Our story

We didn't set out
to build a company.
We got a phone call.

Fortivus was born from lived experience — three of our four parents navigating cognitive decline, one family without a roadmap, and a belief that no one should have to figure this out the way we did.

"Dad lost Mom."
— the phone call that started everything
Where Fortivus begins

We noticed things in late 2020. By September 2022, we couldn't explain them away anymore.

My parents — Nancy and Henry — were sharp, capable, independent people. Nancy was brilliant. Henry was steady. They had built a full life together in Austin, Texas, and for a long time, the signs that something was changing were easy to rationalize.

Cognitive decline is insidious that way. It hides inside personality, inside the noise of daily life. You tell yourself it's stress, or age, or just a bad week. You explain it away until you can't.

September 2022

My dad called 911 at midnight because my mom was in distress. The ambulance came. And then — in the fog of his own decline — he fell back asleep and woke up with no memory of it. No memory of the call. No memory of the ambulance. No memory that my mother was gone.

My sister called me that morning. Dad lost Mom.

What followed was hours of calling hospitals and police stations across Austin, trying to find a woman we didn't know was missing until she already was. We found her. She was safe, but disoriented. And when the hospital was ready to discharge her, they told us she couldn't leave — not until we had 24/7 care in place for both of them.

5
days to figure everything out.

We had never seriously discussed assisted living. There was no plan — no folder with the right documents, no conversation we'd had with either of them about what they wanted when things got hard. We went from "everything is fine" to "figure out full-time care for two parents simultaneously" in a single morning.

And just when we thought the hardest part was finding the right care — we ran into legal complications we were completely unprepared for. Decisions that should have taken a phone call took weeks. Documents we needed didn't exist, or couldn't be found, or weren't in order.

Nobody tells you that the care crisis and the legal crisis arrive at the same time.

Nancy was diagnosed with Alzheimer's that September. She passed away in August 2025.

Henry is in memory care now. His decline is accelerating.

And Shelly's dad — back in Texas — is on the same road. Early-stage. We're already flying back to document everything we can while he still can tell us. This time, we're not waiting for the phone call. We have a plan. We're building it.

Three of our four parents. One family. No roadmap — until now.

Nancy Niehaus. Brilliant, dramatic, and impossible to forget. She taught us what it means to show up for someone — and in her last chapter, she taught us what it costs when you're not prepared to. This is for her.

Why I was the one to build this

Twenty years in technology. The last several in AI. This is what I do — and now it's personal.

I've spent 20 years in technology consulting. The last several years, I've been working in AI strategy every day — helping organizations understand where AI creates real value and what it can and can't do.

When I looked at what caregiving families actually needed — real guidance, not generic information; organization across a chaotic, fragmented system; something that could read your actual documents and tell you what mattered — I knew exactly what was possible. I'm surrounded by it professionally.

I also knew the cost of it not existing. I'd lived it.

Fortivus is what I wish had existed the morning my sister called. It's what I'm building so the next family doesn't have to spend five days in a hospital making permanent decisions with incomplete information.

I'm still working my W2 job in AI strategy while building Fortivus. I'm not pretending otherwise. This is the messy, honest reality of an early-stage company — and I think the families we're building for deserve to know that the person behind it is still in the middle of what they're going through, not looking back from a comfortable distance.

Meet Shelly

I'm not building this from the outside looking in. I'm building it because I'm living it too.

I'm Shelly, and if I'm being honest — I never imagined this is where my life would be right now. I thought I was stepping into my next chapter. My boys had just left for college, I was wrapping up a decade-long photography career, and I was ready for whatever came next. Then the phone calls started.

Mark's parents. Then my dad. Three of our four parents, all navigating cognitive decline at the same time. I went from planning my empty nest life to coordinating care teams, researching memory care facilities, and learning what a Durable Power of Attorney was — all in real time, with no guide and no roadmap.

Here's what I know from living this: the mental load of caregiving is the part nobody sees and nobody can take off your plate. You can hire help. You can move a parent into memory care. But the weight of being the one who holds all the information, makes all the decisions, and carries all the worry? That stays with you. I know because I carry it every day.

That's why I'm the person talking to caregivers at Fortivus. Not because I studied this — because I'm in it with you. When I say "I know how hard this is," I mean it. When I say "you're not alone," I mean that too.

My role at Fortivus is to make sure everything we build actually helps real families — not just families on paper. I talk to caregivers. I build the community. I make sure our voice never sounds like a tech company talking AT you, but like a friend who gets it.

Shelly Niehaus — Co-Founder
What we believe

The mission, plainly stated.

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Every family deserves a clear next step — not after a crisis forces their hand, but before one arrives. For dementia families, preparation is the difference between months of coordination and five days of chaos.

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Caregivers shouldn't have to become experts in medicine, law, and finance overnight just to keep their parents safe. The burden of complexity falls on the people least equipped to carry it — at the worst possible moment.

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Technology, done right, can do what no human guide can afford to do at scale. Be there at midnight. Read the documents. Surface what matters. Tell you what to do next — in plain language, without judgment.

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The hardest conversations deserve better conditions. Driving. Finances. Living situations. These conversations happen in crisis because families didn't have a tool that made it safe and structured to have them earlier. We're building that tool.

If this story sounds like yours, start here.

We created a free guide with the 15 most critical steps for families navigating a dementia diagnosis — the things we wish someone had handed us before the phone call came. It's yours, free, no strings.

Send me the 15 steps →

No spam. No pressure. Just the information you need, when you need it.