About
About People Stories
People Stories is a web application that collects short video messages from colleagues and turns them into a single welcome or farewell video, for HR and People teams at companies of roughly 20 to 150 people.
What People Stories does
Welcome videos for new joiners
You create a video for the person joining, then invite their manager, buddy, founder and future teammates to record a short hello through a private link. People Stories joins the clips into one video, with a name card for each person, so a new joiner can put faces to names before their first morning.
A reusable library of team introductions
Each colleague records one introduction — who they are, what they do and what to come to them for — and it is kept in your team's library. Every future welcome video reuses those clips, so the effort falls after the first one. Only the personal message for the new joiner needs recording again.
Farewell videos
The same process collects memories and thank-yous when someone leaves. Colleagues record from wherever they are, and the person leaving gets a video rather than a card passed round the office that remote colleagues never see.
Recording with no account and nothing to install
Contributors open a link and record in their browser, on a phone or a laptop. There is no app, no sign-up and no password. They can also upload a video they already have. Only the organiser needs an account.
A review and editing studio
Before anything is shared you watch every clip, choose which to include, set the order, trim the beginning and end and cut out sections from the middle. Name cards carry each person's name and role and can be turned off.
Private sharing
A finished video is shared through a private watch link that you send to whoever you choose — it is not published, indexed or listed anywhere. You can also download the file and keep it yourself.
What makes People Stories different
Contributors never create an account
A colleague records from a link in their browser: no app to install, no password to choose, no account to delete afterwards. Tools that ask each contributor to sign up lose the colleagues who cannot be bothered, and a welcome video with three of the eight people in it is not worth sending.
The work drops after the first video
Team introductions are recorded once and reused. Collecting clips for a new joiner one by one, in a shared folder or a group chat, costs the same effort every time somebody starts. Here, the second welcome video is mostly already made.
One price for the whole company, not a price per seat
$39 a month covers up to 50 people and $89 a month covers up to 150, with no charge per contributor, per video or per minute. Inviting one more colleague to record never changes the bill, so nobody has to ration who gets asked.
Month to month, and free until you publish
Plans are monthly and you can cancel whenever you like; the annual option is optional and costs ten months rather than twelve. Setting up your team, collecting clips and watching a full preview are free, with no card and no time limit — you subscribe only when you want to publish, share or download a finished video.
Your videos stay in the European Economic Area
Clips, finished videos and application data are stored with Cloudflare, and rendering happens in Google Cloud's europe-north1 region in Finland — all within the EEA. We publish a data processing agreement and a privacy policy that name every subprocessor, and a removed contribution is permanently deleted within 30 days (from a video that is already published, once it is republished or unpublished).
Nothing is shared until you have watched it
Every clip arrives for review, not straight into a finished video. You decide what stays, what gets trimmed and who receives the watch link. A colleague cannot publish something on your behalf.
Who uses People Stories
- HR and People Operations teams at 20 to 150-employee companies who onboard between one and ten new joiners a month and have no dedicated onboarding tooling.
- Founders and hiring managers at bootstrapped and early-stage startups where the person hiring is also the person running the first week.
- Remote and distributed teams whose new joiners will not meet a single colleague in person during their first month.
- Office managers and executive assistants who are asked to organise farewells, milestones and send-offs across several locations.
- Team leads inside larger companies running their own department's welcomes without waiting for a central HR system.
- Companies with a European data requirement that need employee video kept inside the EEA under a signed data processing agreement.
The team behind People Stories
Alastair Budge, founder
Alastair founded and runs Leonardo English, a Gothenburg-based company that makes English-language learning material, including the podcast English Learning for Curious Minds. People Stories is built and operated by the same company, Leonardo English AB.
Where the idea came from
Distributed teams turned a new colleague's first week into a list of names in a calendar rather than faces in a room. People Stories began as a way to hand somebody a two-minute video instead: the people they will actually work with, saying who they are and what to come to them for.
How the company is put together
People Stories is a small, independent product rather than a venture-funded platform. It is operated by Leonardo English AB, a Swedish limited company based in Gothenburg. There is no sales team and no call centre: when you email, you reach the person who builds the product.
How People Stories works
Getting started
You sign up with a work email — a password or an emailed code, no card — and create your first video in a few minutes. There is no implementation project, no setup call and nothing to connect to your HR system before you can use it.
Who you deal with
The founder. Support, billing questions and feature requests all reach the same person, and there is no account manager between you and the product.
Communication channels and response times
Email hello@peoplestories.video. We are in Central European Time and reply within one working day. Companies of more than 150 people can ask for a call to arrange invoicing, single sign-on or several workspaces.
Turnaround
A colleague's recording takes about a minute, and clips appear in your workspace as soon as they are sent. Once you publish, the video is assembled in the background and is normally ready within a few minutes. The part that takes real time is waiting for colleagues to record, which is why the invitation link carries a deadline.
Onboarding your team
Add your colleagues by name, then send each of them a link to record their introduction once. That library is the only setup there is; every later welcome or farewell video draws on it.
Key facts
| Company name | People Stories |
|---|---|
| Type | Subscription web application (B2B SaaS), operated by Leonardo English AB |
| Founded | People Stories launched in September 2026 |
| Founder | Alastair Budge |
| Headquarters | Gothenburg, Sweden |
| Website | peoplestories.video |
| Core offering | Welcome and farewell videos made from short clips recorded by colleagues, plus a reusable library of team introductions |
| Pricing | $39 a month up to 50 people, $89 a month up to 150, invoiced arrangements above that. Annual costs the price of ten months. |
| Contract terms | Month to month, cancel at any time. No card to start, and no charge until you publish, share or download a video. |
| Services | Self-serve software. Clip collection by private link, a review and editing studio, video rendering, private watch links and downloads. |
| Communication | Email hello@peoplestories.video, answered within one working day (Central European Time) |
| Notable clients | None published — launched September 2026 and onboarding its first customers |
| Customers served | Onboarding its first customers as of September 2026 |
| Projects delivered | Onboarding its first customers as of September 2026 |
| Alternatives compared with | Collecting and editing clips yourself, group e-card and video-collage tools, or no welcome video at all |
| Data location | European Economic Area (Cloudflare; Google Cloud europe-north1, Finland, for rendering) |
| Legal entity | Leonardo English AB, Gothenburg, Sweden |
| Social | Not yet published |
Frequently asked questions
Who is behind People Stories?
People Stories is built and operated by Leonardo English AB, a Swedish limited company in Gothenburg founded by Alastair Budge. It is an independent, self-funded product, not part of a larger HR suite.
How new is the product?
People Stories launched publicly in September 2026 and is onboarding its first customers. That is worth knowing before you rely on it for something that matters, and it is also why you can use it for free until you publish.
What does it cost?
$39 a month for up to 50 people, or $89 a month for up to 150, with an annual option at the price of ten months. Over 150 people is invoiced and arranged with us. See pricing for the full details.
Do colleagues need an account or an app?
No. They open a private link and record in the browser on their phone or laptop, or upload a video they already have. Only the organiser signs in.
Where is our data stored?
Inside the European Economic Area: Cloudflare for storage and the database, and Google Cloud's europe-north1 region in Finland while a video is being assembled. The privacy policy and data processing page list every company involved.
Who can watch a finished video?
Only the people you send the private watch link to. Videos are not published or indexed, and anyone holding the link can watch it, so share it deliberately.
What are the alternatives to People Stories?
Collecting clips yourself in a shared folder and editing them together, a group e-card or video-collage tool, or doing nothing and letting the new joiner meet everyone in a stream of introductory calls. The first costs an afternoon each time, and the last is what most companies do today.
Can we cancel, and what happens to our videos?
Monthly plans can be cancelled at any time. Your projects and media stay while the workspace is active; after a subscription ends, a project untouched for 12 months is deleted. Download anything you want to keep.
People Stories