Show HN: I built a text-based birthday reminder app

[samfeldman]

I bought the birthdays.app domain a few years ago and decided to build a simple birthday app, just text message reminders.

I had hacked together a duct-tape version for myself a couple years prior (using zapier + google sheets), and found it useful. It was a pain sifting through Facebook birthdays (90% irrelevant), and I found the text reminders simpler than a calendar.

The app has been slowly growing since 2023, and is now up to 739 paying users (mostly on the $9/yr plan, with a few paying $3/yr).

Earlier this year, I built a Google Calendar integration to automatically sync birthdays to the app. My goal is birthday reminders without the baggage a normal "social" app would have such as ads, engagement bait, etc.

I call it an app, but there's actually no app to download. Users log in via phone number + sms login code, then input birthdays manually, via text, or via Google Calendar.

At the moment, US users receive SMS messages (which are cheaper to send in the US), while other countries receive WhatsApp text reminders.

The app uses Twilio to text users (both SMS + WhatsApp) and Stripe for payments.

I'm hoping to build more features (iPhone contacts sync, easier birthdays importing) while also making video content that celebrates strangers' birthdays (such as, going to a farmers market with an "is it your birthday?" sign).

Thank you for reading, I'm open to any thoughts or ideas around the app!

[HelloUsername]

Perhaps the website can have fewer external calls?

- bubble.io

- twitter.com

- cloudflare.com

- cloudflare.net

- facebook.net

- flagcdn.com

- googleapis.com

- googletagmanager.com

- gstatic.com

- jsdelivr.net

- simpleanalyticscdn.com

- tiktok.com

- wikimedia.org

And it shows me this error too https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/errors/60200

[peterldowns]

Hey, cool looking product! Why do I want this instead of just adding birthdays to my existing calendar and setting reminders there?

[samfeldman]

Adding birthdays to a calendar would save you the $9/yr and may be preferable for some users.

I just prefer text reminders—they are hard to miss. For me it's the simplest, least intrusive way to remember. And I like being able to add new friends via text as well.

I'd rather wake up to a text that says "Happy birthday to ____!" than check my calendar to see a friend's birthday next to random events.

[yapyap]

Why not just a calendar that you hang on a place you visit a lot (like the toilet) where you write people’s name next to the date of their birthday

(this calendar being just numbers of course, since days change every year)

might be a fun low tech alternative for some people who aren’t fond of ‘yet another subscription’™

[flymasterv]

I love this, but how do you end up with 739 users? That's both a lot of users, implying that this isn't just a total hobby, and also not a lot of users, which means it hasn't been marketed THAT heavily. What's your secret? Where do you find that niche?

[samfeldman]

Yeah nicely said, it's currently in a middle area between a big app vs an app that's not used at all.

So far most of the birthdays.app users have come from X ads (ex: https://x.com/sam_feldman_/status/1930488932132671529) and some from Google Ads, organic search, etc.

I'm now starting to think in terms of high-leverage videos that celebrate strangers on their birthdays (that are more likely to spread based on merit / wholesomeness rather than ad budget alone). Here's an example of one of these videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSOt2_dIiPI)—hoping to keep iterating and testing out various ideas (with the same core idea of celebrating strangers on their birthdays).

Thanks for your comment, and feel free to let me know if you have any ideas or follow up questions :)

[Goofy_Coyote]

This made me so happy to see this, I had the same idea, built the same kind of product but never shipped. So happy to see this out in the world. Will sign up for a premium plan today!

[samfeldman]

That's great to hear, I really appreciate it! Love the attitude of simply wanting the thing to exist.

Feel free to reach out on here or X (@sam_feldman_) if any questions or ideas ever come up.

[Imustaskforhelp]

I am now actually inspired by this and have built something similar (vibe coded)

but I always thought it was impossible but I saw beeper interop with whatsapp and knew about the matrix bridge, the matrix bridge actually uses whatsmeow which is a golang package

and now I am having a blast creating something similar.. I don't like paying for software, so yeah I am gonna open source it lol.

[samfeldman]

Love to hear that! Texting apps are interesting ui

[kypro]

This is absolutely brilliant. What a wonderfully simple idea!

> I'm hoping to build more features (iPhone contacts sync, easier birthdays importing) while also making video content that celebrates strangers' birthdays (such as, going to a farmers market with an "is it your birthday?" sign).

Build more features if you enjoy building and think it's worth your effort, but remember there's nothing wrong with a super simple product that does exactly what it says on the tin.

People clearly like what you've built. You may well find just focusing more on marketing is more financially rewarding.

[samfeldman]

Thank you, I really appreciate it!

And I agree, I don't want the app to fall victim to a "big feature set" that ultimately makes it too complex.

My mindset is to make it the simplest app for importing and remembering birthdays. Some feature (iPhone contacts sync, easier FB birthday importing, etc) feel like they truly will improve the user experience, while others (general reminders, random social features) don't excite me too much.

It can be tempting to put my head down and build new features. At this point with the app, you're right that marketing could be fruitful—definitely want to lean more into this. My current mindset is that celebrating strangers' birthdays (and making videos from it) will be enough. Creating a brand around generosity, connection, and celebrating birthdays.

Recently recored a birthday giveaway video at a farmers market in Boone, NC and met the sweetest lady whose birthday it was. Could feel that it made a positive impact, and has me excited to make more of these (and to edit the videos well so it makes people feel something)

Excited to keep building (product and marketing), and appreciate your input :)

[jckahn]

This is great! How much time do you spend per week dealing with customer issues? I'm SaaS-curious too, so I'm looking to see what other developers' experiences are like.

[samfeldman]

Thanks! It depends on the week, maybe averages 1 hour per week or so.

Every so often, there's a bug or random issue with some account (ex: someone texted "stop" and didn't know how to re-subscribe), but for the most part it's run smoothly.

Love hearing user input, and usually try to build any requested features over time.

[your_challenger]

Do you use the WhatsApp cloud API? Isn't that expensive for a $3/yr price?

[samfeldman]

The app sends WhatsApp texts through Twilio's API. It's not exactly the same pricing model, but so far is approximately the same as SMS costs

[chrismatheson]

I am literally in the middle of building this same thing! (well almost the same, im trying to keep it 100% local device)

I'd love to connect and share ideas if your up for that?

chris at Matheson dot it

[andrewstetsenko]

It's a simple yet necessary app.

Is there a way to import my friends' birthdays from Facebook? It's by far the biggest database of birthdays that I'm using.

[samfeldman]

Thank you!

There's currently no simple way to import via Facebook, but a workaround should let you do it.

(as a disclaimer, you'll need an unrelated Chrome extension that I didn't build. Hope I can built an official birthdays.app version at some point)

Essentially, you can: 1. Export your Facebook friends to a .ics file using the extension called "Birthday Calendar Exporter for Facebook" from https://chromewebstore.google.com

2. Upload your friends and their birthdays to your Google Calendar

3. Go to https://birthdays.app, login via text code, and click "import via Google Calendar"

Let me know if any thoughts or questions come up :)

[dommer]

I’ve had this idea in my little book of ideas for almost a decade. Great effort getting this up and running.

[dommer]

Reading the comments looks like I’m not the only one who thought on similar lines.

[netsharc]

Buzzfeed had one sentence per paragraph, this webpage has one sentence per screen...

[samfeldman]

Lol, aiming for a simple and intuitive way to explain the app. The app is simple, so is the website.

[samteeeee]

Congrats on the successful product! What do you in terms of marketing?

[samfeldman]

Thank you! Most of the users so far have come from X ads (like this, for example - https://x.com/sam_feldman_/status/1930488932132671529)

Some have also come from Google ads and organic search.

I'm hoping to expand more into wholesome / viral birthday videos where we give strangers gifts on their birthdays. Kind of like this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSOt2_dIiPI).

[Oceoss]

nicee! I always think I should remember the birthdays of my close friends/relatives

[samfeldman]

Thanks! And yeah it's nice to remember birthdays

[anonymousiam]

What is your privacy policy?

[samfeldman]

The app collects minimal data for each user. Google Calendar access is read-only and deleted after import or within 30 days (we keep only the birthdays you choose). Data is encrypted at rest. We don’t sell user data, and the app is supported by the yearly subscription fee - https://birthdays.app/privacy