OpenLoop

OpenLoop is a phone-first personal CRM for solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, founders, and basically anyone whose important conversations happen informally: over DMs, in person, on calls. Not through email threads or enterprise pipelines.

Modern communication is scattered across WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, iMessages, phone calls, and face-to-face conversations. There's no unifying way to keep track of it all, and CRMs don't help. They're built for sales teams, adding process, structure, and overhead that just becomes more cognitive load when you're working on your own.

OpenLoop gives all of those conversations a single home. Log what happened, set a follow-up, and get on with your day. Because you're writing down what matters in your own words, the act of logging becomes purposeful. You're not copying message histories. You're thinking about what was said, what's relevant, and what you need to remember. That makes every entry more useful than any automated sync ever could.

It's an iOS app by design, not a desktop tool. Solo entrepreneurs already spend enough time in front of their computers. OpenLoop is built for people who want to stay light on their feet. Capture a conversation while you're out, check your follow-ups from a home screen widget, push a reminder to your calendar, and keep moving. No accounts, no cloud sync, no bulk. All data stays on-device.

There are two sides to OpenLoop. The actionable side is about doing: logging conversations, setting follow-ups, staying on top of what needs to happen next. The strategic side is about thinking: a network graph view lets you visualise how your contacts connect, see who knows who, and build out the links between people over time. Both sides are always there, but neither gets in the way of the other. The core experience stays simple, and the deeper tools are there when you want to step back and think about your network more broadly.

I built OpenLoop because I needed it. I'm a solo entrepreneur. I build the products, I market them, I handle everything. My background is in the creative sector, where I've always collaborated with freelancers, designers, and artists. In that world, almost everything happens over your phone. DMs, not formal emails. I never really had a tool for managing those conversations.

The idea sparked when I was developing a clothing brand idea built around collaborating with designers on a revenue-share model. I was thinking about how to manage those ongoing creative partnerships, keeping track of who I'd spoken to, what we'd discussed, what needed following up. I realised there was nothing built for the way I actually communicate. CRMs assume you're a sales team with a pipeline and deals to close. I don't have a pipeline. I just have people, and conversations that play out over time. A collaboration slowly takes shape across scattered messages, someone gets back to you about something you've half-forgotten, a plan picks up weeks after it started. That ongoing time element is what makes it so hard to keep track of where you're at with people, and nothing on the market was designed for that.

So I started building my own tools, and OpenLoop came out of that. I originally built it for the business side: keeping track of project-related conversations, people I was coordinating with, follow-ups I couldn't afford to forget. But I've found myself using it more and more for personal relationships too. When you're doing it all yourself and your head is full of everything you're trying to build, it's easy to let the people in your life drift. OpenLoop helps me stay intentional about all of it, not just the professional stuff.

Layered simplicity. The core is deliberately simple: log a conversation, set a follow-up date, done. You can pick it up and use it instantly. Underneath that sits deeper functionality (custom labels, custom fields, connections between contacts, a network graph) that users can explore when they're ready. These features stay out of sight until you need them, and once set up, they just work in the background.

Zero friction to get started. Import contacts straight from your phone. Pick the people who matter and they're in OpenLoop in seconds. Create a new contact in the app and it syncs back to your phone contacts too. Adding a follow-up is just as quick. A couple of taps and you're done. The whole app is built around removing every possible barrier between having a conversation and capturing it.

Privacy-first. Zero cloud sync, zero accounts, zero tracking of user content. All CRM data lives in on-device SQLite. No contact names, notes, or personal data ever leaves the device.

Follow-ups that actually reach you. A follow-up is only useful if you know about it. OpenLoop has a home screen widget that shows today's follow-ups at a glance, plus notifications so nothing slips through. You don't have to remember to open the app.