About Frienemi
We build the software
your club night runs on.
Frienemi is made by two people in Perth. It runs a club's social sessions, its roster and its membership fees, across tennis, badminton, pickleball, padel, squash and table tennis — and it wasn't what we set out to build. That story is further down this page, because a committee deciding whether to trust us deserves the real one.
- Short Technology Pty Ltd
- registered in Australia
- Perth, WA
- where it's built and answered
- Two people
- both of them write the code
- Your club's own Stripe
- we never hold the money
How we got here
The first version of Frienemi wasn't club software.
It was built for players. The bet was that finding a good game is the hard part — so the app put a rating on everyone, found you someone nearby at your level, and pointed everything it had at that one moment.
That isn't what people used it for. The sessions that filled up were the ones a club had already put on: the Tuesday social, the Thursday badminton night, the round-robin a committee had been running on a whiteboard and a group chat for years. Players weren't arriving to be matched with a stranger. They were arriving because their club was there — and they stayed because their club stayed.
So in August 2026 we stopped selling what we'd planned and started building what was being used. Very little went in the bin — the ratings, the courts, the scoring and the shuffled rounds all came out of that first version — but the product they belong to changed. Frienemi is now the app a club runs its sessions, its roster, its memberships and its fees on, and we sell it to committees rather than to players.
We'd rather tell you that than pretend it was the plan all along. You're being asked to put your members and your members' money through software made by two people; an accurate account of how it got here is the least we owe you.
“People used the app because their club put a session on it. Once we could see that, carrying on with the other thing would have been a decision to ignore our own users.”
Long Nguyen · Founder
What we're for
Make running the club night easier than organising it.
A club night is run by volunteers, on a Sunday, from a phone. Somebody counts the RSVPs in a group chat, somebody writes the pairings on paper, somebody chases the four people who still owe last season's dues. That work is the product — not finding a game.
So the job is to take a night end to end: post the session once, members RSVP, walk-ins get added at the gate, the rounds shuffle fairly across your courts, the standings update as scores come in, and the whole night exports to a CSV your treasurer can open. Alongside it, the roster, the announcements, the club chat, and — if the committee wants it — the memberships, session and guest fees, collected by card into the club's own account.
And the part that came from the old version, which we kept because players kept asking for it: the results follow the player. Their rating, their history and the club board move with them across all six sports.
Your members, your money
Yours, and it stays yours.
The two questions a committee is actually accountable for. Short answers here; the binding ones are in the policies.
The money never passes through us
Membership dues, session and guest fees are paid into a Stripe account in your club's name, connected by your own committee. Frienemi doesn't hold your funds and can't move them — payouts land in the club's bank on Stripe's schedule, and the card fees are Stripe's, paid to Stripe. Taking payments at all is optional.
How club payments work →Your roster isn't a product we sell
We don't sell member data and there's no ad network in here — clubs paying us is how this company is funded, which is the only reason we can say that plainly. Your list came in as a CSV and it goes out as one, any time you ask, along with any session you've run.
The honest version
We're small,
and we're not hiding it.
You're considering a two-person company for something your members will notice if it goes wrong. Rather than promise you we'll be here forever, here is exactly what we're standing on.
Clubs pay us, and that's all
No advertising, no data sale, no third revenue line that would put your members' details to work for someone else. If clubs don't find this worth paying for, that is a signal we intend to hear rather than route around.
Free while you pilot, then a number in writing
Your pilot costs nothing. After it there's a founding rate for the clubs who came first, and we quote it to you before the pilot ends — no card on file, nothing that starts charging because a season ticked over. There's no price list on this site yet because we're agreeing those with Perth clubs right now.
You can see what we're doing
What's shipped is in the changelog, what's next is on the roadmap, and what committees ask for goes on the feedback board where you can read the queue you're joining.
You're not locked in
Your roster and every session you've run export to CSV on demand, and your money was never in our account to begin with. Leaving is a download, not a negotiation.
What we stand for
Four things we won't compromise on.
The club owns the club
Your members, your money and your list. Export the roster or a whole night to CSV whenever you like — including on the way out, if it comes to that.
Only what's switched on
If it's described on this website, it works today. We don't sell the roadmap, and we don't put a feature in a sales conversation because it's nearly finished.
A fair night, not a random one
Every player carries a live rating in each sport, so the rounds shuffle into courts that are actually close. The regulars notice this before they notice anything else.
A person replies
There's no support queue and no reseller. You email us and you get one of the two people whose names are further down this page.
Who built this
Two names, and both of them answer email.
Frienemi is built and run by Short Technology Pty Ltd, a company registered in Australia and working out of Perth. When you write to us, one of these two people is who writes back.
Builds the app end to end — the session engine and the shuffle, the ratings, and the club payments behind them.
hello@frienemi.comWorks with the clubs — the committees piloting it, what they need next, and shipping it.
hello@frienemi.comA note from the founder
Hey — I'm Long, a Perth player, and I wrote most of this app. I built the first version to solve my own problem, and then I watched clubs pick it up and use it for theirs. That was more useful than anything I'd planned, so I followed it.
If you're on a committee: I'd rather sit with you through one Tuesday night than send you a deck. Tell me what your night actually looks like — the whiteboard, the group chat, the four people who haven't paid — and I'll tell you honestly whether this helps yet.
— Long, building Frienemi from Perth
Run one night on it and see.
Set the club up, share the code, put your next social on it. That's the whole pilot — free while it runs, with your founding rate in writing before it ends.
Not on a committee? Here's the player's side.