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Launch HN: Twenty.com (YC S23) – Open-source CRM

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Re: Launch HN: Twenty.com (YC S23) – Open-source CRM

#21

Post by esafak »

paxys wrote: post #16

The biggest mistake a competitor can make is thinking Salesforce is a CRM. They may sell themselves as one, but that is just to get a foothold in a company's sales system. Salesforce actually sells (1) an ecosystem that lets your company connect to any other software out there and (2) a platform on which you can build...basically anything. These two together ensure that every one of their customers is 100% locked in…

You can say the same thing (lock in) about any product that has migration costs. If everybody thought that way nothing would get built. I say to Felix: just do it, but think about these problems.

Fortunately there is a whole field of business devoted to this problem: go-to-market strategy. Target a niche, offer a compatible product, offer a significantly better product, offer a different product, offer a cheaper product ... the options are endless.

Re: Launch HN: Twenty.com (YC S23) – Open-source CRM

#22

Post by marpstar »

paxys wrote: post #16

The biggest mistake a competitor can make is thinking Salesforce is a CRM. They may sell themselves as one, but that is just to get a foothold in a company's sales system. Salesforce actually sells (1) an ecosystem that lets your company connect to any other software out there and (2) a platform on which you can build...basically anything. These two together ensure that every one of their customers is 100% locked in…

Accurate. The licensing (and the "kill switch") at a previous job were controlled entirely via Salesforce. Our app would "phone home" regularly to check which features are being paid for and we'd toggle them on and off in our app accordingly.

I had, at the same company, been asked to evaluate building Salesforce apps (using the custom programming language they provide) and contrasting that with building new apps on our own metadata-driven platform.

Developers hate it, business people love it. It won't be going away for lack of paying customers, that's for sure.

Re: Launch HN: Twenty.com (YC S23) – Open-source CRM

#23

Post by iFelix »

paxys wrote: post #16

The biggest mistake a competitor can make is thinking Salesforce is a CRM. They may sell themselves as one, but that is just to get a foothold in a company's sales system. Salesforce actually sells (1) an ecosystem that lets your company connect to any other software out there and (2) a platform on which you can build...basically anything. These two together ensure that every one of their customers is 100% locked in…

100% agree. And we are not there yet. But I feel like open source is the best answer to 1 (building an ecosystem of integrations), and that it will also allow us to build a better platform for developers (2): why learn Aura components/Apex when you already know and can use Typescript/React?

Re: Launch HN: Twenty.com (YC S23) – Open-source CRM

#24

Post by xupybd »

We are currently evaluating CRM packages. This is probably a bit too in development for me to recommend but I'll let you know our internal requirements so you have one extra data point in the market.

Phone integration is huge for us. We need the CRM to respond to an incoming call by bringing up the contacts details if it recognises the number. We also need a log that the cal began, was answered by, and how long it lasted. If we could do that on cell phones it would be amazing.

The next thing would be ecommerce integration followed by integration with our accounting system. Both need to feed contacts and contact details into the CRM. What have they ordered, how much have they spent. What are their payment terms.

After that it's all just notes.

Oh, and we would need SLAs with good up time and data protection.

Re: Launch HN: Twenty.com (YC S23) – Open-source CRM

#25

Post by marpstar »

esafak wrote: post #21
paxys wrote: post #16

The biggest mistake a competitor can make is thinking Salesforce is a CRM. They may sell themselves as one, but that is just to get a foothold in a company's sales system. Salesforce actually sells (1) an ecosystem that lets your company connect to any other software out there and (2) a platform on which you can build...basically anything. These two together ensure that every one of their customers is 100% locked in…

You can say the same thing (lock in) about any product that has migration costs. If everybody thought that way nothing would get built. I say to Felix: just do it, but think about these problems. Fortunately there is a whole field of business devoted to this problem: go-to-market strategy. Target a niche, offer a compatible product, offer a significantly better product, offer a different product, offer a cheaper prod…

Right, but the bigger the organization, the larger those costs. Think of a city of Los Angeles switching to a new system for tracking their public works department versus a township of 3,000 people. Smaller orgs are much more tolerant to this. New orgs start small and don't need something huge like Salesforce immediately; they need something usable.

Re: Launch HN: Twenty.com (YC S23) – Open-source CRM

#26

Post by blast »

iFelix wrote: post #12
blast wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://app.twenty.com/ just gives me a blank page right now in multiple browsers.

Sorry. It was down a few minutes ago but should be back now? Could you trying clearing the cache (cmd + shift + r)?

Yes, that worked, and I was able to get in with a throwaway email.

Re: Launch HN: Twenty.com (YC S23) – Open-source CRM

#27

Post by collinc777 »

marpstar wrote: post #22
paxys wrote: post #16

The biggest mistake a competitor can make is thinking Salesforce is a CRM. They may sell themselves as one, but that is just to get a foothold in a company's sales system. Salesforce actually sells (1) an ecosystem that lets your company connect to any other software out there and (2) a platform on which you can build...basically anything. These two together ensure that every one of their customers is 100% locked in…

Accurate. The licensing (and the "kill switch") at a previous job were controlled entirely via Salesforce. Our app would "phone home" regularly to check which features are being paid for and we'd toggle them on and off in our app accordingly. I had, at the same company, been asked to evaluate building Salesforce apps (using the custom programming language they provide) and contrasting that with building new apps on o…

Apex is nightmare fuel

Re: Launch HN: Twenty.com (YC S23) – Open-source CRM

#29

Post by iFelix »

mikercampbell wrote: post #19

I love this! Having been the “Salesforce guy” at a few companies, it’s good to see people working to solve those problems. As a developer, I’m eager to have a solution that limits sales teams constructively. The ability to add, edit, and delete fields and properties on the fly made creating maintainable client software difficult. It will be cool to see how you go about it!

Thanks! We plan to add custom fields in August. Super interesting feedback. There's indeed a balance to strike between: - easy to configure by everyone which ends up in a mess - full config-as-code and developers become a bottleneck Hasura is an example of an app that started as UI-driven and I feel is becoming more code-driven. Probably a frequent natural path as product evolve and move from SMB to Enterprise. Since the CRM buyer is often the Head of Sales, we'll have to be smart to sell them the more restrictive path!
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