Why this exists
Built by one caregiver, for the rest of us.

In the spring of 2018, I was pulled out of a client meeting in Japan. My mother had been admitted to critical care.
Before she passed, she turned to my father and said, “Your life is about to change.” I didn’t realize she should have been talking to me.
I always knew my mother was the foundation of our family. Only after she was gone did I see how much of that foundation was caregiving — for her two siblings, and for my father. The work she had been quietly carrying, alone, for years, suddenly had no one carrying it.
So I started.
It’s been a long, arduous journey. I’m now the sole caregiver for my 86-year-old father and my 82-year-old aunt, who has dementia. I’ve learned the hard way how much of caregiving is being constantly blindsided — by medical decisions, by paperwork, by a phone call that changes the next six months.
I’m building Tugboat because I believe caregivers shouldn’t have to navigate this alone, the way my mother did, the way I have. The tools we have today — AI that can anticipate what’s coming, organize what’s complicated, and quietly hold the things you can’t keep track of — finally make that possible.
If you’re a caregiver, I’m building this for you. And, honestly, I’m building it for me too.
— John
You’re still the captain. We just provide the power and precision when it’s needed most.
See it in action
What John built, the tour
One family’s story, Julia, 82, just home from a fall, walked through every tool, exactly as it works today.
