"Wait... what was their name again?"
That moment of panic — that's why I built this.
I'm a solo developer with 25+ years in software.
In December 2025, I shipped my first consumer app.
This is not a success story.
But it's an honest one.
The App
NameMemory — 100% offline. No cloud. No accounts. No analytics.
Contacts apps store people. This app trains memory.
It uses Spaced Repetition to quiz you right before you'd forget someone —
the same method used in language learning, applied to the people in your life.
Originally built in Japanese. Launched with 15 languages from day one.
Because forgetting names isn't just a Japanese problem.
Built with Flutter, SQLite, local notifications, and an SM-2 spaced
repetition algorithm — with heavy AI-assisted development.
https://namememory.netlify.app/
Why I Built It
Colleagues. Clients. The parents of my kid's friends.
Every time a name wouldn't come, it felt like a small failure.
And these are exactly the names you don't want in the cloud —
customer contacts, school parents, your internal network.
That's why offline wasn't a feature. It was the point.
How It Works
Register someone with:
- Name + photo
- A short note about them
- Where you met
The app then quizzes you using Spaced Repetition —
surfacing each person right before you'd forget them.
Hacker News Was Brutally Right
December 2025. I posted on HN:
"Show HN: I hired AI to fix my memory,
but made it 100% Offline for privacy"
8 points. Top comment:
"I just installed and deleted the app."
That hurt. But this one hurt more — and was more useful:
"5 people free tier makes SRS useless.
Anyone who downloads this will just delete it."
Every word was correct.
What I changed:
- Free tier: 5 → 20 people
- Rewrote store listings in 16 languages
- Resubmitted to both stores
5 Months Later
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Total downloads | 179 |
| Countries reached | 39 |
| Paying customers | 1 ($9.99, from the US) |
| Daily average | ~1 install/day |
Top countries:
🇯🇵 49 · 🇺🇸 33 · 🇫🇷 9 · 🇩🇪 9 · 🇨🇳 5 · 🇪🇸 5
Japan is #1. I didn't expect that.
And someone in the US paid $9.99.
A stranger I'll never meet decided this was worth their money.
I don't know who they are. I never will.
But that single payment kept me going more than any download count.
What I Learned
- Free tier design matters more than code quality. 5 people was useless. 20 people made the app actually usable.
- Privacy is valuable — but hard to communicate. "100% offline" means different things to different people.
- Localization ≠ distribution. 15 languages from day one didn't automatically bring users.
- Shipping globally is emotionally brutal. You release into silence. Most days, nothing happens.
- One real customer beats a thousand downloads. That $9.99 from a stranger meant more than I expected.
What's Next
Store page conversion is probably the weak link.
I'm starting by rewriting the first screenshot copy.
And I'm sharing more openly now.
This post is part of that.
Forgetting names isn't a memory problem.
It's a human relationship problem.
I'll keep improving this until it reaches the people who need it.
NameMemory
For colleagues, clients, and everyone whose name
you really should remember.
100% offline. Your data never leaves your phone.