Why I built Blocbear after 5 years as HOA treasurer

I went to a neighborhood meeting in 2021 because a neighbor asked — just to see what was going on. Somewhere between the agenda and the third coffee refill, I was nominated treasurer. Nobody else raised a hand, so I said yes.

Two weeks later I was handed two boxes of physical paper files — fifteen years of dues, budgets, and meeting records, none of it digital. That was my onboarding.

Five years later, I've reconciled hundreds of checks, chased down dues payments from neighbors I see at the mailbox, scheduled meetings over email threads that never seemed to end, and filed our annual state report three weeks late exactly once. (I will never live it down.)

On the other side of that ledger, neighbors were guessing whether their check arrived, digging through old emails for meeting times, and waiting on a reply when something about their home needed a yes or no.

What led me to build it

It wasn't a single bad day. Every small HOA I've talked to has the same pile: spreadsheets, Zelle threads, paper checks, and software that costs more than the whole neighborhood budget. Most boards just make do.

Blocbear is the tool I wished existed in 2021 — one place for the whole neighborhood: dues status, meeting dates, and home requests — so the next volunteer inherits a system instead of more boxes. Built by a volunteer treasurer, for neighborhoods that would rather live in their community than admin it. The mascot is a bear in a hammock because the whole point is to make this feel effortless.

If you're on the board and tired of being the neighborhood's unpaid bookkeeper — or a neighbor who just wants to see your dues, pay without mailing a check, and know when the next meeting is — I built this for you. Reply to any email and tell me what is not working — I read every one.