Most of what I write here is about coffee. Frelio isn't. It's a free app I co-founded with my friend Josh Caliguire, and it helps you remember the people you meet and keep up with the ones who matter.
The line at the top of my blog says I help people communicate their vision, connect with other humans, and drink better coffee every day. Those are the three ways I show up in my work and my life. Frelio is how I'm working on the middle one.
About a year before Frelio, I told a leadership coach something I hadn't really said out loud. I work from home, mostly alone, and much of my week is on Zoom. I wanted to grow my friendships, but my life wasn't set up for it. Work filled the days, and the people I cared about got the leftovers.
He encouraged me in the systems work I do, and then he challenged me to point that same skill at my own relationships.
That one stuck with me. For fifteen years my work has been building follow-up systems, and these days that means HubSpot for nonprofits and ministries: the reminders and logged conversations that make sure nobody falls through the cracks. I'd been helping organizations keep track of their people that whole time, and then I'd close the laptop and run my own friendships on memory.
The other problem was names. I'm horrible at them. I can have a good conversation with someone, remember what they do and what they're worried about, and lose their name by Tuesday. It sounds like a small thing until you notice the name is what you need to ever talk to them again.
Josh is good at both of the things I'm bad at. He meets new people like it's nothing, and he invests in the friends he already has with an intentionality that's a little convicting to watch. He wasn't always like that. He spent a couple of years building those skills on purpose, and he writes about it in the field notes on frelioapp.com. His post on his biggest fails in friendships is a good place to start.
We're two friends born a generation apart. Between his story and that coach's challenge, we set out to build the notebook we both kept wishing we had, and we tested it on our own friendship first.
Frelio is a pocket notebook for the people in your life, and it has two jobs.
The first is remembering the people you meet. You write down a name and one thing about them, and that's it. It takes about five seconds, because anything longer won't happen in the moment. At a conference, you start an event when you arrive and everyone you add gets filed under it. When it's over, Frelio runs a quick memory game on who you met while the faces are still fresh.
I built Frelio and tried it out at one myself, then moved house shortly after, which meant a lot of new names at once. Frelio is how I remembered them, and I've used it every day since.
The second job is keeping up with the friends you already have. You pick the handful of people you're investing in. That's your Circle. Each person gets a check-in rhythm you choose, maybe weekly for your closest people and monthly for the friend across the country. When someone has gone quiet, Frelio gives you a nudge. You log the coffee or the call, and the clock resets. A visit counts for more than a text.
It's free on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android, and there's an Apple Watch app for adding someone from your wrist.
Frelio has no streaks and no scores. It shows you who, and how long it's been.
There's no feed and there are no followers, so there's nobody to perform for. On frelioapp.com we say it might be the only social app that hopes you'll close it and go talk to someone, and I still like that line.
Privacy was the part I wasn't willing to compromise on. Your notebook lives on your devices. If you create a Frelio account to sync it, it's encrypted on your device before it leaves. Frelio stores it but can't read it, and neither can Josh or I. There are no ads, and nothing in Frelio tracks you across other apps or websites.
We kept Frelio from doing the remembering for you. When I write down a detail about someone, I pay more attention to them, and the goal is that I know the name next time without looking it up.
Frelio went live on the App Store at the end of August 2026. The Mac version followed in September, Android landed on Google Play later that month, and the Apple Watch app came right after. In early October we added optional accounts, so one notebook can sync across every device you own.
I coded the app with the help of AI, and the website at frelioapp.com too. Many of the changes since launch started in the Founders Circle, a small Slack group of early users who try things first and tell Josh and me what's broken or missing. One early user said it "didn't feel like social media begging for my attention," which is about the nicest thing anyone could say about it.
Frelio isn't my first app, either. I also built Dialed Shots, which I use to log my espresso shots on the Gaggia.
If you meet a lot of people, or you've got a few friends you keep meaning to call, give Frelio a try. It's free on the App Store and Google Play. You can read more on my Frelio page, and if you'd like a say in what we build next, the Founders Circle is open on frelioapp.com.