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

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171–180 of 317 posts

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

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! We want to build something flexible where users can define their own custom objects and fields. We were thinking about leveraging Hasura that's already providing a flexible graphql API based on metadata which is exactly what we need / will need to build in the future. However, there are three reasons that pushed us to go through a different way: 1) We want to build a cloud version which is multitenant (I person…

The multitenant sharing of one large table with uuid seems rather crazy.

An index on all 500 fields!

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! We want to build something flexible where users can define their own custom objects and fields. We were thinking about leveraging Hasura that's already providing a flexible graphql API based on metadata which is exactly what we need / will need to build in the future. However, there are three reasons that pushed us to go through a different way: 1) We want to build a cloud version which is multitenant (I person…

The multitenant sharing of one large table with uuid seems rather crazy.

I'm rather worried about having a large table being able to accommodate for any custom object than the fact it is multi-tenant, we could shard by tenant_id quite easily.

I might be missing your point and I'm far from being a database expert. Would you give me more details about what challenge you have in mind?

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

#173

This looks very promising. Excited to see how Twenty develops over the next years! I think they key is to nail the data model and make sure replicating stuff from people's products and matching it with outside conversations (email, phone etc..) works smoothly

Thanks so much! Agreed 100%. Data sync has been in the top of our list since day one. We are still thinking of the best way to build it to make it work smoothly though.

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

#174

Looks interesting, i think i'll give it a try. BTW your Github readme says: A CRM that ban self-hosted for free, on your own network and close to your data sources. You might want to correct that one :)

Haha! Yes, fixing it, thank you!

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

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! We want to build something flexible where users can define their own custom objects and fields. We were thinking about leveraging Hasura that's already providing a flexible graphql API based on metadata which is exactly what we need / will need to build in the future. However, there are three reasons that pushed us to go through a different way: 1) We want to build a cloud version which is multitenant (I person…

Ah, yep that makes complete sense if you want to per-tenant schemas. My app is multi-tenant but all have the same schema. We use a customer_id column that's matched against the JWT's customer_id token to ensure that no data is shared inadvertently by a dev missing adding a WHERE clause. Thanks for the SF link, that's quite interesting. It seems bonkers to me to throw away all the advantages of the RDMS but you can't…

A middle ground I've encountered in an ERP system (prophet21 if you're interested) was each table had multiple "CUSTOM_XX" columns that were initially blank. Customers could edit their UI and would drag/drop the custom columns onto the appropriate form and change the label to be whatever they'd like. That gave them some flexibility but kept the core schema coherent.

> Interesting, I will look into that, thank you!

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

#176
post #24

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 la…

You should evaluate close.com if not already. They have all the features you mentioned. We use them for sales for our business.

Close.com is already a great source of inspiration for their opinionated approach. We hope we can make the difference on UX in the short run and that community will bring much value for every user in the mid-run.

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

#177

Interesting how you choose typescript?

We have mainly chosen to use JS on the frontend and on the backend to lower the learning curve for people that would want to contribute / extend it to their own needs. Then typescript (with its limitations!) it our best shot on top of JS, especially as we are using GraphQL

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

#178
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why are they so successful in doing this. Why do organizations by default use Salesforce. I have never used nor worked at an organization that is built on top of Salesforce. Just a regular web dev.

> I have never used nor worked at an organization that is built on top of Salesforce. You probably do. Salesforce has all kinds of different products from Slack to Mulesoft and Tableau. Salesforce starts their pipeline by solving one problem, making that work well from a business ROI perspective, and then they pitch you on another and another and another with package pricing. This is basically the Oracle model and ho…

Workday is not Salesforce. The rest, yes.

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

#179
My team develops our company's own homegrown internal CRM. It manages basically everything about the company, and contacts themselves is a very tiny part: there're marketing campaigns, followups, accounting, incoming/outcoming calls management, our products' entire licensing/subscription system (neatly integrated into everything else), tech support, inbox/outbox, activities, contacts, leads/lead events, analytics, the backend of the shopping cart on the site (products, pricing, discounts), the reseller portal, integrations with various vendors including payment systems, A/B testing etc. -- to name a few, off top of my head.

Before me, there was an attempt to migrate to Dynamics CRM but our current CRM we've being developing for 15 years has so many custom rules/quirks/etc. eventually they abandoned the attempt because of the huge scope and the difficulty to reimplement millions of lines of custom logic in a proprietary CRM.

Before I joined the team, the CRM's development didn't follow best practices and now it's very hard to maintain and update, due to architectural problems aka "big ball of mud". Another issue is that it was not designed to be extendable, every small rule the business comes up with is hardcoded in the code, and so there's no way to configure things somewhere in the UI with least amount code possible.

So if I was to migrate our CRM to an open source engine/core, the following is a list of things I would want to see:

1) good modular internal design/API so that it was possible to easily add custom complex logic/flows

2) design/API which is extendable and doesn't have hardcoded logic/doesn't assume your company's flows

3) allows to configure as much as possible from the UI

4) an ecosystem of plugins/some sort of marketplace, with, again, solid, standardized API

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

#180
post #178
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never used nor worked at an organization that is built on top of Salesforce. You probably do. Salesforce has all kinds of different products from Slack to Mulesoft and Tableau. Salesforce starts their pipeline by solving one problem, making that work well from a business ROI perspective, and then they pitch you on another and another and another with package pricing. This is basically the Oracle model and ho…

Workday is not Salesforce. The rest, yes.

You're right! My mistake.
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