Our Story
2019
This story started when our Founder and CEO, Michael Diego, embarked on a yearlong work abroad deployment. The adventure took countless hours of planning yet he still found he was missing experiences he’d either not known about, or not had the time to organize. Michael’s work-life balance was strained and he decided to build an assistant to delegate his personal planning tasks, so he could focus on enjoying his life.
Michael would meet Ryan Brandt, Founder and CTO, at the Boston Build Hackathon and the two would join forces to bring Wise Assistant to life. Together, they endeavored to build an assistant that would proactively automate manual planning tasks so they could focus on enjoying the experience. They would officially form a company in August 2019 under their original brand WitWay, which stood for “Where in the World Are you?”. They would change the name in 2020 to better suit the service.
Wise Assistant would make group planning and finding new experiences a breeze. The story resonated and the small team quickly grew into a dedicated movement.
2020
In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shocked the world. Everything changed suddenly and dramatically. While our ability to see others quickly dwindled, our desire to connect only grew.
The team at Wise Assistant understood that the new normal would benefit from new tech to safely meet the rising need for connection in a time of unprecedented isolation. The team spent the year talking to users and learning. They saw an incredible opportunity to take the planning burden off people already struggling to survive and adapt.
“Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that makes you smile.” —Mark Twain
2021
In 2021, the team would launch integrated discovery and planning services under the Wise Assistant brand.
- Wise Atlanta is the text-based chat assistant that sends a fully formed plan each week on Wednesdays. The Wise Assistant team would work with influencers, local businesses, and foodies in Atlanta to find what’s trending that week. These plans would help users enjoy experiences, like bar hops, secret hikes, new restaurants, and more!
- Wise Group Planner is their web-based planning service that allows groups to coordinate events. Anyone can text Wise Assistant to save and organize their Ideas, usually web URLs, like Instagram photos, blog articles, products, or services. Groups could add ideas to a plan, schedule them, and create polls and itineraries. There are city guides and step-by-step instructions to make complex planning easy.
What is a plan?
A “plan” is a detailed proposal for doing or achieving an experience. While we are planning all the time, the concept is difficult to grasp. Planning is a lurking, ubiquitous problem and it often requires many products to plan. Wise Assistant is an integrated, end-to-end planning service, delivered to you through text message interaction.
Whether you’re planning a wedding party or an adventure, you’ll need to coordinate times, dates, and itinerary details. Wise provides the group a shared method for coordinating all the details that make planning a serious challenge.
The Future
Brighter days are just around the corner. Seriously!
Wise Assistant is a productivity service that bypasses digital distractions and propels you into experiences that make you smile. We’re partnering with local community associations and groups to help you plan and share more meaningful experiences - together (again).
Our mission is to make planning easy. Too many memories never happen because it was a hassle to coordinate busy schedules, figure out what to do, and a dozen other weird things. We want to eliminate the things that matter least, so that you can live the life that matters the most.
