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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

#101

Post by sb8244 »

iFelix wrote: post #23
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?

The ecosystem is really not about Aura/Apex. I think the API is a bigger piece. Pretty much everything in Salesforce can be controlled via the API.

That isn't even the big challenge though. The biggest challenge is getting people to build for your platform. If a sales team uses 10+ integrations (it's honestly probably 20-50), then they will pick a platform that supports 9-10 of their integrations.

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

#102

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

iFelix wrote: post #96
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What issues did you face with Blocknote?

It isn't easily extensible (we wanted to be able to add images with drag-n-drop). From the moment you need to extend, it felt like it was faster to rebuild things directly with TipTap

Thanks

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

#104

Post by scrapcode »

SystemOut wrote: post #54
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…

Replace Salesforce and CRM with ServiceNow and ITSM and it's a similar story. They call it "Land and Expand". There's a reason they have a 99% or so renewal rate.

ServiceNow can't be worse than BMC Remedy... I hope.

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

#105

Post by pclark »

Lots of comments about salesforce app exchange, but I will say, as someone (unfortunately) very familiar with Salesforce and also startups ... I think there is a huge opportunity here.

The Salesforce schema of opportunities is incredibly out dated for modern software companies — you only need to look at the explosion of "PLG CRMs" in the past few years — I think there is a massive opportunity for a CRM that integrates natively with Segment/Posthog to onboard event data.

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

#106

Post by iFelix »

tin7in wrote: post #100

My 2 cents as a founder evaluating CRMs. I would prefer to not use Salesforce until I have to - I know it's expensive, slow, and hard to customize. At the same SF users who I know tell me that nothing else works for orgs of above 100 people. The demo looks great and I like that you are focusing on UX and performance - I would expect Linear-like experience for a tool I use every day. I would prefer a hosted version (m…

Good points thank you. Right now we are starting to work with companies in our YC batch which have relatively simple needs, probably like yours (founders doing sales, less than 1000 contacts, etc.). Our goal is to deliver fast enough so that these companies never outgrow us and have to switch. Not saying it will be easy to keep that pace given the breadth of features/integrations that becomes required as you grow, but we'll do our best!

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

#108

Post by samanator »

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…

> The actual CRM part (basically tables of data with a UI) is trivial

Although I agree with the general sentiment, I disagree with this. I've tried out over 100 low-code ui builder over the past year (including creatio,Corteza,ERPNext,Baserow,tadabase,appsmith,nocodb,mathesar,bubble, etc.) and so far none of them have perfected "excel like ease with the power of a database".

If anyone has any suggestions, (that's not on my list https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15Pg6y11JscBMK-PK06f7... ), please let me know!

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

#109

Post by jklinger410 »

iFelix wrote: post #7
jklinger410 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is disqualifying, for me. I tried to view the CRM and it asked me to log in. There are a lot of dark patterns just at first blush that make this feel spammy.

Sorry about this. Our focus for this launch was the Github repo / local setup, I should have made that more clear. We haven't launched to non-developer audience yet, that's why our marketing website redirects to a waiting list. If you want to try the app quickly you can just go to app.twenty.com and put a fake email address if you don't want to give yours. The signup is quick.

I just want you to know that I appreciate you coming in here an addressing people's comments. HN is a tough crowd, so don't take it too personally.

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

#110

Post by iFelix »

sb8244 wrote: post #99

I will say this whenever I can: Salesforce has a moat because of their ecosystem. Full stop. You must create an amazing ecosystem to compete. But creating that ecosystem is incredibly difficult. Honestly, my opinion for how you could maybe make it work in open-source is to recreate the Salesforce API. That's a HUGE effort though, as it has a big surface. (I wonder how much of that is intentional to make it so others…

I mentioned it in another comment but Odoo is one of the best example of how open source could help us build that ecosystem. It has allowed them to work with a network of web agencies that customize and implement their solution

Product surface is huge indeed! That's why we're only starting with a small/focused piece.

[1] https://github.com/odoo/odoo

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