Stories that sound like home.
Lullavo started with a book.
Before Lullavo, there was Collegiate ABCs, a small series of board books about the schools people love most. A is for arboretum, B is for bookstore, the details that make a campus feel like yours.
We noticed something quickly. People weren’t buying Collegiate ABCs for themselves. They were buying them as gifts, almost always for the new baby of a friend who had a strong connection to a particular school. A grandparent who taught there. Parents who met on the quad. A whole family that bleeds the same color every Saturday in the fall.
The book was already doing the work of carrying a place and a story across generations. We wanted to add one more layer of the real thing: the voice of the person who would read it aloud.
From one book to every book.
We built a way for someone to record themselves reading a book, saved inside a tiny sticker that goes on the inside cover. Scan the code, press play, hear Grandpa reading the book he bought for you.
We thought the idea would stay close to home, tied to Collegiate ABCs. It didn’t. People wanted it for every book. The picture book a parent reads the same way every night. The chapter book an uncle finished over a summer. The dog-eared copy of Goodnight Moon that hasn’t left the nightstand in twenty years.
So we opened it up. Lullavo now works with any book, any voice, any recipient. Publishers can print codes right into their books. Families buy sticker packs and give them for births, graduations, moves, and memorials. The small and large moments where a voice matters more than a thing.
What we care about.
The devices you already own.
Other products in this space come bundled with hardware: an electronic book, a small reader, a dedicated speaker, batteries. We looked at those and kept coming back to one question: why? Almost every phone has a camera that reads a QR code. Every tablet and laptop opens a link. Lullavo uses what people already have. Nothing extra to buy. Nothing to charge or break.
Technology that only works if you can afford a separate device isn’t really technology. It’s a moat. We picked the other direction.
The product is simple on purpose. No app for listeners. No sign-in to play a recording. A child scanning a sticker on their grandmother’s birthday, or years later, shouldn’t need to know what an account is.
The recording belongs to whoever made it. You can download every recording you have, any time, as often as you want, and every recording is backed up each night to a separate, secure place. If Lullavo ever has to close, we give you at least ninety days of notice to download everything, and we don’t bury the terms. Our Continuity Pledge says exactly what happens.
The voice is the point. Everything else is scaffolding.
Passing a library on.
A reading voice is part of what you leave behind. Every account can name a trusted contact. If you ever cannot manage your recordings yourself, that person can ask us to move your library to them. You can also print a one-page record for your family’s files, so they know who to call. How trusted contacts work.
Say hi.
Lullavo is a small family business in Nashville, Tennessee. When you send a note, a person reads it. That person is usually me.
Mary Voelker, founder
