About VDTKM Labs

Why I build these

I lose things. Not car keys — points. A companion certificate I forgot existed until a week after it expired. A credit card bonus I was sure I'd already gotten, until I checked and realized I hadn't — and the deadline had passed. Three cards opened in the same year because I couldn't remember which ones I'd already used for a signup bonus.

None of that is dramatic. It's just death by a thousand small oversights — the kind that cost real money if you're someone who takes points and miles seriously.

I looked for something to keep it all straight. Everything I found wanted one of two things: a monthly subscription for what amounts to a spreadsheet, or my actual login credentials for my airline, hotel, and bank accounts so it could "sync automatically." I wasn't willing to do either. Handing a third-party app my bank password so it can scrape my transactions has never sat right with me, no matter how the marketing page describes their security.

So I built what I wanted instead: something manual, something private, something that lives on my device and doesn't ask me to trust anyone else with my accounts.

Template Mail came from the same kind of annoyance, just a different corner of life — I was retyping near-identical emails often enough that it stopped being a rounding error and started being real time.

None of this started as a business. It started as tools for myself and my family. I'm sharing them because if I needed this, chances are you do too.

How I build

Three things I actually check every feature against:

• Does this solve a real problem I've had myself? — not a feature I think looks good on a list.

• Can I explain it in one sentence? — if not, it's too complicated.

• Does it respect the person using it? — no accounts you didn't ask for, no data leaving your device unless you chose that.

Privacy, concretely

I don't want your logins. I don't want your bank password. I don't run ads or trackers, and I don't sell a subscription for something you should be able to own outright.

If you're figuring out the same things I was

The Learning Center has what I've picked up along the way about travel rewards, credit cards, and staying organized — independent of whether you ever use one of my apps.