The problemThe thing you know is gone by the time you sit down
I have ideas while I'm driving, walking the dog or watching football, and none of them survive to a keyboard. Anyone who works on their feet has the same problem. A property manager walking a lot sees every crack and every faded line, and none of it survives the drive back. By the time anyone sits down, most of it is gone, and the rest gets retyped later from memory.
Voice memos don't fix it. They leave a recording on a phone, and a recording on a phone is a chore waiting to happen. I once lost hours to a long memo that would AirDrop only its first thirty seconds. What you want isn't audio. You want the words, as text, where you'll see them, with nothing to move and nothing to type.
What I builtTap, say it, tap
Chalk is a one-tap recorder that gets what you said into the records. Tap the red button, talk, tap it again. The note saves to the phone every second while you talk, so a dead battery or a phone call loses a second or two, never the note. It works with no signal, and it sends the next time the app is open and has some. A walkthrough is the same thing with photos: talk, shoot, and each photo joins the note you were talking through. A meeting works the same way, with a banner that tells the room.
Then it leaves the phone. My Mac pulls every new recording, turns it into text with Whisper, on the Mac, and files the text in an inbox folder. No audio goes to a transcription service. The next time I look, the words are waiting, and my agents can read them too.
Nothing to move, nothing to type.
How it worksThree beats
- Tap. One red button, the last thing on every screen, in thumb reach. Tap, talk, tap. The screen stays on, and the note is saved to the phone every second while you talk. If the app is killed mid-note, the next open closes the note and says where it was cut.
- Send. With the app open and signal, it uploads in slices, and the server checks the finished file on arrival by its fingerprint. With no signal it waits on the phone and the screen says so. Photos and short videos travel the same way.
- Land. My Mac pulls what's new, transcribes it with Whisper on the Mac, converts the photos, and files each capture as a record and a plain text file in its inbox folder. The server deletes its copy within fourteen days after the Mac has it.
What it replacedVoice memos, AirDrop, and retyping
Before, a note was a memo on a phone that I had to remember, move and retype, and mostly it was nothing at all. Now a thought on a dog walk is text on my Mac the next time it pulls. Each company's recordings stay in their own folder from the phone to the Mac, so one business's records never mix with another's. One honest line: the draft report a walkthrough is supposed to end in isn't built yet. Today the output is the words and the photos, filed. The report is the next arc.
On the recordThe facts, the same for every one I build
- The problem
- Things I know while driving or walking, lost, or retyped later from memory.
- What we built
- A one-tap recorder for notes, walkthroughs with photos, and meetings. It saves to the phone every second, sends when the app has signal, and lands on my Mac as text.
- How long
- One day. Specified, built and on my phone on October 29, 2026. Eleven rounds since, each from my own use.
- Running since
- October 29, 2026, on my own phone. Invite only, at chalk.pbhq.app.
- By the numbers
- 75 recordings: 60 notes, 9 walkthroughs and 6 meetings, October 30 to November 3, 2026, as my Mac's inbox counts them, test runs included.
- What it replaced
- Voice memos, AirDrop, and retyping from memory.
- Built for
- Me, first. This is a shakedown: me alone, until nothing is lost and a note reads right without replaying it. Two small businesses I work with come next.
- Made of
- A web app that installs from the browser, one small server on Fly with its own disk, no dependencies, and Whisper on my Mac for the words. No audio goes to a transcription service.
