Piñata Birthday Reminder
Piñata
A cross platform birthday reminder app designed to help people remember birthdays and actually follow through with a message, call, or gift in seconds. Piñata is intentionally focused on one job: make people feel remembered on the day it matters.
Objective
Build a purpose built birthday tracker that keeps birthdays separate from calendars full of meetings and noise, and makes it easy to take action when someone’s day comes up. In parallel, I used this project to level up on modern AI assisted building tools, because I saw how quickly AI was reshaping product design and I wanted to be hands on with it.
Roles and Responsibilities
Founder and Principal Product Designer
- Designed the product end to end
- Built the app myself using Claude Code
- Shipped on iOS and Android
- Designed and built the marketing website
- Used AI as a development partner to move faster, iterate more, and validate decisions through rapid prototyping
Problem
Birthdays are easy to forget because most tools were not designed for celebrating. Google Calendar is flexible, but birthdays get buried under everything else. I wanted a focused product that keeps birthdays front and center and helps people follow through so friends and family feel special.
Solution
Piñata organizes birthdays and turns reminders into quick actions.
Core experience
- Add birthdays fast via manual entry or import
- Clean list and calendar views so you always know what’s next
- Notifications that arrive when they should
- One tap actions to text, call, or start gift shopping
Pro features
- Bulk import to build your list quickly
- Additional reminders 3 and 7 days ahead
- Pre written messages, daily horoscopes, and cloud backup
Constraints
- Cross platform polish and consistent behavior across iOS and Android
- Reliable notifications across both platforms
- Store requirements and release workflows, especially on Android
Process
This was built nights and weekends and required working through the unglamorous parts: data persistence, notification reliability, edge cases, and platform rules. I treated AI as a collaborator, using it to break down problems, prototype quickly, and iterate on both UX and implementation. The project became a practical way to stay current with the pace of AI, while still holding a high bar for product quality.
Outcome and Impact
Piñata shipped on iOS and Android with a free tier and an optional Pro subscription. It is intentionally minimal, fast to set up, and designed to help people remember important dates and actually follow through.
getpinata.app
