I was biking through northern Vietnam with a journal and a tiny photo printer. The plan was simple: print a photo each day and stick it next to what I wrote.

Then the printer broke. My phone was full of pictures and none of them could make it onto the page. DOT started there, with a journal that couldn't hold the photos that went with it.

I couldn't let the idea go. I wanted one book that kept your writing and your photos together.

So I started building it by hand: cutting covers, testing straps, printing tags, and folding boxes on my bedroom floor until something actually worked.

I took DOT on stage at The Forge's annual Startup Survivor pitch competition and pitched it to hundreds of people.

DOT came second, and the $10,000 prize was the funding that turned a prototype on my desk into something real.

I spent four months traveling around the world looking for the right leather. I tested 120 different types.

Most of them didn't make it past the first week. The one on every DOT today is the one that beat all the others.

Next I moved to Japan to study paper. I worked on our own paper recipe there, and designed the book itself around it.

Then I went to China to work with manufacturers on the DOT tags and the clip system that holds everything together.

After all of that, DOT is launching online.

Everything up to now is our story. What goes in the book is yours.