The idea
What Can Kill Me began with a simple question: why is it so hard to see the hazards around a place before you get there?
A wildlife sighting lives in a neighborhood post. A flash-flood warning is on a government page nobody thinks to check. A washed-out road is mentioned in a trail comment from three weeks ago. Dangerous surf is communicated by a sign at the top of the stairs, which you read after carrying everything down. The project brings that into one location-based view.
The founder
Michael Harlow is an author, filmmaker, PADI Scuba Divemaster, USCG 100 Ton Master with Sailing Endorsement, naturalist, educator, and founder of The Adventure Travelers. His background includes sailing the Inside Passage through Canada and Alaska, completing the John Muir Trail, wildlife education, adaptive outdoor volunteering, and extensive travel documentation.
The idea for the app came from his wife, Melissa, and the name stuck because it was the question they kept actually asking.
The mission
Know Before You Go™ means giving people enough context to make a safer decision before a hazard becomes an emergency.
Where the project stands
The iPhone app is built and in submission with Apple. It launches in the United States, for adults, free, with an optional Premium membership for people who want more than one Trip Pack and one Alert Place. The browser demo still on this site is the original prototype, kept because it is where the ideas were worked out, not because it is what shipped.
The name is trademarked and the technology is patent pending under a provisional patent application.
What we do not do
No advertising, anywhere in the app, on either plan. No analytics, attribution or tracking SDKs. No selling of personal information and no sharing it for anyone else’s marketing. No background location tracking — the app asks for your location only while you are using it, and the only positions stored are the ones you choose to send.
What success looks like
Not making anyone afraid of the outdoors. Helping people prepare, avoid preventable harm, and understand changing conditions with some confidence.
Project principles
Clarity over alarmism. Evidence over rumor. Preparation over panic. An empty map means nobody reported anything, not that nothing is there — and the app has to say so. Respect for people, wildlife and place.