It is early morning as we write this letter. The sky outside hasn't fully lit up yet, and on the desk lie a few bills waiting to be handled — a water bill reminder, a car insurance renewal notice, the next semester's fee for our daughter's after-school class.
They sit there quietly, in no hurry. But miss one, and on some unsuspecting afternoon, it will announce its presence — through a late fee, a suspended service, or something worse.
Over the past five years, the two of us have become a family of four, moving between China, the Netherlands, Canada, and the UAE. Along the way, we also built a company of our own. Life kept growing fuller. It also kept growing heavier.
We used to think growing up meant passing through a few cities and weathering a few storms. Only later did we understand that what truly carries the weight of passing years is not the faraway — it is the seemingly trivial things of ordinary days: utilities, rent, subscriptions, insurance, auto-payments from the company account, the children's after-school fees… They do not care about borders or currencies. They sit quietly in corners of inboxes and text messages, waiting for the day you slip up and miss one.
We have missed one.
The feeling is complicated. It is not the few hundred dollars of penalty that stings — it is the sudden realization that life has quietly woven itself into a web that needs tending. Even the two of us, our memory and attention and time combined, often aren't enough.
We are all trying to love, and to live. Yet the turns and tides of fate are often not ours to choose. And beyond those large fates, there is also a smaller, more everyday part of life — bills, for example. You cannot refuse them. You cannot escape them.
So let us face them as gently as we can. Put them in order, one by one, so they stop being thorns in our days and become quiet footnotes to a life instead.
Bilingo began, in that spirit.
About this version
This is its first version. We did not try to make it complicated. We only wanted to do one thing well:
Gather all your bills in one place. Remind you, gently, before anything is due. Keep them in order.
Everything else, we will take slowly.
About what comes next
- This month: iOS launches.
- By June at the latest: Android launches.
We owe our Android friends an apology here. Given the size of our team, we could only polish one platform first before moving to the next. We are working hard on it. Please give us a little more time.
In the months that follow, we plan to bring you: a multi-currency overview, automatic recognition of subscription bills, shared household bills — and more of whatever you tell us you would like to see.
The order is not fixed. Your voice will decide what we build next.
About you
Bilingo is still a very early product. There will be rough edges — a button in the wrong place, a reminder that sounds too blunt, a feature you were hoping for that is not here yet.
Please tell us.
Every piece of feedback will truly shape what Bilingo becomes. We will read each one carefully — it is the most important thing we can do right now.
One last thing
This is a product we built together. And this is a letter we wrote, together, to you.
On many late nights — revising designs, writing code, debating the turn of a small detail — it was the quiet breathing of our two daughters, asleep in the next room, that carried us through. They are the most silent witnesses of this product.
Thank you — for being among Bilingo's earliest users.
Life has its difficulties. Perhaps our generation is destined to live between many cities, many accounts, many due dates. May every small, fragmented piece of our days find a gentle place to rest.