Let robots write your thank-you notes

Maybe you are the type who is forever intending to mail thankyou cards. Maybe you even compose them in your head and yet, when time comes to actually do it, you don’t have any stamps, or the post office is closed, or you are stuck at the airport without your stationery.

Maybe it’s not the sort of thing you delegate to an assistant, who has handwriting much better than yours. Maybe you just don’t like licking envelope glue.

Enter Bond, a startup founded in 2013, which will do it all for you, in your own handwriting to boot.

The company started out as a straightforward gifting service, with an extension that allowed you to send a handwritten note to accompany the gift. It turned out to be the most popular option available.

Founder Sonny Caberwal spent a year perfecting new technology with his chief technology officer, Kenji Larsen, developing hardware and software systems that could re-create the look and feel of a handwritten note.

They built their own hardware, a writing machine that has robotic arms for holding a pen, a paintbrush, or a marker.

Download the basic version of the Bond app and you can type out a message, and pick a card and handwriting style – ranging from the messy cursive of ‘‘Gramercy’’ to the clean all-caps ‘‘Hudson’’ – and upload your signature and address.

Then everything else, from postage, envelope stuffing, sealing, and drop-off, is taken care of by Bond.

More recently, the company has offered a concierge service as part of Bond Black, which in addition to digitising your own handwriting, will help you find addresses, schedule notes, send reminders, and expedite deliveries.

To get your handwriting digitised, you submit samples of your own penmanship, which is then replicated by the machines.

‘‘Inconvenience doesn’t make something more thoughtful,’’ says Caberwal, the founder and chief executive of the company.

‘‘The content of the card is what makes it thoughtful. But there are all these friction points in the process.’’ – Washington Post