Meet Richard Jardine, Founder and CEO of Skypod, the Digital Time Capsule Company Looking to Pioneer a New Billion-Dollar Industry

Skypod digital time capsule company has its roots deep in the heart of its founder and CEO, Richard Jardine. When Jardine was just two years old, his biological father passed away. For as long as he can remember, not a day has passed by without Jardine wondering about his father. Jardine doesn’t have a single picture, letter, or card from him. He doesn’t know what his father looked like or sounded like. He doesn’t know what he liked to do or whether we had anything in common. He has no connection to his biological father’s side of the family.

Jardine’s path to becoming a CEO was not a smooth one, however. He grew up living in public housing, as his mother struggled to build a better life for his family. His whole childhood, he carried with him a deep desire to break out of the systemic poverty and inequity his family faced. He also carried with him a giant void in his heart from not having known his biological father.

After barely graduating high school, Jardine enlisted in the US Army National Guard where he graduated top of his class in avionics school. After graduation, his entrepreneurial spirit took over, as he began building several successful businesses. While the success he achieved through business was welcome, he still carried with him a feeling that he was meant to do more with his life.

For example, one cause he felt strongly about was housing. Jardine wanted to help other people find safe, affordable places to live, so fewer people needed to experience what he did as a child in public housing. To help, he started buying multifamily buildings in Chicago and managing them using a neighborly, service-oriented approach. He always managed his property with the mindset of putting people over profits and that helped to develop mutually beneficial relationships with tenants.

Despite all his success in business, Jardine couldn’t escape the pain he held in his heart from not having a connection with his biological father. That pain would resurface frequently, especially as he traveled the country for his businesses. When his plane would break above the clouds, he’d stare out the window, think of his father, and wonder whether he had created enough memories with his own family. He’d wonder what messages he would want to pass down to his kids. He’d ask himself what words of wisdom would he want them to hear from him.

Having even a single letter from his father sharing an encouraging word or family history would mean the world to Jardine. But Jardine knows it wasn’t meant to be.

As time passed by, Jardine kept hearing stories about other people who expressed similar wishes about lost family members. They wished they could have one more conversation with a loved one who passed away.

After hearing so many people express similar feelings, Jardine had an idea. What if he could create a safe, secure, and controllable way for people to send memories, images, videos, and more to loved ones long into the future? They could record age-appropriate messages that would send months or even years into the future. They could share words of encouragement or wisdom to be delivered on special days like weddings, graduations, or milestone birthdays no matter what happened in life. The possibilities were endless.

For the idea to work as intended, creators would need to be confident that their content was secure and nobody could access it but the intended recipients. They would also need to know that the content would be delivered right away but locked from even the recipients until a future date and time the creator selects.

Jardine soon discovered that solutions like email, Google Drive, and Dropbox, didn’t work. Email could deliver messages and attachments but the attachments couldn’t be too big and the contents would be delivered right away. Google Drive and Dropbox could deliver larger files but would deliver the content right away, as well. There was nothing that helped people send time-specific or age-appropriate messages, pictures, or videos.

While most people would give up, Jardine’s passion for his idea wouldn’t let him give up so he partnered with friends Jason Swing, Majd Elias, and Jason Nauman, who together formed Skypod and created the first safe and secure digital time capsule software. Swing and Elias both shared Jardine’s passion for helping as many people preserve, secure, and deliver memories all around the world and well into the future.

Today, Skypod’s software has been utilized all around the world. Skypod’s patent-pending technology was designed to maximize user security and experience. When a user creates a digital time capsule using Skypod, they designate as many recipients as they’d like and set the date and time the recipients can open the time capsule. Skypod’s software immediately stores and encrypts the data and sends notifications to the recipients, letting them know they have a message waiting for them.

But they can’t open the time capsule until the date and time set by the sender. This feature not only locks down the message from anyone but the sender until the appropriate date and time, it also enhances the user experience by creating tremendous anticipation and allowing the sender to create different age-appropriate digital time capsules that can be opened by the recipients over time.

This can create months or even years of anticipation with family members as they wait to access their time capsules, knowing their loved one left messages for them to access over time. Starting at just $1.99, people anywhere in the world can create and send digital time capsules.

In addition to ensuring that sending Skypod’s was cost effective, Jardine and the entire Skypod team also make giving a core part of their operations. For example, when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Skypod’s leadership team launched a donation of $1 Million in Skypod credits to help first responders, healthcare workers, and coronavirus patients. Soon after they did, the campaign became so popular that they increased the amount to $3 Million in free credits with the help of many anonymous investors and donations. Any first responders, healthcare workers, or coronavirus patients can visit www.skypod.com/together to receive $100 in free Skypod credits while the campaign is open.

Skypod also created a fund to donate $1 Million in free Skypod credits to help people diagnosed with cancer create free pods for their loved ones. People who have been diagnosed with cancer can visit www.skypod.com/cancer to receive $100 in free Skypod credits as part of Skypod’s cancer campaign. Jardine and his team are also working on partnerships with celebrities and other donors to deliver free Skypod credits to other locations and to support other causes around the world. With both free credit promotions, no credit card is required and there are no strings attached.

Interest in creating Skypods has surged since the start of the pandemic, as people realized that Skypod does for memories, messages, and life advice, what estate planning does for material possessions. This helped Skypod grow its user base exponentially during the pandemic. Jardine is confident that the growth will continue, estimating that the digital time capsule industry will soon become a billion-dollar industry as focus on our own mortality and the uncertainty of life continues to grow.

To learn more about Jardine and Skypod, you can connect with them on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and at www.skypod.com. You can sign up for a free Skypod account at www.skypod.com. It’s always free to receive a Skypod. And creators only have to pay when they are ready to send their pod to loved ones. Skypod is available worldwide on any smartphone, tablet, or computer with an internet connection.