The People We Mean to Keep Up With

There are people I care about whom I don’t speak to as often as I’d like.

When we reconnect, I’m glad we did. Usually, I also wonder why I let so much time pass.

The explanation is rarely interesting. There was work to finish, something happening at home, a message I meant to answer later. Life kept moving.

Building Narella keeps bringing me back to this: how much distance can grow between caring about someone and making time for them.

When you build a company around relationships, the business opportunities are easy to explain. Someone needs a customer, a hire, an investor, or advice from a person who has faced the same problem. There is a clear reason to connect and an outcome to pursue.

But a relationship has a whole life between those moments.

You want to know whether someone’s move worked out. You’re happy they finally launched the thing they spent years building. You remember they were worried about something and want to ask how it went.

Those exchanges matter on their own. Treating them as preparation for a future request would miss the reason we care in the first place.

We want to be present in each other’s lives.

That takes more work than we usually acknowledge.

You have to remember what someone told you, notice when something changes, and recognize a moment when reaching out would mean something. Then you have to follow through.

Some relationships make this easy. You work together, live nearby, or see each other regularly. The context stays fresh because your lives overlap.

Then someone moves. You change jobs. Your children stop going to the same school. You still care about the person, but the everyday occasions to speak disappear.

Keeping in touch becomes another thing you have to remember.

This is where I think AI can do something valuable.

Consider a former colleague who told you they were thinking about starting a company. Months later, they launch. You would be glad to congratulate them, and you might know someone who could help. What makes that moment meaningful is the history you share: you remember the uncertainty before there was anything to announce.

Helping someone recognize that moment can lead to a conversation they’re glad they had.

The person still has to mean it. They decide whether to reach out, what to say, and how much of themselves to give to the conversation. Technology can make the occasion easier to notice and the context easier to recall. The care comes from the person.

That gives us a clear responsibility in building Narella. A suggestion should be grounded enough to deserve someone’s attention and leave them room to exercise their own judgment. Sometimes the right decision will be to let the moment pass.

People’s ambitions belong in this picture too.

A company priority can give you a reason to seek someone’s experience. A career decision can bring an old colleague back into your life. Someone else’s goal can reveal a way you could be useful to them.

Asking for help and offering it are both natural parts of a relationship. Over time, the direction changes. So do the circumstances. What matters is that there are people on both sides, each with a life beyond the immediate request.

That is the understanding we want Narella to serve.

I keep coming back to a simple picture of what success looks like. Someone opens Narella, notices something worth their attention, and acts on it. They check in, offer help, make an introduction, or have a conversation they had been putting off.

Then they get on with their day.

We have to earn that place through the quality of those moments. Every suggestion asks for a little of someone’s limited attention. It should help them give that attention to a person who matters.

There are people we miss, people we would like to know better, and people we would happily help if the opportunity occurred to us at the right time.

We’re building Narella to help those intentions become part of everyday life.