Building Connections
The inspiration
I have been feeling the friction for a while, but things really clicked last year at iOSKonf.
I met a ton of people there, and since it’s an iOS conference, most shared their contact info with me using NameDrop. It’s a neat little feature Apple introduced, but it has a problem. When you add someone, their contact just sort of vanishes into your address book. A few days, or weeks, later, if you don’t remember their name, you’re probably not going to find them again.
I started realizing I wasn’t the only one annoyed by this. A few people I spoke to mentioned the same thing, so I took a mental note of it.
Then a few weeks later, I flew to Cupertino for dub dub week. I didn’t have a WWDC ticket, but I went to a bunch of community events and met even more people. This was right after I had quit my job to work on my own projects, so networking mattered more than ever. I also just wrapped up iOSKonf24, and I wanted to follow up with folks, whether it was about future sponsorships, speaking opportunities, or attending iOSKonf25.
And what was I doing to keep track of it all? Screenshots. Every time I exchanged a contact, I would snap a screenshot. Then, at the end of the day, I’d go through all of them and make notes so I wouldn’t forget who was who.
That’s when it really hit me, I had to build Connections.
Straight to Chaos
Having recently heard about Jordi’s 2-2-2 methodology, and having just seen his talk at iOSKonf about shipping an app in 30 minutes, I knew I had to open Xcode, create a new project (something we all love to do), and just play around to see if this idea was even feasible.
Turns out it was. And I probably reached that conclusion less than two hours after clicking “New Project.”
But instead of building a simple MVP that I could send to a couple of friends, my brain went into overdrive. I started integrating LinkedIn and Twitter, because, of course, you might meet someone and exchange your LinkedIn profile instead of a phone number. Then I added placeholders for Instagram, Facebook… catering to the hopeless romantic who swapped details over loud music and forgot everything by morning.
I didn’t realize it yet, but I was getting lost.
Then in September 2024, I went to TechBBQ and started talking to people about the idea. Everyone loved it. I got a flood of feature requests: reminders if you forget to write a note, gamification to encourage new connections, social media data pull-ins, Salesforce and HubSpot integrations, AI that listens to your conversations and summarizes the meeting, a note-taking wizard — the list went on. I wrote everything down… and unfortunately, started working on some of it.
Throughout all of this, Monika was my biggest supporter. Somewhere along the way, she started helping me out. I’d bounce ideas off her, we’d do demo meetings, I’d show what I have been building. But despite the excitement, it felt like the project had no end in sight.
Life was happening, and honestly, there were long stretches when the project just sat idle. I even reached the point where I just wanted to release something and be done with it.
And then it happened again, I met new people, took a screenshot to remember who they were, and the need for Connections came rushing back.
Monika and I sat down, went through the entire codebase, deleted 75% of it, and focused on solving one problem.
Your turn
Today, Connections is officially out. You can download it on the App Store right now: Download Connections.
This version is intentionally simple. It doesn’t have every feature I imagined, and that’s on purpose. It solves one problem, and hopefully it solves it well: helping you remember the people you meet.
If you try it, I’d love to hear what you think. What works? What’s missing? What’s confusing? What would you love to see next?
You can find me on X, LinkedIn, or just email me, whatever feels easiest. I read every message, and your feedback means a lot.
If you find it helpful, tell a friend, or better yet, a stranger you just met.