It All Started With An Orange Frog

I was in kindergarten when I learned something about myself that would follow me around for the rest of my life. Apparently, frogs aren't orange. Who knew? I certainly didn't.

There I was, probably pretty proud of my artistic masterpiece, when someone noticed that I had colored my frog orange. Not green, but orange. I'm sure five-year-old me thought it looked fantastic. Maybe I was ahead of my time. Maybe it was an exotic species nobody had discovered yet. Or maybe I had color vision deficiency, or I was colorblind. Spoiler alert: it was the third one.

That's how I discovered I had color vision deficiency (CVD).

And while coloring an orange frog in kindergarten was pretty harmless, having color vision deficiency or being colorblind becomes a little more complicated when you grow up and people expect you to dress yourself.

For most of my life, matching clothes has involved some combination of guessing, hoping, asking and occasionally walking back into the bedroom after receiving the look from my wife. You know the look. No words are necessary. It's the look that says, “You're not seriously leaving the house like that, are you?”

For more than three decades of marriage, my wife has been one of my most trusted color consultants. Over the years my mom has helped, my sister has helped, other family members have helped and even friends have helped. Even my dog has occasionally looked at me in a way that made me reconsider my choices. Of course, she's a dog, so I can't prove she knew my shirt didn't match my pants. But I have my suspicions.

The funny thing about being colorblind or color vision deficient is that I know what I like. I know when I think something looks good. The problem is that sometimes what I think I'm seeing isn't quite what everyone else is seeing. That creates doubt. Does this shirt work with these pants? Does this belt look right? Are these colors actually complementary? Is this blue? Is this purple? So many questions and doubts.

And perhaps the most important question of all was, “Can I leave the house without someone stopping me?”

For most people, getting dressed probably doesn't require a committee meeting. For me, there have been mornings when it felt like one. And somewhere along the way, more than 20 years ago, I started thinking, “Wouldn't it be great if there were something that could just tell me if my clothes matched?”

Not someone I had to call or somebody I had to text a picture to. Not my wife standing outside the closet wondering how she somehow became Director of Wardrobe Operations. Something I could use myself.

If only there was a way I could take a picture and get an answer: “Yes, this works” or “No, this doesn't.” And, most importantly, tell me why. I had the idea. There was just one minor problem. I had absolutely no idea how to build it.

So the idea stayed an idea for years, and actually, for decades. I was patiently impatient, trying to discover a way to solve my problem. And then it happened: technology changed, phones changed, the internet changed, artificial intelligence came along and even my hair changed. (Okay, technically it just got gray. That's one color I can see clearly.)

But the problem didn't change. I was still color vision deficient, I was still getting dressed and I was still asking the dreaded morning question, “Does this match?”

Then something happened that I honestly never expected. The technology finally caught up with the idea I'd been carrying around in my head for more than 20 years. And I realized maybe I could actually build this thing.

So, What If You Never Had to Wonder If Your Clothes Matched Again?

That question eventually became ColorMatch Assist. I built the tool I had wished existed for most of my adult life. And I didn't build it because somebody told me there was a hot market I should jump into. I didn't build it because I read an article about the next big trend. I built it because I needed it.

I'm my own best customer.

Now I can take a picture of what I'm wearing and get feedback on whether the colors work together. Not just a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. It tells me why the outfit works or doesn't work. And if something isn't quite right, it can suggest what I could change. That's important to me because I never wanted ColorMatch Assist to simply replace one person's opinion with another person's opinion.

Color relationships aren't random. I learned there is science behind color, contrast, harmony and how colors interact with one another. The system evaluates those relationships consistently rather than depending on whether somebody happens to like blue pants with a particular shirt.

For someone like me, that's a pretty big deal. Because after all these years, I'm not looking for a fashion critic. I'm looking for confidence. I want to put on a shirt and a pair of pants, take a picture, get an answer and move on with my day. No committee, no family vote, no emergency call to my wife and no asking the dog. Although, to be fair, I'll probably continue asking her. She likes to feel included.

And here's the part I didn't fully appreciate when I first started building it. This isn't really about colors. It's about that little moment of uncertainty before you walk out the door. It's wondering whether everyone else can see something you can't.

It's walking into an interview, a meeting, a wedding, a date or even a casual dinner and wanting to feel confident instead of wondering whether your clothes are quietly screaming at each other. I know that feeling because I've lived with it since kindergarten.

And that's why building ColorMatchAssist.com has become so personal to me. For the first time in my life, I have an assistant that's available whenever I need it. It doesn't get tired of me asking and it doesn't roll its eyes. It doesn't say, “Ernie, we literally talked about that shirt yesterday.” And it doesn't require me to track down my wife before leaving the house.

I built it, I designed it, I tested it and I kept working on it until it did what I had imagined all those years ago. And now it's real.

There is something incredibly satisfying about solving a problem you've carried around most of your life. Especially when that problem started with an orange frog. Looking back, I suppose I owe that little guy a thank-you. If I'd colored him green, maybe none of this happens. Then again, if I'd colored him green, kindergarten Ernie probably would have thought it was orange anyway.

Some things never change. But thankfully, in this case, technology did. And more than 50 years after discovering I was colorblind, I can finally say something I never thought I'd be able to say: “I don't have to wonder if my clothes match anymore.”

And my wife can finally retire from her position as Director of Wardrobe Operations. Although, knowing her, I'm pretty sure she'll retain veto power.

Here's to fewer questions and no more orange frogs. Because confidence is something everyone deserves to wear!