Personal project
Designed and shipped in one night
Live, testing with friends
Psst
.
Never miss a friend's birthday. Never guess their gift.
A small web app for people who love their friends and still forget their birthdays. Friends add their birthday and a few quiet hints through a link. You get a heads-up in time to find something they'd love, or a card ready to send on the day.
Role
Idea, design, build
Timeline
11:20 PM to 2:25 AM
Platform
Web, phone first
Built with
Claude Code, Next.js, Supabase
Hint
A pottery class. I keep watching videos of people throwing bowls.
Hint
Good coffee. I'm almost out of the fancy stuff.
Hint
Something for my balcony plants.
Hint
Experiences over things, always.
How it happened
One evening, from "give me something fun" to a live product.
This one isn't a work project, so I'm not telling it like one. Here is the night as it happened, with the times I made each call.
11:20 PM
Looking for a fun problem
I went looking for an idea and kept landing on other people's problems.
I wanted a side project I would enjoy designing. I tried a parking sign reader, a deposit tracker for renters, a potluck planner and a gift exchange. A quick look showed most of them were crowded, or the kind of thing you could already ask a chatbot. The rest felt like homework.
Parking sign reader · crowded
Renter deposit tracker · too serious
Potluck planner · fun, not mine
Birthdays and gifts · mine
11:27 PM
The problem was mine
I forget my friends' birthdays. And when I remember, I don't know what to get them.
Instagram and Facebook tell me a day before, sometimes on the day, and only if I happen to open them. That's enough time for a text, not for a thoughtful gift. And my friends are too shy to say what they'd like, while I'm too shy to ask.
Problem one
Remembering in time
The reminder arrives when it's already too late to plan anything.
Problem two
Knowing what they'd love
Nobody likes sending a wish list. So I guess, and I usually guess wrong.
11:31 PM
Hints, not a wish list
A wish list feels like asking. A hint feels like a secret.
That one shift shaped everything. You send a friend a link. They add their birthday and, if they like, a few things they're into lately. No app, no account, no email. Twenty seconds, and it ends with their notes sealed in an envelope.
1
Opens the link you sent
"Chandni never wants to miss your birthday."
2
Picks a month and a day
The big date flips as they tap.
3
Drops a few hints
Each one lands as a tilted sticky note.
4
Seals it
Notes slide into an envelope and a wax seal stamps down.
11:44 PM
Cutting my favourite idea
My first version locked the hints until two weeks before the birthday. I loved it. Then I took it out.
The hints stayed blurred, then unfolded on the day you were allowed to see them. It made a lovely reveal. It also got in the way. I couldn't shop early, catch a sale, or get to know what a friend was into the rest of the year. And "locked until Feb 28" was harder to trust than "only Chandni will see these." So the lock went. The unfolding stayed, as a moment instead of a gate.
Other things I stopped asking for
Year of birth
Month and day are enough to celebrate someone.
Email address
Their own link is their key to edit hints later.
An account
Friends never sign up. Psst only ever talks to me.
11:50 PM
Not every friend needs a gift
Some friends get a gift. Most get a warm wish. Both should feel remembered.
So every friend is either a gift friend or a card friend, and one tap switches them. Gift friends give me two weeks of warning and their hints. Card friends get a card made around what they love, ready on the morning of their birthday in their own time zone. I send it through WhatsApp, the way I'd send any message.
Gift friend
14 days before
A heads-up, with their hints back on top.
7 days before
A nudge to order, so it arrives in time.
On the day, 9 AM their time
A reminder to wish them.
Card friend
On the day, 9 AM their time
Their card is ready before I am.
A theme from what they love
Steam rises off a coffee cup, leaves sway on a plant.
One tap to send
WhatsApp or any app. They open it in the browser, no download.
Small moments, on purpose
Each step gets one thing that makes you smile. Only one.
The envelope that whispers
The invite floats, and a little "psst…" bubble pops up before you read a word.
The date that flips
Tap a month and the big date flips over like a desk calendar.
Notes, not fields
Hints land as tilted sticky notes. It feels like leaving a note, not filling a form.
The wax seal
Notes slide in, the flap folds down, and a seal stamps a small "p".
Your orbit
Friends circle you. The closer they are, the sooner their day. Today's friend pulses.
The card that opens
One tap and the flap flips up, the card rises out, and confetti does the rest.
Nothing loops forever, nothing blocks you, and with reduced motion on, it all becomes simple fades.
12:07 AM
The first real link
Before any real code, I made a link for one friend.
The first one was for my friend Dudoo: their name on the invite, their name on the envelope, and a card with a message from me. Nothing was saved yet, but every screen was real and opened on a real phone. Holding it in my hand told me more than another hour of moving boxes around.
2:25 AM
Live
By 2:25 AM, Psst was live. The brief did most of the work.
I built it with Claude Code from a project brief I wrote first. Writing that brief turned out to be the most design-heavy hour of the night. Every decision had to be clear enough that the build couldn't drift from it.
What the brief held
16 decisions, written down
What's in version 1, what waits
Colours, type and shapes
Ten signature moments
Rules for motion
The voice of every line of copy
Who can see what
Still open
What I don't know yet
?
Will friends actually fill in the link?
Everything depends on it, so it's the first thing I'm watching.
?
Does a card over WhatsApp feel personal?
Or does it read like a template? The replies will tell me.
?
Will people come back a few times a year?
Psst is a quiet helper, not a daily habit. Every reminder has to earn its place.
Next:
Test with 20 friends
Polish the motion to match the prototypes
Launch on Product Hunt in November
Psst
.
Someone you love has a birthday coming up. Now you'll know in time.
Hint