Sunday, August 15, 2021.
It’s been nearly a year since we started working on Monolog, and today— 3 pivots, 8 team members and 1 iOS app later— we are so excited to announce that Monolog has made it to the App Store.
We created this platform with the vision to help people find peace with themselves, to understand their personal motivations, and ultimately, to be happier. Beyond the obvious toll covid has taken on all of us, mental health hygiene is becoming more and more of a priority people around the world. Once we realized how necessary good mental health is in everything we do, we created Monolog to make it easier and more accessible.
We would like to thank our wonderful team for all of their hard work going into Monolog. Together we share a passion for mental wellness, innovation and cool ideas. They have been dutiful in their commitment to seeing Monolog through, and there is simply no way we could’ve made it without them.
And to our users, thank you. We made Monolog for you and so we are incredibly thrilled that today marks the beginning of that journey.
With excitement and gratitude,
Leigh Sharpless & Jerry Yang | Co-Founders of Didact Inc.
Leigh Sharpless | Co-Founder & CEO
Leigh is the co-founder and CEO of Monolog, who doubles as a History & Science major at Harvard University. She is an avid runner, currently training and fundraising for a marathon in honor of a friend she lost to suicide. Leigh has always been an advocate for mental health and practicing mindfulness, as well as a true believer in the power of living presently and optimistically. Further, she enjoys spending time outdoors, "painting," and improving her Rubiks cube time.
Now working at Monolog, Leigh has been able to develop her passions for people, technology and mental wellness into one in the same. Leigh has experience working in venture capital and has often found herself in positions of leadership— from class president in high school, to managing director of a for-profit consulting agency in college— albeit, never a startup before. Nonetheless, making a tool for helping people to find happiness has proven to be a new and thrillin experience well worth the hardship.
Jerry Yang | Co-Founder & CTO
Jerry is a developer, Harvard undergrad and avid augmented reality fan, in addition to being Monolog's co-founder and CTO. Jerry lives in New York City, was raised in China, and now spends much of his time in Boston, Massachusetts. He likes to listen to music, particularly disco, and visit new places when he can find the time.
Jerry has worked in development for several years, notably for two startups, one in cryptocurrency and one in sports betting. Since high school, Jerry has also had a particular interest in for Natural Language Processing, an emerging area in computer science. Working as a researcher out of MIT, Jerry helped to apply NLP on social media posts to determine how people were discussing the up-coming election. When next considering how NLP might be useful for himself, Jerry developed the starting idea for what would later become Monolog.