The Beginning of Moeyo
How Moeyo came to be, and where it's headed
I Really Wanted a Pokédex
I've loved living things since I was a kid. When Professor Oak handed Ash his Pokédex, I wished someone would hand me one too.
Whenever I spotted an unfamiliar creature, I'd flip through book after book comparing photos. I'd buy field guides and memorize them, carefully ask experts questions, and post to online forums waiting for answers. Learning each name one by one was certainly fun, but something always felt missing.
"Why can't this be easier?"
If you've ever felt the same way, you're not alone.
It's 2025. Do We Still Have to Do This?
Time passed. AI now draws pictures, writes code, and creates videos. Yet there's still no satisfying service that answers simple questions like "What's this flower?" or "Have I seen this bird before?"
I tried the existing services.
There were great platforms for contributing to citizen science. But I wasn't looking to generate scientific data—I just wanted to casually organize what I'd seen. It wasn't the right fit for me.
Communities were fragmented. Bird watchers here, butterfly enthusiasts there, wildflower enthusiasts elsewhere... I liked them all, so why did I have to hop between platforms?
There were auto-identification apps too. But they only worked one photo at a time. Am I supposed to run 300 weekend photos through one by one?
So I Decided to Build It Myself
I thought that by 2025, people should be able to enjoy a service with better UX than a Pokédex. And I believed current technology could make it happen.
Since no one else was making it, I decided to give it a shot myself.
Bulk Upload + AI Clustering
Just drag and drop an entire folder. AI automatically identifies species and groups similar ones together. Time and location are pulled from EXIF automatically.
I wanted to make it possible to organize 300 photos from a weekend birding trip in just a few minutes.
My Lifebook
All the organisms you've encountered, organized by species, time, and location*. Finding "that bird from last spring" becomes easy.
You can keep it as your personal record, without the pressure of contributing to scientific data.
*Location-based organization is currently under development and will be available in the first half of 2026.
One Platform
Birds, butterflies, flowers, mushrooms... whatever. Record everything on a single platform. Set your taxonomic interests and we'll recommend matching content.
The Road Ahead
Moeyo's auto-classification accuracy isn't perfect yet. Right now, it's an "assist tool for experts and enthusiasts." We're starting by improving workflow efficiency for those who can identify species themselves.
Each piece of feedback from our beta testers is making the classification a little bit better.
What I Dream Of
Ultimately, I want Moeyo to go beyond being just an identification tool.
A personal lifelogging service that records your encounters with nature. A place where the names you've encountered accumulate over time. A record that lets you look back 10 years from now and smile thinking "Oh, I met all these."
I'm now building the field guide I wished someone would hand to my childhood self.
If you've had similar thoughts, come join Moeyo.