Why I built Pear

A small story, before the long one.

I fell in love with Yeshia. We talked all day, sent good morning texts, forgot half of them by Friday. The only app we ever really shared was Life360 — I could see where she was, but there was nowhere for everything else. The memories we were making just… scattered. And I didn't want to forget them.

So I started making her something. Just a single page on a domain I already owned — a simple counter of how many days we'd been together, a little spot for letters, a few photos. I called itrelationship.clarkfadel.com. It was meant to be ours, just ours — a gift for her, and a place to keep what we'd otherwise forget.

A few people who saw it asked if they could have one too. So I sat down and started over — properly this time. Built it so any two people could have a quiet, private corner of the internet for themselves. I called it Pear. It's still just me building it.

What Pear is not

Pear is not social media for couples. There's no feed, no followers, no public profiles. I think the worst thing that's happened to relationships in the last 20 years is the performance of them — turning the most intimate parts of love into content. Pear is the opposite of that.

Pear is also not a productivity app. There are no streaks designed to make you feel guilty. No engagement bait. No "your partner just opened this" notifications meant to make you anxious. If you forget to check in for a week, nothing bad happens. The app is here when you need it. It waits quietly when you don't.

What I hope Pear becomes

I hope Pear becomes the place you and your person keep the things that matter. The little notes. The "thinking of you" at 2pm. The mood you didn't have words for. The memory you dropped in the jar in March that you'll laugh at next December.

I hope, in ten years, you can open Pear and read what your partner wrote to you the week you started using it. That's the test. If Pear can do that — keep the small things long enough for them to become big things — it's done its job.

Software lasts a long time. Love can too. I want one to help the other.

How Pear stays small

Pear isn't a company. It's one person — me, Clark Jhian Fadel — building in my spare time. No investors, no team, no board meeting where someone asks me to "10x the daily active users." It started as a gift for Yeshia, and that's still what it is at heart. That keeps the incentives clean: I build features that help two people stay close, not features that make a number go up.

The free tier covers most of what couples need. Pear+ is for people who want more — bigger photo storage, AI features, future things like location sharing. That money pays for the servers and keeps me building. That's the whole business model. No ads, ever.

Thanks

Thanks for reading this. If you and your person try Pear, please tell me what you think. I read every message. You can find me at clark@pear.app.

With care,
Clark Jhian Fadel
for Yeshia 🤍

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