About

I created Readcord with the hope that it would help parents and their children stay connected, even when they are apart.

Hi, I'm PhilipRonnie

I’m a military veteran, husband, and proud father of three amazing kids. When I’m not coding for work or spending time with my family, you'll often find me up late working on Readcord.

Readcord - Origins

I was born into a wonderful, close-knit family, but just a few months after my birth, my dad left our small town in the Philippines and moved to San Francisco to seek better work opportunities and support our family.

This was in the late 80's so staying connected across such a long distance was a challenge. However, my parents came up with a sweet and novel solution to keep our family close: voice-recorded cassette tapes.

My mom would record messages for my dad, with me and my older sister in the background, while my dad would respond with his own stories and updates for us. These tapes were exchanged about once a year, passed along by people in our community who traveled between the Philippines and San Francisco.

After seven years of hard work and sacrifice, my parents were able to reunite our family in San Francisco. Ten years later I enlisted into the United States Marine Corps.

I would go on to deploy to Iraq with the Marines in 2008, and during that deployment I saw again, though this time through a different lens, the impact that separation has on young families.

To parents separation meant missed bedtime stories, missed voices, and missed opportunities to see your children grow. And to kids, especially those with parents serving overseas, separation meant missed love, missed moments, and sometimes—unfortunately—missed forever.

I would go on to serve seven years of active duty in the Marines before leaving to pursue my education at Stanford University.

During my last year at Stanford I began building the first prototype of Readcord. However, after graduating, I put Readcord on hold in order to focus on pursuing a career that would help provide for me and my wife. But as my family grew I remembered my ambitions for Readcord, so I continued to build upon the prototype, working towards making it fully functional for my family.

Today, with the help of my amazing family including our kids and their aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents, not only do we have a personal Readcord library that our entire family can enjoy, but we also have a product ready to share with you and the rest of the world.

We’re currently offering early access to Readcord for select groups within our local community, including first responders and military service members.

If you'd like to gain early access for you and your family, please feel free to reach out. I’d love to hear from you.

-PhilipRonnie Quiambao

email: pr@readcord.com