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Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch

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41–50 of 147 posts

Re: Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch

#41
I've been looking for something like this for a while -- months.

The key for me -- other than privacy etc -- is that it be automated. It should take the info from my email, Facebook and maybe messenger/text and figure out who my friends are and who I have not been in touch with.

How does this decide whom to recommend to reach out to?

Re: Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch

#42
post #20

How do you plan to make money? Right now everything seems to be free. I'm asking because I hate to be surprised after investing time to curate a CRM.

There is a free tier now; we'll be building out the features of a premium tier ($7.99 / month) for other features. Since data is meant to be private and never shared, we're following a subscription model.

Why you are collecting personal contacts pervasively, then?

Re: Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch

#43
post #27

Do you have a privacy policy? I don't see anything on your landing page, or in the web app.

Yup, the privacy policy is on the start page ( https://getdex.com/start ) and can be found at https://getdex.com/privacypolicy . I'll work to make it more clear!

It took me awhile to literally find the exact same thing. What is your goal for monetization? This looks really nice, but how do you plan to make this viable in the long run? You can have a million users and still lose money. Just look at Uber as an idea of how not to build a company!

Re: Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch

#44
post #30

Oh my god I have had the same idea and have hacked on the first pass. Yes. Keep going ! It's a good idea. 1. Tiny bit confused over whether I was signing up or logging in. 2. I can't read their names on my phone (portrait mode). Landscape is ok. Maybe reduce the font size or something 3. What's the algorithm for displaying the recommend "get in touch"? Some people are friends I have a beer with some Inhomestly can no…

Appreciate the product feedback -- it's super actionable. We haven't completed a full-on email integration yet because we want to be relatively conservative and make an email integration opt-in (but to come son!) The algorithm is primarily focused on your calendar data and when you've last had an event (if you don't use your calendar, these recommendations might not be great but will get better as you snooze/check of…

Some more notes

1. You recommend I get in touch with me ... and I am only third on the list :-)

2. I generally don't book events / calendar things. It's one of the reasons i think focusing on emails is so useful - I do those all the time and there is digital footprint that can be used to help me (as opposed to sell me ads)

3. Maybe I missed something but I tried to click on the arrow and then the mail icon, but no mail popped up - I would like to send a mail right there and then as a minimum "get in touch"

Re: Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch

#45

I'm confused; it goes beyond the big, GP social networks by focusing on more meaningful relationships (how?) but I create them by pulling directly from these sources of relationships? What exactly is a "personal" CRM that doesn't focus on selling? A curated address book? >> Most people realize the value and fulfillment that come from maintaining relationships, but occasionally still fall out of touch due to forgetful…

Your expectations for performance in this task might be easily met by your background-level/automatic ability, but others will have either higher expectations or lower ability and a tool might make the difference.

Re: Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch

#46

I've been looking for something like this for a while -- months. The key for me -- other than privacy etc -- is that it be automated. It should take the info from my email, Facebook and maybe messenger/text and figure out who my friends are and who I have not been in touch with. How does this decide whom to recommend to reach out to?

Right now the recommendations are based on your calendar history and your past activity with recommendations -- we're hoping to include more signals as we develop ways to ingest this data.

One of the biggest challenges is the interesting integrations (Facebook/SMS/etc) aren't super easy to do (unless we straight up ask for credentials!). It's an area we're still working on, as more automation is the most requested direction of features.

Re: Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch

#47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free =/= open source. What these HN types you are so aggravated by are asking for is open source (not free as in beer) software, which some (like me) consider an ethical imperative.

Can you explain why having the source code to the software you run is an "ethical imperative"?

See the entire exhausting body of "Open Source is not Free Software" arguments from fsf apologists. RMS literally stated once he wanted proprietary software to be illegal.

Properly answering the question you asked is a whole can of worms, much like asking "vim or emacs" or "macOS or Windows or Linux" or maybe even "python or ruby or rust / go?".

Re: Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch

#49
Well, I plan to built this since last year, but haven't got energy to actually build that. Congratulations on launching!

From the website it seems that your MVP is a Chrome extension. A lot of time I remember to keep in touch with my friends are when I'm outside, away from my keyboard. When using computer my mind is habituated for works and leisures. Do you have any plan to build apps for mobile?

Re: Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch

#50
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep up the good work. Some HN types beg for freeware and yet wonder why they cant escape the rat race. Quality software should be rewarded and should not be free of cost.

Free =/= open source. What these HN types you are so aggravated by are asking for is open source (not free as in beer) software, which some (like me) consider an ethical imperative.

I agree with open source =/= free but what most comments like “open source alternative to” mean is exactly that. HN is a forum promoting ideas both for the benefit of everyone and / or commercial, yet each time someone showcases their work there is someone posting a “free alternative” post as if it’s meant to mean something. Cargo culting open source is really not doing anyone a favour and instead it is pushing more and more entrepreneurs types away from hackernews. Unless some drug maker made a commercial drug to cure cancer and someone else made a free open alternative to it, i really don't care about free github star whoring on hn.
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