Why I'm Building a Contact App in Public
I’m Luciano Huapaya.
For the last few years, I’ve worked in product—the usual job: roadmaps, tradeoffs, user research, shipping things other people own. I like that work. It taught me how products actually get made when politics, deadlines, and real users are in the room.
But I’ve also been building apps on my own. Nights, weekends, the slow accumulation of “I think this should exist” turning ideas into real apps.
This publication is about that second path.
Not a product announcement. Not a launch post. A founder journal: ideation → build → App Store, with the messy middle included.
What I’m building now
A contact-sharing app for iOS.
The category already has names you know: Blinq, Dot, Popl, HiHello, and a long tail of digital business card apps. They’re good at the moment of the handshake—here’s my info, scan this, done.
I’m building something in that space because I keep living the problem:
I meet someone interesting at an event.
We trade info awkwardly.
Two weeks later I remember the conversation and not the person—or the person and not where we met.
The incumbents mostly optimize for you leaving your card. I care about you remembering them—and showing the right version of yourself when the room changes.
That’s the bet. It might be wrong. You’ll see me find out in real-time.
Why write about it?
Building alone has a specific loneliness. You make decisions no one reviews. You ship features no one asked for. You wonder if you’re three months behind or three years early.
Writing forces clarity. If I can’t explain why I’m building something, I probably shouldn’t be building it.
And if you’re a product person, a founder, or someone who’s thought “I should just build the app”—maybe this is useful. Not as a tutorial. As a trace: what I tried, what broke, what I’d do again.
What you’ll get here
This won’t be a feature changelog dressed up as thought leadership.
Expect:
Honest build logs: What shipped, what didn’t, and why.
Product calls: Personas vs. one card, events vs. CRM, iPhone Contacts vs. app-owned data.
Competitive reality: How I think about Blinq-style apps without pretending they’re stupid.
App Store mechanics: The boring parts like review, privacy labels, screenshots, and getting the first 10 users.
Expect less:
“We’re revolutionizing networking.”
Thread-bait hot takes.
Posts that could just be a landing page.
Where the app is today
Contact Share (working name—subject to change, because naming is a whole other newsletter) is a real iOS app in active development:
Shareable personas: Different cards for different contexts.
Connections: People you met, not just entries in your phone book.
Events: Grouping who you met where.
It’s not in the App Store yet. That’s part of the story you’re following.
Follow along
I’ll be sharing all my updates, product calls, and the messy middle of this build exclusively here on Substack. If you want to see how this turns out, make sure to subscribe.
I’m always looking to improve the product and want to bring people into this journey. If this resonates with you—or if you’ve ever lost a follow-up you meant to send —leave a comment and say hi!
— Luciano
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