About us

The best memories should not end up scattered across six phones.

I'm Max Khan, the founder and builder of Passboards. I made it because the moments we care about most are usually shared: trips, parties, teams, clubs, and the people we keep coming back to. But the photos from those moments are often split between camera rolls, group chats, and links nobody can find later.

The question behind Passboards started earlier. When I played football in high school and traveled with friends, we would all post versions of the same moment: the same game, or the same group photo from a lake trip to Tahoe, on separate Instagram profiles. Everyone could feel the redundancy. The experience belonged to all of us, but the social product kept turning it into a set of individual posts.

Why can't social media be organized around the events we share together, instead of always centering the individual?

Passboards gives a group one lasting place to collect the whole story. Everyone can add what they saw, keep it organized, and return to it long after the chat has moved on.

I'm building Passboards close to the people using it. Their feedback shapes the product directly. The goal is simple: make it easier to hold onto a shared life without turning those memories into content for an advertising machine.

What Passboards changes

The shared experience becomes the center.

Passboards replaces scattered posts and expiring chats with a social home, private whenever you want it, organized around what people did together.

01

One home for the event

A trip, game, celebration, or ordinary weekend lives in one board instead of being divided across profiles and message threads.

02

Everyone adds their view

The people who were there contribute their photos, videos, and context, creating a fuller record than any one camera roll.

03

Private, useful, and lasting

Boards and clubs preserve shared history for the people it belongs to, not for an advertising feed that moves on tomorrow.

Founder journey

A decade of building things people bring their friends into.

Long before today's AI tools, Max was teaching himself iOS, building for real communities, and learning what makes a product useful or fun enough to spread.

Middle school–2017 · First apps

From learning to building for others

After teaching himself iOS and earning an A+ in AP Computer Science, Max became Ms. Anwar's teaching assistant. He released MVHS Sports in 2016, maintained it through graduation, and founded and led Monte Vista's iOS Club.

Four of the members of Monte Vista High School's iOS Club standing arm in arm inside the school's Workday Center

Monte Vista iOS Club · Founded 2016

A few of the club's members in 2017, in the Workday Center at Monte Vista High School in Danville. Left to right: Matt, Max, Paula, and Usman.

2017–2018 · Truthy: Truth or Dare

The first breakout consumer app

Max, Matt Moss, and their partners turned the truths, dares, and themed packs they enjoyed with friends into an app that exceeded 300,000 downloads and reached 100,000 monthly active users before they sold it to Kooapps.

View Truthy on the App Store
Seven friends wearing TechCrunch Disrupt badges, standing arm in arm in front of a quantum computer display on the conference floor

2018 · TechCrunch Disrupt, San Francisco

Max and Ethan earned an honorable mention in the TechCrunch Disrupt Online Hackathon with a demo cryptocurrency app that showed how book transfers could work with crypto systems. It came with five passes to Disrupt, so they brought friends. Left to right: Avi, Matt, Usman, Eric, Max, Ethan, and a friend.

2017–2022 · College and production engineering

Range became rigor

At Santa Clara, Max studied computer science with a data science emphasis and rowed on the Division I men's varsity team. He graduated one quarter early in 2021 to build investment-management software at Ridgeline.

A large group of Ridgeline teammates in summer shirts, laughing and posing together at an evening gathering in Hawaii

2021 · Ridgeline, Hawaii

Teammates from across Ridgeline at the company's developer and company summit in Hawaii: some of the people building a full-stack software platform for hedge funds and asset managers.

2022–2023 · Passboards

The first founder chapter

Max formed Passboards, launched V0 in October 2022, and spent more than 200 hours in user sessions learning how groups used the product. That work led to a complete V1 overhaul in May 2023.

Four friends on skis in bright printed shirts, arm in arm at the top of a run, with snow-covered mountains stretching out behind them

2022–2023 · Testing in the field

One of many ski trips that season where Max tried Passboards live with friends and gathered their feedback on how it should feel in person, and between one outing and the next. Left to right in April 2023: Avi, Ben, Max, and Charles.

2023–present · Nav and graduate study

Deeper systems experience

Max builds lending and credit software for America's small businesses at Nav, where he became a Staff Software Engineer in January 2026. While working full time, he earned a master's in computer science and engineering from Santa Clara.

Max Khan and his research partner Ulises standing on either side of their research poster, titled Beyond Memorization: MELE, at Santa Clara University

2026 · Santa Clara University

Max and his research partner Ulises presenting MELE in June 2026, their paper for the natural language processing course in Max's master's program. It builds on KELE, a framework for Socratic teaching with language models, with an evaluation that rewards real teaching over memorized answers.

2026–present · Passboards

The return

Max returned with deeper product judgment, production experience, and new AI leverage. He rebuilt Passboards across iPhone, web, backend, media infrastructure, and operations, and brought it back to the App Store.

Why Passboards now

Shared media grew richer. Its social home did not.

Photos, videos, messages, and AI-created media move through more feeds and private chats than ever. The media improved; the shared context still disappears. Passboards returned because groups need a durable place for the history they create together.

AI also changed what an early-stage company can execute. Work that once consumed months can now be explored, implemented, tested, and improved in hours or days across native iOS, backend systems, media infrastructure, operations, and design.

That leverage does not replace product judgment, privacy, or the trust of the people using Passboards. It creates more room to build those values deeply into the product.

Company history

The idea survived the pause.

Passboards has not followed a straight line. The time away made the original problem clearer, and the return came with a stronger product and a deeper commitment to building it well.

  1. 01

    May 2022

    Started

    As BeReal and Locket reflected a post-pandemic desire to reconnect around real life, Max began Passboards to give shared experiences one durable home.

  2. 02

    July 2022

    Formed

    Passboards, Inc. was formed as a Delaware corporation with formation counsel from Fenwick & West.

  3. 03

    October 2022

    V0 public release

    The first public version of Passboards launched, putting the original idea into users' hands.

  4. 04

    May 2023

    V1 overhaul

    After extensive feedback and more than 200 hours of user sessions, Passboards launched a complete product overhaul shaped by how people actually used it.

  5. 05

    November 2023

    Paused

    As attention swung back toward Instagram, TikTok, and short-form video, Max decided he had taken this version as far as he wanted and paused active development to grow as an engineer.

  6. 06

    September 2026

    Returned

    Max returned to Passboards, rebuilt the product across the stack, and brought the current iPhone app to market.

Passboards, Inc. is a Delaware C corporation based in California. Fenwick & West advised on the company's formation.

Bring your people and your perspective.

Start a shared history in Passboards, help build what comes next, or tell us what your group needs from the product.