EternaVaults

The question I get asked most: 'Why would I pay for this when I can just use Google Drive or Dropbox?'

Fair question. Here's why we're completely different...

Yes, you can use the cloud storage solutions that are readily available, but we are nothing like them.

Let me explain why:

🚨 The Problem with Cloud Storage for Family Legacy

Think about it: when you upload family photos to Google Drive or Dropbox, what happens?

The company can see everything. They scan your photos. They analyze your documents. Your privacy policy agreement basically says "we can use your data." For random vacation photos? Fine. For your family's most sensitive documents, medical records, legal papers, and irreplaceable memories? Hell no.

But here's the real kicker: What happens when you can't access your account?

Your spouse doesn't know your password. Your kids don't have access. Your mom's estate documents? Locked away forever because no one knew she had them in her iCloud.

I've seen this story play out so many times: families losing years of photos because the account owner died and no one could get in. Estate documents locked in a cloud account that requires 2FA the deceased's phone no longer has.

🔐 Why EternaVaults is Different (The Real Talk)

1. Zero-Knowledge Architecture (We Literally Can't See Your Data)

Unlike Google Drive, Dropbox, or iCloud, we use zero-knowledge encryption. This means:

• Your files are encrypted on your device before they reach our servers

• We store encrypted blobs. That's it.

• Even if we wanted to see your data (and we don't), we physically cannot. It's mathematically impossible.

Why this matters: When you store your will, medical records, or family secrets, do you want a company's algorithm scanning them? No.

1. Emergency Access Built for Families

Cloud storage doesn't solve the "what if I die?" problem. We do.

I built a multi-level emergency access system with 4 trust levels:

• Immediate Access for your spouse (no delays, instant trust)

• Family Consensus - requires family approval (think family meeting)

• Designated Contacts - your attorney or trusted friend (longer delays for security)

• Legal Access - court orders get access with maximum security checks

Real scenario: Your mom passes away. She had her will in Google Drive. No one can access it because 2FA goes to her phone that's locked. With EternaVaults, her designated family members can request emergency access with proper verification, and the family approves. Crisis avoided.

1. Per-Family Data Isolation

Each family gets their own isolated S3 bucket. Your data isn't mixed with thousands of other families. Your encryption keys are unique to your family vault.

Why this matters: If there's ever a breach (knock on wood), the damage is contained to one family bucket, not the entire platform. Your data is siloed and protected.

1. It's Not Just Storage - It's Digital Inheritance Planning

Cloud storage = file dump. EternaVaults = complete digital legacy solution.

We built:

• Family member management with role-based permissions

• Photo and memory sharing with privacy controls

• Family communication tools

• Blockchain audit trails (immutable logs of who accessed what, when)

• Comprehensive digital inheritance planning

The difference: Cloud storage helps you store. We help you plan for what happens next.

1. Built for Relationships, Not Just Files

You can't just take personal cloud storage and add "sharing" to make it family-ready. Family dynamics are complex. Trust levels vary. Emergency scenarios require nuance.

I learned this the hard way during beta testing with 17 families:

• One family had a blended situation with step-parents needing different access levels

• Another had elderly parents who needed simple access but children who wanted advanced features

• One family dealt with a sudden medical emergency and needed emergency access - our system handled it perfectly

You can't solve family trust and access with a "share folder" button.

💰 The Pricing Question (I Know You're Thinking It)

"I pay $10/month for Google Drive. Why would I pay more for this?"

Fair question. Here's my honest answer:

If you're storing random files, documents you access daily, or non-sensitive stuff - keep using Google Drive. Seriously. It's great for that.

But if you're storing:

• Irreplaceable family memories and photos

• Legal documents (wills, trusts, estate plans)

• Medical records

• Family secrets and sensitive information

• Anything you'd want your family to access if something happened to you

Then EternaVaults isn't a replacement for cloud storage. It's insurance for your digital legacy.

Think of it like this: You have home insurance, right? Even though your house probably won't burn down. You have life insurance, even though you probably won't die tomorrow.

Digital legacy insurance for your family's most important memories and documents? That's what we are.

🎯 Who This Is For (And Who It's Not)

Perfect for:

• Families who want secure, private storage for sensitive documents

• Parents planning digital inheritance for their kids

• Families with complex relationships (blended families, multiple generations)

• People who value privacy and want zero-knowledge architecture

• Families who've already lost access to important digital assets (we hear these stories daily)

Not for:

• Someone who just wants to back up their phone photos to the cloud

• Teams looking for collaboration tools

• People who don't mind companies scanning their data

• Anyone who thinks "nothing will happen to me"

🤔 The Skeptic's Questions (Answered Honestly)

Q: "Can't I just share passwords with family?"

A: Sure. But then they can access everything, immediately, with no audit trail, no time delays, no family consensus. What if there's a divorce? What if a family member you trust today becomes untrustworthy? Our system builds in safeguards.

Q: "What if your company shuts down?"

A: Fair concern. We're building data portability features. But honestly? We're in this for the long haul. 17 beta families, zero churn, growing demand from estate planners and family offices. This is a real business solving a real problem.

Q: "Is zero-knowledge worth the complexity?"

A: For family legacy data? 100%. 42% of our users specifically choose zero-knowledge features vs 15% industry average. People care about privacy when it comes to their family's most sensitive information.

Q: "Can't I just use a password manager?"

A: Password managers are great for passwords. They're not built for:

• Photo and memory sharing

• Family member management

• Emergency access workflows

• Digital inheritance planning

• Family communication tools

They solve a different problem.

📊 The Real Validation

17 families, 33 users in beta. Zero churn.

42% adoption of zero-knowledge features (vs 15% industry average).

Estate planners and family offices asking "how can we recommend this to clients?"

The market is $68B and growing 15% YoY. Families are losing access to digital assets every single day.

We're solving a real problem that cloud storage doesn't address.

🚀 So Here's The Deal

I'm not saying cloud storage is bad. It's great for what it does. But it's not built for:

• Family legacy planning

• Emergency access scenarios

• Zero-knowledge privacy

• Digital inheritance

• Complex family trust dynamics

We are.

If you've ever worried about "what if something happens to me and my family can't access my important files" - that's our entire reason for existing.

If you've ever thought "I should share these passwords but I'm worried about trust" - we built a system for that.

If you've ever lost access to a loved one's digital memories and thought "there has to be a better way" - there is now.

What do you think? Have you dealt with digital legacy issues? Lost access to important files? What would make you actually trust a service with your family's most sensitive data?

I'm here building in public because this matters. Your family's memories and documents deserve better than "hope nothing happens."

EternaVaults is a zero-knowledge digital vault for families. We're building the future of digital legacy planning. Questions? Doubts? Love to hear them. That's how we get better.

The Journey So Far

6 months ago, I shared EternaVaults here, a secure digital legacy vault for families. Today, we're launching on Product Hunt, and I wanted to share what I've learned building something people actually need.

What I Built (Quick Recap)

The Problem: 72% of families lose critical documents and memories when loved ones pass. Current solutions compromise privacy or lack proper inheritance features.

The Solution: A zero-knowledge family vault with:

- Bank-level encryption (AES-256, zero-knowledge architecture)

- Emergency access with time-delayed approvals

- Per-family data isolation (each family gets their own S3 bucket)

- Multi-factor authentication & GDPR compliance

The Tech: Node.js backend, React frontend, AWS S3, MongoDB, Auth0. Full zero-knowledge we literally cannot see user data.

Key Learnings (The Real Talk)

1. Security Takes Time (But It's Worth It)

Building true zero-knowledge architecture was harder than expected. Every feature had to be rethought—password resets? Can't do traditional ones. Support issues? Can't "look at the data" to help. But users LOVE this. 42% adoption rate of zero-knowledge features vs 15% industry average.

Lesson: Invest in security early. It's your moat.

2. Families ≠ Individual Users

You can't just build a personal vault and add "sharing." Family dynamics, trust levels, emergency scenarios—all require different UX. Built emergency access with 4 trust levels (spouse, family consensus, legal, etc.) after seeing real use cases.

Lesson: Understand your users' relationships, not just their individual needs.

3. B2B2C is Gold (If You Can Get It)

Premium realtors, family offices, estate planners—they're asking "how can we recommend this to clients?" This is the highest-value path. One family office partnership = 50+ families.

Lesson: Build with advisors in mind. They're your distribution channel.

4. Beta Users Give You Real Feedback

17 families, 33 users in beta. Zero churn. That's validation. But they also exposed edge cases I never considered. "What if someone dies mid-emergency access request?" Real scenarios force better products.

Lesson: Beta > market research. Always.

The Product Hunt Launch

We're live today! 🎉

- What: EternaVaults - Secure Digital Legacy Vault for HNWI Families

- Why Launch: Get initial traction, validate market, build community

- Special Offer: Use code PRODUCTHUNT75 for 75% off first 6 months (Legacy & Heritage plans, this is a great way to explore at the price of a cup of coffee)

Link: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/eternavaults

What's Next

Immediate: Survive Product Hunt, learn from user feedback

3 Months: Reach 100 paying families, establish partnership pipeline

6 Months: Series A readiness, 500+ families, $500K ARR

What I'd Love From This Community

1. Support the launch - Every vote/comment helps

2. Feedback - What resonates? What doesn't?

3. Connections - Know any family offices, estate planners, or HNWI advisors?

4. Advice - How would you approach B2B2C partnerships?

The Honest Truth

Building a zero-knowledge platform is hard. Building for families is harder. But when a beta user tells you "this saved my family from losing my father's memories," you know you're onto something.

The market is massive ($68B, growing 15% YoY). The technology works. The validation is there. Now we need to scale.

Would love your thoughts, feedback, or just a vote! 🙏

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Building in public because transparency matters. Questions about the tech stack, go-to-market, or zero-knowledge architecture? Ask away!

Hey IH! I just shipped something I’ve been quietly building: a zero-knowledge Family Vault to preserve a family’s most important memories, documents, and digital assets so they can be securely passed down across generations. Press release just went live and I’d love your feedback and ideas.

Problem

• Families lose access to critical digital assets when someone passes away

• Password managers don’t solve documents/memories; cloud drives don’t solve inheritance or privacy

• Estate planning is fragmented, not designed for multi-generational handover

What we built

• A zero-knowledge Family Vault: all encryption happens client-side; we can’t decrypt your data

• Designed for families, not just individuals: stories, recipes, wishes, milestones, heirlooms

• Time-delayed access and emergency protocols for the real world (incapacitation/death)

Why it’s different

• Zero-knowledge by design (AES‑256 + PBKDF2): we never see your keys

• Family-first UX: roles, granular privacy, sharing, “Family Vault” categories

• Scheduled delivery: birthday/anniversary messages and future-dated items

• Auditability: activity trails; device fingerprinting; MFA

Early traction

• Tens of families onboarded in beta; 42% migrated to zero-knowledge mode

• Strong interest from estate planners and family offices (early pilot conversations)

Tech/ops notes

• Stack: React + Express + MongoDB, Auth0, S3; client-side crypto flows

• Hardest part: zero-knowledge UX trade-offs (recovery, passcode resets, emergency access)

• Lessons: communicate recovery limitations clearly; build trust with transparent security

Roadmap asks

• Tokenization for emergency-contact PII, while keeping content zero-knowledge

• White-label APIs for insurers/estate planners

• Mobile apps and AI-assisted organization

How IH can help

• Feedback on positioning and onboarding flow

• Warm intros to estate planners/family offices

• Security review volunteers (happy to comp)

Links

• Product: eternavaults.com

• Press release: EternaVaults Revolutionizes Digital Legacy Planning with Industry-First Zero-Knowledge Family Vault [press release link]

Thanks for reading—happy to answer anything about zero-knowledge, inheritance UX, or the build.

Hey Indie Hackers! 👋

Quick update on EternaVaults - our digital vault platform for families to securely store and share their most important memories and documents.

What I Built Today

Just finished implementing profile photo functionality for regular users. Previously, only admin users could upload profile photos, but now every family member can:

• Upload and manage their own profile photos

• See their photos across the platform

• Fall back to Gravatar when no photo is uploaded

• Remove photos and revert to default avatars

The Technical Challenge

The interesting part was handling the migration from local file storage to S3. We had users with old local file paths that were breaking, so I had to:

1. Detect old local paths (/uploads/profiles/...)

1. Gracefully fallback to Gravatar for broken images

1. Ensure new uploads go directly to S3

1. Maintain the same user experience across admin and regular users

Why This Matters

Profile photos might seem small, but they're crucial for:

• Family recognition - especially important in family vaults

• Trust building - seeing real faces builds confidence

• User engagement - personalized experiences keep families active

Current Status

• ✅ Profile photos for all user types

• ✅ S3 integration with proper fallbacks

• ✅ Mobile-responsive design

• ✅ Consistent with our warm, family-focused UI

What's Next

Working on improving the emergency access system - the core feature that lets families access vaults when someone can't. It's the most technically complex part but also the most valuable for peace of mind.

The Bigger Picture

We're solving a real problem: families losing access to digital memories and important documents. Every day, people lose access to photos, documents, and accounts because there's no secure way to share access with trusted family members.

The market is huge - every family with digital assets needs this, but most don't realize it until it's too late.

Question for the community: How do you handle sharing access to important digital assets with family members? Do you have a system, or is it mostly "hope nothing happens"?

Would love to hear your experiences and any suggestions for making this more user-friendly.

#BuildInPublic #DigitalLegacy #FamilyTech #SaaS

EternaVaults is a secure digital vault platform for families. We're building in public and sharing our journey here.

The Hidden Crisis

While everyone's focused on crypto and NFTs, there's a massive, growing problem that affects every family: digital estate planning.

Here's the reality:

• Average person has 90+ online accounts

• 60% of Americans have no digital estate planning

• $2.5 trillion in digital assets at risk of being lost forever

• Most estate planning attorneys don't even ask about digital assets
  

My Wake-Up Call

I realized this when helping my family navigate a difficult situation. We spent months trying to access important documents, photos, and accounts that were scattered across different platforms with no clear access plan. The stress was overwhelming, and we almost lost decades of family memories.

The Market Opportunity

Traditional estate planning focuses on physical assets, but digital assets are becoming more valuable:

- Photos & Videos: Priceless family memories

- Financial Accounts: Cryptocurrency, online banking, investment accounts

- Business Assets: Social media accounts, websites, digital products

- Personal Data: Cloud storage, email accounts, subscription services

What's Missing

Current solutions are fragmented:

- Password managers don't handle inheritance

- Cloud storage doesn't have emergency access

- Estate planning software ignores digital assets

- Most people just hope their family can figure it out

The Opportunity

This isn't just a tech problem - it's a legal, financial, and emotional problem that affects millions of families. The market is huge and underserved:

- Estate Planning Market: $2.5B+ annually

- Digital Asset Market: Growing 15%+ year over year

- Target Demographics: Aging population with increasing digital footprints

- B2B Opportunity: Estate planning attorneys need better tools

What I'm Building

I'm working on a solution that bridges the gap between traditional estate planning and digital asset management. The goal is to make digital estate planning as routine as writing a will.

Key Questions I'm Exploring

1. Legal Framework: How do different jurisdictions handle digital inheritance?

2. User Experience: How do you make estate planning less intimidating?

3. Security vs. Access: How do you balance privacy with emergency access?

4. Market Education: How do you convince people this is important?

The Bigger Picture

This isn't just about building another app - it's about solving a fundamental problem that will only get worse as our lives become more digital. Every family will need this eventually.

Ask Me Anything

- Have you thought about your digital estate plan?

- What digital assets would be hardest for your family to access?

- How do you think this market will evolve?

- What would make you actually create a digital estate plan?

Building in public because digital estate planning shouldn't be an afterthought. What's your experience with this problem?

I built EternaVaults after watching families get locked out of wills, logins, and memories. “Secure storage” isn’t enough privacy breaks during emergencies. EternaVaults is private-by-default and still recoverable when life happens.

What it is

• Zero-knowledge vault: client-side AES-256-GCM; server stores only encrypted blobs

• Controlled emergency unlocks: approval-based + time delay; fully audited

• Family-ready: roles, device trust, versioning/soft delete, PWA/mobile

Why it’s different

• We focus on secure succession (not just storage)

• Privacy today, a humane/verifiable unlock path for trusted family tomorrow

• Individual admin and member Dashboards

• Granular sharing

• Unparalled security and privacy.

• Parental controls

Would love blunt feedback on

• Onboarding after payment → create-family (clear or confusing?)

• Security page/threat model clarity (what’s missing?)

• Pricing/plan limits (premium positioning—does it read cleanly?)

Links

• App: https://eternavaults.com

• Security: https://eternavaults.com/security

• Pricing: https://eternavaults.com/pricing

• Optional short demo (Loom/GIF): [link]

Promise

Set it up once. It takes no more than 2mins! Your data stays private and your family can still get in, safely, when it matters.