Friend [frend]
noun.
: a favored companion
: a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection
Project #1: BetterFriend.xyz
During my sabbatical I was lucky to spend a lot of time with my friends & family.
I hopped around different cities just to catch a few days with them - my friends are living everywhere: Boston, SF, NYC, Austin, Brasil, Singapore and more.
What a privilege to do what I did - real life is not so easy with work commitments.
So I’m determined to find ways to keep up with their lives - weddings, babies, new puppies, new homes, travel plans, achievements, and most importantly birthdays.
"The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon."
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Like many, I’m a fan of The Alchemist book. The oil story is one of my favorite. To find our purpose, we can’t lose sight of the most important parts of our lives - family and friends.
I’m tackling a very personal problem that I have every year:
Birthdays.
When I turned 34 this year during the 10 day Vipassana Meditation (I wrote about it here), I was very aware of my emotions. I didn’t have my phone for the entire time, and I felt this strong sense of guilt as I came back to many messages wishing me happy birthday.
Close friends and family wished me happy birthday, but I don’t know theirs 🫣
Since many of us moved off of Facebook, we don’t get reminded to write “happy birthday” on people’s “walls” anymore. The Gen Z reading this are probably confused what I’m even referring to since they never used it. Gen Alpha probably doesn’t even know what Facebook is.
How the heck did they remember my birthday!?
I asked some of my friends that wished me happy birthday what’s the system they use to track people’s birthdays as I shamefully admit that I didn’t know their birthdays.
It seems there are 2 groups:
Remembering only the most important ones in their head 🥹
Took time to put them on the calendar for people that are important for them
I don’t like using calendar for personal things - and I need a way to receive reminder on a regular basis. Birthdays in each month, a few days before, the day of.
I want to write the message myself. If you are using AI to automatically write a templated “Happy Birthday” message, do better. This is not for AI to automate.
Eventually I want to save moments that I’ve had with my friends so I can send them a fun photo of the moments we had together, and maybe start a new plan to meet-up. Or write about some inside jokes that we had from years ago. The moments we’ve shared are priceless.
Maybe down the line it can help me put some important dates like when they are about to have their baby, their kids birthday, important moment for their relationship, work, graduation or whatever is important for them.
That’s it.
Do it really really well.
Super reliable. We never have to miss another birthday, another important date of our friends and families again.
“Do not look for luxury in watches or bracelets, do not look for luxury in forks or sails.
Luxury is laughter and friends, luxury is rain on your face, luxury is hugs and kisses.”
- Clint Eastwood, Actor, 95 years old
I’m inspired by single product companies who do it amazingly well:
calendly.com only schedules calendar invites
docusign.com only does signing documents
basecamp.com only does project management
slack.com only does messaging for work
Beautifully designed. Forever reliable.
Trust is earned not bought.
I’m starting from 0.
⚡️BetterFriend Project Day 8 - 38
