason to look up.

I also built it because I watch what screens are doing to kids. The endless scroll. The algorithm that never gives them a reason to look up. Kids are losing the kind of quiet wonder that changes you — the kind my grandmother gave me on a phone call when I was seven, the kind my dad gave me every time he hollered down the hall at a full moon.

NightLog™ doesn't ask for much. Just a text at 8pm, one question, two minutes outside. But in those two minutes, you're looking at the same thing your kid is looking at. And someday, maybe when you're not around to see it, they're going to remember.

My grandmother called a little kid about the moon. My dad hollered down the hall about a full moon. My daughter called me on the phone and handed the moon back to me, coming full circle. It'll be there tonight for your family too.

— Frank, Dad, founder of NightLog™