All of written human knowledge is free, instant, and one prompt away. We effectively have intelligence on tap. So why hasn't everyone gotten more productive in their own lives?

Because knowing what to do was never the problem. Doing it is. And the gap between the two is behavior, which turns out to be one of the hardest things in the world to change.

The reason is that habits aren't decisions. Research shows they're triggered automatically by context, running largely outside conscious control. You don't decide to check your phone; the cue fires and you're already doing it. The tools meant to make us better are fighting the wrong battle. Every new app asks you to summon willpower, open a new thing, learn a new interface, and build a new routine — exactly the conscious effort that habits, by definition, route around. Most people quit before they start.

Tomo's founders, Justin Quan and Raymond Chen, solved this by starting with no app at all. Tomo primarily lives in iMessage, the place you already are, all day, without deciding to be. Having just a number to text is deceptively simple. Texting Tomo feels as natural as opening up your notes app to brain dump everything on your mind.

We asked Tomo what makes it different. It said: "I'm not just another chatbot you have to remember to check. I'm like having someone in your corner who helps you stay organized and get stuff done without you having to think about it, and doesn't bore you to death."

What Tomo Does

Tomo is AI that's unequivocally on your side. It has your best interests in mind, learns what you're working toward, and will send whatever message or build whatever software gets you there. For people who want to wrangle their lives into something happier and healthier but were never the type to keep meticulous spreadsheets or Notion pages, Tomo is oxygen — the help is just there, propelling you forward the way breathing does.

What that looks like in practice is stranger and more intimate than a productivity app. Users text Tomo screenshots of their bank statements to stay on top of spending. They send their weekly screen-time reports to cut back on their phones. They share what's actually happening in their lives and get back honest, contextually aware responses that connect to goals they set weeks earlier.

When Justin and Raymond ask why their users skip dedicated finance or productivity apps in favor of texting a chatbot, the answer is always the same: "Tomo knows me."

This is why the relationship, and the system of record of progress that comes from it, is the moat. Many AI products are substitutable. A better model ships and you switch. Tomo gets harder to leave with every message. The bank statement you sent in month one is context for the nudge in month three. The goal you mentioned in passing resurfaces when it matters. Across thousands of messages, Tomo accumulates a model of you and what you care about.

The numbers reflect it. In just over three months, Tomo has signed up tens of thousands of paying subscribers who text it an average of 20 days a month. That engagement puts it in the company of the stickiest consumer apps people use every day.

Why Now, and Why Us

Three things converged to make Tomo possible. Models finally got good enough to be genuinely proactive and personal, with memory and tool calling good enough to be useful over time and across your apps. Messaging is the place we actually live, making it a frictionless interface. And consumers proved they'll happily pay for AI that earns its place in their day. Tomo sits exactly where those three things come together.

When we spent time with Justin and Raymond, we were struck by how deeply they thought about the product and the problem. We've spent a long time looking for consumer AI that burrows into people's lives and stays. We were convinced.

Justin and Raymond are the perfect founders to build this. They met at Retool, and they both saw how a well-built general-purpose tool could be bent to almost anything. They have their own unique accomplishments – Raymond a competitive badminton player; Justin an accomplished engineer with an artistic side, and the youngest person Retool ever hired. They each explored their own entrepreneurial paths and held the bar very high for the idea that eventually became Tomo. They take their mission very seriously. They know that life is about the journey, not just the destination, and Tomo knows that too.

The Road Ahead

The near-term roadmap expands Tomo's surface area, including interfaces built dynamically around each user's actual behavior rather than a one-size-fits-all design. Increasingly, Tomo knows you well enough that you never have to tell it what to build. Longer term, Justin and Raymond want Tomo to become the personal system of record and operating system for daily life.

Their goal is to help 100 million people accomplish something they wouldn't have done otherwise. Finish saving for the thing. Stick with the new hobby. Finally launch the pet project. One goal at a time, then the next one.

We're proud to back Justin, Raymond, and the entire Tomo team. But what we're really betting on is the person on the other end of the text… the one who's been meaning to finally start that thing, and this time actually does.