
Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family - robinhood
https://monicahq.com
======
robinhood
Founder here. Here to answer any questions you might have. The site is not
perfect, it's not mobile optimized, there are probably bugs, there is a
gazillion features missing, no APIs but it's a labour of love, open-source and
I hope it will help people other than me. I want to grow this product but I
need to know what you need, people. Edit: sorry for the bugs I see on my
server popping here and there. Didnt expect that much users and traffic.

~~~
cosinetau
This product is dangerous to privacy. It's easy to imagine how this data could
be exploited if Monica is sold to Facebook, Google, etc.

How are you working to guarantee my data is protected from any manner use
outside my own?

~~~
confounded
As these things go, the privacy policy is excellent, and can be read in under
a minute:

[https://monicahq.com/privacy.html](https://monicahq.com/privacy.html)

~~~
cmdkeen
It's not excellent. Nothing about data security, encryption at rest, and a
whole load of things that would be covered by GDPR (yes the service is
registered in Canada, but GDPR standards should be the benchmark now for what
is considered acceptable for anything).

This is an intriguing idea as a concept but feels like it isn't a sufficient
focus. The privacy page hasn't been updated in 18 months either, yet the
release notes mention encryption at rest (with very little detail) being added
in October 16.

~~~
lucb1e
Just as a data point, this is the first time I ever heard about GDPR. Not sure
it's "the minimum acceptable standard for anything".

~~~
M2Ys4U
If you have users in the EU/EEA then you _will_ have to comply, or risk a fine
of up to €20,000,000 or 4% of your _global_ turnover (whichever is larger).

------
danielvf
My uncle died suddenly this year. He was unbelievably caring - and not just to
family - but to everyone he ever met. His funeral was jam packed with everyone
from homeless people to executives of multi-billion dollar companies.

I always thought that his ability to always have you, and whatever you had
last talked about with him, on his mind at any moment was some kind of
supernatural gift. I was surprised to find out at his funeral that he actually
kept an excel spreadsheet of everyone he met and what they needed and were
going through. He reviewed this constantly.

It didn't lessen his genuine love for everyone, just let him be a little more
super human.

~~~
toomuchtodo
This is exactly what Facebook should be. An augmented agent to help us be more
helpful and empathetic to friends and family.

I'm sorry for your loss. Your uncle sounds like a great human being.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
This is what a lot of us who don't hate Zuck's guts actually do use FB for.

~~~
kbenson
It's not that I hate Zuckerberg that I find it hard to use Facebook, but that
I trust them less than the other super-presences outs there (justified or
not), and I dislike how it changes my perceptions of some of my friends. The
constant posting of inane shit starts to look less like keeping in touch and
more like an addiction to my eyes. I still like those people, and enjoy their
company, but being constantly exposed to their posts feels like being in their
living room as they crack open that 8 AM beer after waking up. It gets
uncomfortable, but it's also not something I'm sure it's my place to butt
into, since to this point it appears mostly harmless.

It _is_ the best tool to keep in contact we currently have though, so I do pop
in every week or two to check on notifications. The times I go longer I end up
missing events friends have put together and not notified in other ways about,
so I try to remember to check in fairly regularly.

I only hope they don't swing their attention towards those of us that shun the
feed any time soon, and try to find a way to tweak our reward response for
that as well (or at least in a more effective way. I'm sure they've put at
least some attention to it).

~~~
WorldMaker
I still sometimes wonder if anyone else has a good name for what Facebook lost
somewhere in the switch between the much more ephemeral "Status" system of
2004's TheFacebook to today's "Posts" and their littered, ad-filled home the
"News Feed".

Even the "Notes" system in the middle of the transition was more "opt in" than
firehose and a bit more rare and curated by the fewer users using it.

There is a spirit to the old systems lost to the new ones that I can't quite
name. In the rush to increase communication overall, and build an addictive
platform that people feel a need to check often, perhaps too much of the
signal has been drowned out in noise. But that doesn't feel a strong
description either because the signals become so different, too.

~~~
losteric
Separation of responsibilities?

Statuses were great as a brief update of a friend's change in their state of
mind. I could follow up as I saw fit, often just keeping it in mind for the
next time we met up.

Posts and news is just a steady steam of information... repeated opinions,
content that forms their opinion, attempts at converting others, or minor
events that would have been interesting to talk about but bland now that I've
seen the highlights online... Often in impersonal monologue form, or equally
impersonal many-to-many chat.

Those features gutted the middle of the friend spectrum, their UX no longer
aligns with natural social patterns. Humans talk more and about different
things as we become closer friend's, slowly acclimating to each other.
Facebook is optimized for tight social groups. News posts are useful for my
inner group, but I had to unfriend most of my more nebulous connections
because their updates were basically spam in the context of my life.

Facebook's features no doubt provides better revenue from ads/targeted spam
for shareholders, but they've lost what I found useful for networking and
developing new relations. If anything, their new features are impediments.

At this point, I've completely dropped Facebook in favor of email and chat
(mix of apps)... It's a better experience than Facebook news and posts,
obvious data privacy wins, and my friends and I can share higher resolution
pictures without coupling to any specific platform. I haven't found a good
alternative for networking, aside from LinkedIn (okish) and plain ol' phone
calls/sms/in-store meetups. Maybe that's the best there is.

~~~
WorldMaker
I think this gets close to the meat of it, yes. TheFacebook in 2004 was still
something closer to its yearbook metaphor: here's the people I met this year
in college and here's what they wrote on my yearbook that year.

I guess the real emblematic touch point of the change over the years is much
more from each person's "Wall" being the important push hubs of conversations
to the "Wall" being subsumed by the modern "Timeline" and relegated to an
annual flurry of birthday well-wishers and not much else.

That opt-in push mentality versus opt-out pull mentality is quite different:
I'm going to go post this cool thing on my friend's wall BECAME I'm going to
post this cool thing and maybe all of my friends might see it in their news
feeds (if the algorithms deem it maybe worthy and my friends haven't muted
me).

Maybe that's why "Events" still seems like one of the bright spots in
Facebook? "Events" for the most part still retains a lot of an "opt-in push
mentality"; for the most part you still create an event and explicitly invite
friends to it. Certainly the News Feed has the pull sort of events and the
"I'm Interested" interest pull buttons, but the events I really care about
still follow that classic push model, and probably always will...

In TheFacebook we delegated responsibility to post things we cared about to
our Walls to our friends. In Facebook we find that responsibility to curate
the things we care about in our News Feeds has been delegated to algorithms
and advertisers somewhat beyond our control.

~~~
nitemice
I think the new equivalent of "I'm going to go post this cool thing on my
friend's wall" is "I'm going to send this to my friend on Messenger", although
that can be borderline too once you start talking about groups with more than
two people.

I agree Events is the highlight of Facebook these days. Although, it has been
steadily corroded as well, and FB Messenger's Plans has muddied the waters a
fair chunk.

------
rsync
I built one of these for myself in 1995 and have been happily using it ever
since. Here's the source code:

    
    
      0 0 19 7 *      /usr/bin/mail -s "REMINDER: john T. birthday" me@mydomain.com
      0 0 1 8 *       /usr/bin/mail -s "REMINDER: MAKE xmas hotel reservations NOW for good pricing..." me@mydomain.com

~~~
rak00n
Could you explain how it works? I wonder what 0 0 19 7 * means.

~~~
nolok
It's a unix/linux crontab, for repetitive task. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron)

It's minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week

In this case, repeat every 19th of july at midnight.

~~~
karmelapple
This is why I like HN, and why it continues to be a much-higher-quality place
to visit on the web than many other forums: there were no snarky replies, no
"I can't believe you don't know cron" \- just multiple friendly, helpful
replies explaining exactly what this format is.

What a good community.

~~~
HeavyStorm
Actually my first thought was - that guy was a smart-ass showing off. Of
course many people wouldn't know a crontab line - Windows (and I guess Mac -
never had one) don't have such magical tools.

~~~
laingc
Mac has cron. It's pretty standard on *NIX systems.

~~~
atmosx
Yeah but is superseded by launchd. So although it has cron, it's not running
by default for many years.

------
rrggrr
IMHO: You want to pivot this product, now, to compete with
ourfamilywizard.com. OFW is a great concept but the site runs slow, its search
and reporting is erratic and basic, and the UI can be difficult. It is,
however, the only game in town for managing divorced families and its about
$200 per year. It also features:

\- Timestamped and hashed communications and records. \- Lower price point
than OFW. \- More intuitive reporting.

This will NOT have widespread appeal under its current use, and will be tough
to make money from.

~~~
robinhood
Thanks for pointing out to this site. There is probably a lot of good ideas to
take from it.

~~~
parhamn
> There is probably a lot of good ideas to take from it.

They might actually be robinhood.

------
cperciva
Is anyone else getting a dystopian vibe from the idea of "managing" friends
and family?

I can definitely see this service being useful, but that branding makes me
feel very uncomfortable.

~~~
robinhood
I know :-/ Sorry about this, I'm trying to find the best way to explain what
it does, without using a boring video that sucks, or poetic terms that say
nothing. If you have any idea, please, please let me know :-D

~~~
anigbrowl
The product is super cool and useful, although I hope you won't limit it to
being a single-user thing because it could actually evolve into an amazing
social tool. But I would really lose the word 'manage', it kind of suggests
that personal relations are just another kind of task which is apt to make the
people being related to feel devalued because they're not important enough to
be given space in someone's day-to-day consciousness.

 _poetic terms that say nothing_

?!

If poetic terms say nothing then why is poetry (both literary and lyrical, as
in songs) so popular? Social relations are not purely functional or
transactional, although they often have those aims or characteristics.
Friendship and warm familial relations are based on feelings. I often say that
hackers need to develop better emotional intelligence and this is a good
example.

Would you take someone on a date and say 'statistics indicate that we have a
high degree of socioeconomic compatibility and synergistic aesthetic appeal,
suggesting that we should pursue a merger strategy so as to maximize our
mutual future advantage?' Most people would prefer to hear something along the
lines of 'I love you and want to marry you.'

I understand that your product is aimed at busy people who are invested in
their work and want to handle their social relations at least as well as their
business ones. But you need to be cognizant of their _motivations_ for doing
that; because they like, love and generally care about the people in their
lives that lie outside their career. It is that drive which might move someone
to start using your product, and you must appeal to that drive, which is an
emotional one, in emotional terms.

Incidentally, calling it Monica carries connotations of having an assistant
called Monica that helps you remember those little personal obligations and
although I'm sure you didn't intend this it gives me a sort of sexist vibe
because historically such tasks have often been delegated to stereotypically
female subordinates by busy executives (think Pepper Potts in the Iron Man
story franchise).

Even though both men and women seem to prefer female identities for things
like GPS and virtual assistants, a gendered brand identity like this is likely
to limit your appeal to one half of the population straight out of the gate.
The brand values you wish to attach to your product are reliability, loyalty,
and patience, so it would be worth your while to dig through mythology and
fiction in search of characters who are associated with those qualities and
then develop variations from any particularly inspiring name stems you
encounter so as to leverage those psychic associations.

~~~
robinhood
You know what I meant. I didn't imply poetry meant nothing. Of course not. But
I see SAAS more and more describing their product in ways that are too
marketing to me. I prefer to go straight to the point.

Regarding the gender, I don't know what to think about this. It's not by any
mean a way to degrade women. I will definitely consider choosing another name
because I understand how some people could be offended by that, which is not
at all my intention, ever.

~~~
anigbrowl
Of course I know what you meant, but I'm trying to give you some free branding
advice that would substantially increase the likely uptake for your tool.I am
not a marketing oriented person either, but successful businesses often spend
about the same money/effort on marketing as they do on product development.
That's certainly the magic formula in the film industry - 50% on the
production and 50% on the ad campaign.

~~~
robinhood
I agree and thanks a lot for your comment. I know I should be much better at
marketing, it's nearly the most important criteria for a software to succeed.

------
Arkdy
You might be interested in _friends(1)_ which is a cli implementation of
something similar :)

I really liked how it showed you simple stats on your interactions and did
some clever text analysis so you could make entries as regular sentences.

(1)
[https://github.com/JacobEvelyn/friends](https://github.com/JacobEvelyn/friends)

~~~
robinhood
Oh wow!!! Thanks so much for the link, it looks amazing.

------
wink
Call me cynical, but I find the term CRM pretty wrong. Yes, I understand what
it does, people have been keeping track of this stuff (if I read the intro
page correctly) for ages, and still I find this borderline creepy and
overengineered.

Disclaimer: I am using e.g. Facebook's "On this day" feature to reminisce
about old stuff with friends, I also keep birthdays in a calendar. Maybe just
the professional spin puts me off :)

~~~
robinhood
I understand what you mean. I don't like it either, but I've yet to find
another way of explaining quickly what it does. A CRM for friends is very
explanatory. But I dislike the creepiness of it.

~~~
wink
Also maybe it's a not-a-native-speaker thing, but your use of "Manage
significant others" gave me a good chuckle because all I could think of at
first how it can help to hide your affair from your spouse. :)

~~~
robinhood
Ah ah - well. Definitely a non native speaker thing. If you want to help fine
tune the marketing site, it's open source too.
[https://github.com/monicahq/monicahq.github.io](https://github.com/monicahq/monicahq.github.io)

~~~
emwjacobson
To be fair, as a native speaker it still confused me off the bat, haha.

------
francis-io
Something self hosted, but with integrations with gmail would be very useful
for me (and something I would donate too). Push/pull from google calendar,
push/pull emails from a contact, grouping people, sending unique emails to
each member of a group. That kind of thing.

~~~
zeronight
Its on Github and is easy to selfhost. And yes I agree, adding "import from FB
would be awesome"

------
SomeHacker44
CRM? No... PRM... Personal Relationship Management. :)

~~~
robinhood
Is there such a thing? If there is, I'll switch the wording in no time :-D

~~~
wsinks
Don't worry about things not being a thing. You're making the thing

~~~
tobych
Okay, that made my day. Quotable.

------
tryitnow
Quick note to the founders: You need to add more genders. A lot of early
adopters in the Bay Area have friends who are non-binary or are non-binary
themselves. I don't want to be forced to mis-gender people who don't identify
as male or female.

~~~
robinhood
Definitely. My bad. The kind of stuff you don't think about when you are your
only user. I'll add that, as well as the possibility to not indicate gender at
all.

~~~
cyrus_
Instead of "gender", you should make it "preferred pronoun".

~~~
springogeek
I'd like both actually :)

------
positivecomment
Thanks for making this open-source. It seems to use Homestead for deployments
and Homestead apparently needs a VM. Is there a way to make this work without
a VM or have a docker file maybe?

~~~
robinhood
Well, I use Homestead because it's much more convenient. But you can use
anything that you want, as long as you have PHP and mySQL. MAMP, for instance,
XAMP, or really whatever. Have you heard of Valet
([https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/valet](https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/valet)) ?

~~~
positivecomment
No I'm very alien to the PHP ecosystem. Valet seems to be Mac-only. I'm a
happy Windows user who has some Linux servers to play around. It would be very
nice to have a step-by-step manual installation guide, then who knows, maybe
you would get a pull-request with a Dockerfile! :)

~~~
robinhood
This is where I need the community. I'm just a small Laravel amateur developer
who doesn't know much about Docker I love simple solutions and Laravel seemed
to me the easiest way to build something simple, and more importantly, easily
maintainable, which is the most important for me.

~~~
positivecomment
That's what I meant, I would contribute a dockerfile, which people may use to
run the application with one command. Would standard Laravel instructions to
deploy an app[1] help me here or do you need additional steps?

[1]: Maybe something like [https://medium.com/laravel-news/the-simple-guide-
to-deploy-l...](https://medium.com/laravel-news/the-simple-guide-to-deploy-
laravel-5-application-on-shared-hosting-1a8d0aee923e) (first thing I could
find)

~~~
peller
Just tried setting it up, pretty simple assuming you're comfortable with
Linux.

You need MySQL/MariaDB, PHP >= 5.5.9 (see composer.json, require section for
version requirements - worked with 7.1.x for me), node/npm, and composer
(typically installed from getcomposer.org)

Otherwise, directions at [https://github.com/monicahq/monica#setup-the-
project](https://github.com/monicahq/monica#setup-the-project) work with one
exception: I'm not familiar with laravel in particular, but I had to do some
funkyness with the the .env file:

Replace APP_KEY=SomeRandomString with a valid key, like this random one I
found on the internet:
APP_KEY=base64:i7QndWbN33zY1x013Yw2cju9KQsxpT/1nnf8/3ziZ+U=

Then run php artisan key:generate to get a new one.

(Set DB credentials in .env as well)

Finally, php artisan serve to fire up the dev server (uses php's builtin
server)

~~~
robinhood
Thanks for this. I think I can probably make the instructions better so you
can install it easily.

~~~
owlmirror
Edit: Just saw at Github that you are planning all that.
[https://github.com/monicahq/monica/issues/30](https://github.com/monicahq/monica/issues/30)

so nevermind

\---

Could you include in the instruction a way to set it up on a standalone apache
or nginx machine without homestead, docker and all that firlefanz. I would
like to just run it on my rusty cabinet server. \---

Great work though.

------
bravura
I would like a minimal CRM for super-connectors. People like investors,
promoters, etc. who traffic in relationships, and develop social capital from
making introductions.

When trying to make an introduction, it's exceedingly hard to search your
extensive network under certain criteria. Particularly if you want "fuzzy"
matching, i.e. not just restricted to a specific geography or tag (e.g.
"entrepreneur"), but looking for nearby geographies and tags.

[edit: Facebook has recently disabled Graph search features and it is
_exceedingly_ difficult even to figure out which of your friends is in a
particular city.]

~~~
wsinks
Good to know about Facebook.

I want what you want. I'd love to know if you ever find something!

Main question - how do you profit from being a super-connector? Or do you
never directly profit from it?

------
gklitt
If you're more into the terminal, a coworker of mine made a nifty tool that
does similar things but works with Markdown files and a CLI. For example:

$ friends add activity Got lunch with Grace and George.

[https://github.com/JacobEvelyn/friends](https://github.com/JacobEvelyn/friends)

------
thecrazyone
This (monica) is so manual that I signed up and got put off. I don't feel the
tool giving me a leverage. It increases my effort. I want more value for same
effort that I already put in (or better, for lesser effort).

Case in point, 1) offer to import my contacts from my phone, email, FB,
linkedin, etc. I'm not typing that sh*t in.

2) Pull call logs from my phone, I'm not manually entering that either. Are
you crazy?

3) Birthdays from FB

4) activities from other apps. Like movie together from bookmyshow (a popular
app where I live), etc

------
lcall
I like this idea. :) We could even collaborate if interested. For the very
same purposes, plus to organize everything else I want to, I wrote and use
OneModel (AGPL), creating inside it a calendar with ticklers, lists of gift
ideas or other ideas for activities, etc, all sorted by when I want to see
them or how I can most easily find them in a hierarchy. I have created a sort
of structure for things I might to remember about each person (journal of past
interactions, contact info, etc etc) that I also use for my dealings with some
businesses so I can revisit who said what when, if needed. And it can auto-
provide the structure in for future persons or organizations I add to my
contact list, but only when wanted. Same with anything else I want to track.

And it creates a soft of personal journal for me as a side-effect, by
exporting everything created (or archived) for date ranges, so my odd random
notes fit in also. It lets you optionally mark things as public or private,
export things as .txt outlines or an .html mini-web site, and (hopefully) soon
exchange info with others if desired. Self- or my-hosted.

Unfortunately, OM also lacks a nice video and installation is still manual
(some postgres config instructions then "java -jar...") until interest
warrants a real installer. I use it for _everything_ (no mobile support yet)
and it is _extremely_ efficient for a touch typist, and easy to learn as
everything is on the screen in menus generated context-sensitively on the fly.

Many details, download, FAQs and future plans at:
[http://onemodel.org](http://onemodel.org) .

~~~
oever
onemodel looks good. I'd love it as a knowledge graph editor that focuses on
information from a personal standpoint. Would be interesting to map the data
model to RDF.

Java has many good RDF libraries such as Jena.

~~~
lcall
If it had RDF export would that make you a user? I need feedback (eg, users)
now (along with some prettifying and installers). I invite you to join the
discussion list and continue this.

~~~
oever
If it roundtrips to RDF losslessly it certainly might. I like the konsole
interface and the idea of publishing a subset to a website.

~~~
lcall
Thanks for the comments. I'd be interested in why RDF is important (ideally,
on the OM discussion list :). To me, OM is better than the semantic web (on
which I am not an expert), for reasons I try to explain in OM's FAQs.

------
phantomlord
I would be very much interested in developing an Android app for this one
having developed a couple of them myself. Are you interested in tag teaming?

~~~
robinhood
While I don't know what tag teaming is, I would need to develop an API first
and foremost to let you actually do that. I'm planning to create an API in the
coming weeks.

------
confounded
This looks superb, thank you for building a great product with a non-hostile
privacy policy.

Before trusting my data/time with something, I generally like to understand
the motivations of the creators.

Do you intend to run this as a profit making business, or just as an open
source project? Do you have thoughts/opinions on monetization? How do you
intend to continue to develop it in the medium/long term?

~~~
robinhood
I intend to run this as a profit making business on the long run. How, I don't
know yet. I don't like the idea of restricting the number of contacts you can
have. Probably a paid plan for advanced features. I'm on this application for
the long run - and this is also one of the reasons I've open sourced it: if I
lose interest, the community will be in charge of developing it further. The
current license permits it.

------
psteinweber
Love it!

Feature requests and ideas are obviously not scarce today - I too have some
ideas after playing with it for a bit:

\- It would be great if there would be a place to set up a new activity that
includes multiple people. So entering a birthday party with 15 people is a bit
more practical than it is now. I first thought that's what the journal is
about, but it doesn't seem have this feature (yet?). Like it is now, the
journal seems not very useful at all to be honest.

\- I'd love to set up relationships (SO, children, and more) between
existing/full contacts, rather than the child and SO field setting up an
"elaborate note".

\- Do the notifications reach me in any way? Would be awesome to check a box
if I want a reminder via email or browser notification

Even without those features I can see myself using this. Thanks!

~~~
robinhood
Thanks a lot for your comment!

I love all your ideas you've mentioned there. I've created an issue about it:
[https://github.com/monicahq/monica/issues/118](https://github.com/monicahq/monica/issues/118)
. About the notifications, they all come by email at the moment. I'd love to
have a Telegram integration too.

------
joshstrange
Love this idea, the things that would really make it a no-brainer for me would
be ability to upload multiple photos for a contact (or in a note) and a
native/hybrid app. I could probably deal with the webapp on my phone but an
app with push notifications would be ideal IMHO.

~~~
robinhood
Why multiple photos for one contact? I get the importance of one photo, but
why multiple?

Yeah, if only I knew how to create mobile apps, I'd do it in a hearbeat. One
more thing I need to learn.

~~~
joshstrange
I can speak highly of Ionic for developing hybrid mobile apps using
HTML/JS/CSS

------
theknarf
Tried to signup with facebook and got the error: "The redirect_uri URL must be
absolute"

------
capex
Great idea, but I would've much preferred a mobile app for this, which could
sync my contacts automatically, log my calls to each contact and let me enter
notes. The desktop app seems good but seems like a lot of work for the user.

~~~
robinhood
I totally agree. I'll get there :-D

------
agentgt
The biggest problem I have with any productivity, life improvement tools, todo
lists, etc is not the tools themselves but getting past the apathy and
lethargy of not using said tools.

That is I just can't create good habits or care enough to use them even though
I know I could really improve my life if I did.

I would imagine its sort of like exercising (albeit I actually do do that).

Some never do it, some do it no matter what but the mass majority get on and
off the wagon. We do it for a short post New Years'-eve-like period and then
just eventually stop.

I need some way to force good habits like a drug (and yes I know about James
Clear who blogs about this).

------
sinistersnare
Why a web-app instead of a local application? Why does this need to be
connected to the internet, when it doesnt interact with anything?

Is it because you want to be able to sync to other devices, such as a phone
app in the future?

~~~
robinhood
Because I just know web stuff. I did some .net like 15 years ago, but now I
just know PHP and HTML, basically. Moreover, I'd love to create an app too,
which would require an API, which requires to be available online.

~~~
lucb1e
Well I'm glad this isn't .NET, or almost as bad, Electron. I think web is a
fine choice, provided it's open source and self-hostable for those who care.

~~~
UweSchmidt
What's wrong with .NET? Even if you don't like programming with it you'd get a
native application.

~~~
lucb1e
That I don't use Microsoft Windows.

~~~
GFischer
You're behind the times. .NET Core makes true cross-platform apps (at least
Windows, Macs and Linux).

Though the only way to create cross-platform desktop apps with .NET Core is
Electron, so yes, not good.

------
CitizenKane
Thank you so much for this! It's something that's been kicking around in the
back of my head for ages, but it was never a big enough priority for me to
tackle. I'll definitely be checking it out!

~~~
MrWhiz
Seconded! Today I am taking something off my software projects bucket list
that has been there since '03-'04\. Thank you! Thank you!

------
tombot
I think this product is Fantastic. One of the main jobs I hire FB for is
Birthdays, looking forward to using this:

Few tiny feature requests: \- Make the <title> of the page the person you are
looking at, really helps with multiple tabs. \- Filters for Gender & more
options for non-binary Gender would be great. \- Just been adding a bunch of
contacts, a tiny help would be when pasting a name into first name, to split
on space and put the second name in.

Hope you can find a way to add Paid features you keep this going over the long
term.

~~~
robinhood
Thanks a lot!

Excellent idea about the <title> tab. I've created an issue about it
([https://github.com/monicahq/monica/issues/45](https://github.com/monicahq/monica/issues/45)).
For the other stuff, it was already on the pipeline. Thanks :-D

------
bayonetz
Tangent: anybody have recommendations for a "CRM" for tracking your activity
when you are job hunting? What stage you are at, people you've talked to at
company, what version of resume they have, etc. Typically I've just duct taped
one together with folders, spreadsheet, and Evernote. Always at the back of my
mind that there could be something better perhaps. Normal CRMs seem to general
and complicated from my limited perusing. Someone should make this. I'd pay
for it!

~~~
gregoire
It's more Trello than a CRM, but there are
[https://jobtrack.io/](https://jobtrack.io/) and
[http://huntr.co/](http://huntr.co/)

~~~
bayonetz
Thanks. These are pretty close to what I had in mind!

------
1123581321
Nice project. Keep in mind I'm just a tire-kicker on HN, but it would be neat
to have dynamic periodic reminders similar to spaced repetition learning
algorithms except you rate the strength of the relationship after each
session. Strong ratings mean you can see them a little less frequently; weak
means you should see them (a little) more frequently.

Ideally this would let you maximize the number of maintainable acquaintances.
Unfortunately (for some), it would also prevent any from getting too close. :)

~~~
robinhood
Thanks for the idea. How would you rate the strength of the relationship? A
star mechanism?

~~~
1123581321
Yes, I'm imagining 1-5 stars with text descriptions to help ratings be
consistent, similar to how software like [http://mnemosyne-
proj.org/features](http://mnemosyne-proj.org/features) handles ratings.

~~~
robinhood
Isn't it weird though to put stars on people?

~~~
rakoo
You wouldn't put stars on people but on relationships... it's something you
can have am effect on, so I wouldn't mind rating it !

~~~
robinhood
Ohhh I see the subtitly. That is an awesome idea. Thanks!

------
vxNsr
Love this! Definitely gonna be using it from now on!

Adding a way to import contacts would be super cool, though I like the idea of
slowly going through all my contacts and making sure data is current, etc
(something I haven't done ever, since I first got my phone 10 years ago).

Only thing I just noticed is that when I try to add a gift idea, it conks out,
with a: "Whoops, looks like something went wrong." message.

But I really like this and will be messing around with it!

~~~
robinhood
Damn. Sorry for this error. I will check the log to see why this happened.

About the contact import, yes it's high on the list :-D
[https://github.com/monicahq/monica/projects/1](https://github.com/monicahq/monica/projects/1)

------
rocktronica
This looks great, and I see the utility of it. Really, honestly, well done.

May I ask what made you settle on the name "Monica" instead of something more
gender-neutral?

~~~
robinhood
Thanks! I do appreciate the nice comment!

About the name, well, to be honest, I just didn't think about it for long. I
do realize now how it might affect some people, and I do regret this choice.

~~~
sogen
Change it then, the sooner the better

------
mattkevan
Looks really good! Am going to sign up and have a look later this evening.

Just noticed the privacy policy link on the sign up form 404s. Links to
[https://app.monicahq.com/privacy](https://app.monicahq.com/privacy) instead
of [https://monicahq.com/privacy](https://monicahq.com/privacy)

~~~
robinhood
Thanks! Indeed, that's a bug, but I don't want to fix production now because
so many people are using the app right now. I'll fix it tomorrow when HN won't
care anymore :-D

------
tertius
Security.

Make me feel safe when adding very personal information about people I meet.

(Btw. I've been considering building something like this myself, I meet so
many people that I want to recognize and remember what they told me about
themselves. Memory fails me almost every time unless I really put the effort
in. Right now I just make a note after every interaction using Simplenote,
better than nothing.)

~~~
robinhood
The security aspect is also very important to me. I'm trying to do my best to
make it secure by following best practices, and this is also one of the
reasons I've open sourced it actually, so the community can help make it
better and check that I don't do nasty stuff with it.

~~~
positivecomment
Do you have any plans to integrate with contacts on any device/platform?

It may allow you to automatically save calls and manage metadata in sync with
an established system.

~~~
robinhood
I've been thinking about this. First step would be an API. Second step would
be to either me learn Cocoa, ObjC or .NET to do this on the phones/desktops
apps, etc..., or let the community do it.

~~~
jakecraige
Tools like React Native and Electron are pretty popular these days to build
cross-platform apps and such. Since you know web stuff and I'm assuming JS,
those might be a good option to explore so you could maintain them without
having to learn the entire toolchain of building for various platforms

~~~
robinhood
I think I'll focus my energy on creating an API first, then I'll be able to do
this. I understand how important being on mobile as a native app is. I'll do
it

------
bastih
Looks like this is a service only for very young people? Got this wonderful
error while trying to add my father.

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/ijdfvwtua5nwy6p/Screenshot%202017-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/ijdfvwtua5nwy6p/Screenshot%202017-06-06%2016.53.14.png?dl=0)

~~~
jakecraige
US style dates, you probably want 03/18/1965

~~~
robinhood
Localization is important - I might need to change date format depending on
the language you select. Currently Monica supports both French and English.

~~~
wsinks
Just force people to use GMT and European style dates! :D

------
tompetry
@robinhood it won't let me save birthdays before 1967? Need to add people born
in the 50's and 40's :)

~~~
robinhood
Sorry about that. A fix is in the pipeline, but I don't want to update the
production right now, because of the traffic I get from HN.

------
YPCrumble
This is very cool!

My question is, is this really free? If so, how and why? It seems like it was
a ton of work to build and presumably you could monetize it somehow - is that
just something you're planning to do later on? If it gets a lot of users, how
will you pay the (albeit small) server costs? I'm curious.

Thanks again for building it!

~~~
robinhood
It's free for now. I wanted first to see if there is an interest. The product
is open source, so it'll be free forever anyway. I like the GitLab approach -
free for everyone, but perhaps put some way to monetize this. I just have NO
idea how. I honestly didn't think about it, because I wanted to have a side
project that would be useful for people, and I don't know if people need this.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
I think some may fear it for one of the natural monetization routes for a
product like this, selling the personal info to marketers, intel-companies,
credit agencies, etc.

------
beager
Great privacy policy but it's not linked properly from your signup page:

[https://monicahq.com/privacy](https://monicahq.com/privacy)

Excited to try this, it's a Thing I've been wanting to have for quite some
time now. Hope you won't mind the occasional feedback.

~~~
robinhood
Thanks. Well... I WANT FEEDBACK. The more feedback, the better, so please,
please, send me emails about what you want to see in the product.

------
robinhood
404 comments. I'm doomed.

------
tripu
_“You know all those birthdays you forget? And when you last called your
grandmother? When you last had coffee with that ex-colleague? Who did you lend
that book to again?”_

I solve all these (first-world) problems easily with Remember The Milk [
[https://www.rememberthemilk.com/](https://www.rememberthemilk.com/) ] — an
underestimated tool, IMHO, to which I am loyal.

The four examples above are one-liners in RTM:

    
    
      Congratulate Alice on her birthday ^23 Nov *yearly #birthday
      Call grandma ^tom *monthly
      Coffee w/ Bob? ^1 Jul *monthly #colleague #coffee
      Get “War and Peace” back from Charlie ^in a month
    

Accounts are free; “pro” gives you just a few non-essential goodies (colours,
Outlook sync, reminders on your phone, etc).

~~~
kaushalmodi
I have a similar comment, just using Todoist instead.. I switched from RTM Pro
to Todoist Premium few months back.

------
i-machine-learn
I see that you have changed the tagline to "your social memory" due to
feedback from users. However, the language is really unclear and grammatically
incorrect - it's a sentence fragment. Some possible solutions:

* Introduce a verb "Build your social memory"

* Introduce Monica "Your social memory, now handled by your digital assistant Monica"

* Some combo of the above "Build your social memory through your digital assistant Monica"

I'd also recommend separate each question on separate line and left align them
for readability. I'd iterate on this language as it's the most important
content on your page since it's the first thing user's see. You might also
want to pull some of the content that is below the fold to this section.

Great idea!

------
danellis
It was recently pointed out by a prominent member of the community that
developers should stop naming personal assistants after women, because it's
not a woman's job to help you out.

Does the same​ apply to this? Should the author change it to a more neutral
name?

------
nojvek
> Dear app developers: stop naming your personal assistants after women. Stop
> thinking women’s jobs is to help you out. It’s not.

> Stop writing copy like “Here is everything you can do with Monica” and “I’ve
> created Monica to help these people”.

From a Monica I follow on twitter.

~~~
shostack
Interesting to note that a scheduling assistant I've been testing (X.ai)
offers both an Amy and an Andrew assistant. I've definitely made a conscious
decision to use Andrew because of potential negative reactions to using Amy.

It does make me wonder about the choice of Apple and Amazon to use female
names.

------
veritas3241
This makes me so incredibly happy. I've wanted something like this for a long
time but it was never important enough to make happen beyond some janky
spreadsheets. I'll definitely keep using it and contributing. Nice work!

~~~
robinhood
Thanks a lot for your comment :-D If you do use it, let me know what you
dislike so we can improve the product.

------
CrossWired
Love the idea, would like to see:

* Imports from Facebook or CardDav, one at a time is horrendous. * Relate contact to Social Facebook/LinkedIn/Meetup? * Add activity from LinkedIn/Facebook other social sites to contacts * Native App

~~~
robinhood
I think import seems to be the number 1 feature request. Makes a lot of sense.

Add activity from FB/Linkedin: How would you do that?

~~~
wsinks
I wouldn't add activity - I would force people to not bloat their own and log
it themselves.

------
dplgk
Here's a main feature I was looking for. I think I can solve it via "Notes" on
a person but I'd love it has a main feature. I think it's similar to the SO
and Children boxes.

It would be great to be able to add friends of a contact... so people that
you've met once or twice (at your friend Steve's birthday party, for example),
you don't know them enough to add as contact but you want to remember their
name and where they work, etc. And it's essential that they are somehow
connected to the person you know so you can look them up easily next time you
go to Steve's party.

~~~
robinhood
That's a great idea Thanks!
[https://github.com/monicahq/monica/issues/117](https://github.com/monicahq/monica/issues/117)

------
gdfer
I find it interesting that people use the need for a CRM like this to make two
opposing arguments: 1) If you need something like this to better communicate
with friends/family, you must not genuinely care about them 2) If you use
something like this to better communicate with friends/family, it shows that
you actually do genuinely care about them

The former assumes if you care enough you should be able to do it on your own
without assistance from a CRM/app, the latter does not make that assumption
and gives you kudos for using the tools available to make you better at caring
for others

------
bjt2n3904
Holy dependencies, Batman. I started to try and set this up, and spent five
minutes letting composer, npm, and bower install things. Gave up when it
errored out because Ubuntu 16.04's nodejs was too old.

~~~
j_s
Many open source options are only commercially viable because of these types
of difficulties!

------
wsinks
It appears that facebook sign in doesn't work and gives me this error:
[http://imgur.com/a/R0C9E](http://imgur.com/a/R0C9E)

~~~
robinhood
Thanks for noticing, and, indeed. I broke this last week - sorry about the
inconvenience. Can't fix it today anyway, way too many people trying out the
site, I don't want to touch production right now :-D

~~~
wsinks
Just reporting - I understand how things go when you're one person.
Interesting idea, but I would benefit so much from auto import. I don't think
I've missed it..

Thanks for promoting your stuff!

------
saamm
I've been using Tinyblu [0] for this, which seems to be simpler/have fewer
features.

0: [https://tinyblu.com/](https://tinyblu.com/)

------
gyrgtyn
I have some org-mode files that kind of do this. I never open them or my
agenda anymore, so they don't help, but they're there.

I guess I need to hook org-mode to twilio or something?

~~~
robinhood
I don't understand what you are trying to say. What's org-mode?

~~~
gyrgtyn
[http://orgmode.org/](http://orgmode.org/) "your life in plain text" emacs
stuff

------
noxToken
This seems like something I may use. I have terrible memory, so I never
remember birthdays, anniversaries or even my own doc appointments.

Tangentially related: I wonder what the fallout is for the average person who
may get discovered using this. I could see someone catching flack for having
software send them reminders of things that "should be important enough to
remember". Then again, what's wrong with using technology to help me enrich my
relationship with others?

~~~
robinhood
That's something I've struggled with while building the v1. I wondered if it
was moral to use technology to help me have better relationships. I'm the kind
of guy who hates Facebook and all the bad things the technology has brought
into our lives. And yet, ironically, I do something like this. But the
motivation behind is genuinely pure: I really want to be better at remembering
things about the ones that I love.

~~~
cr0sh
> I really want to be better at remembering things about the ones that I love.

Marketing idea: Those with failing memory (for whatever reason) and/or their
caretakers.

~~~
robinhood
I submitted the site to Reddit 9 months ago, and there seemed to be an
interest for people with difficult social skills, actually.

------
dev_256
Link to Privacy Policy from login page is broken
[https://app.monicahq.com/privacy](https://app.monicahq.com/privacy)

~~~
sebiol
Correct url: [https://monicahq.com/privacy](https://monicahq.com/privacy)

------
johnchristopher
Pro-tip: put your link to the newsletter, github and your twitter profile in
the header of your site :).

Clearly states if it's open source, self hostable or a service.

~~~
robinhood
Excellent point. Thanks, I can see how that will help. I'll update the site.

------
shostack
An app might be asking a lot, but a responsive design to allow mobile usage
would be a big help. Or at least something that could hook into IFTTT or
something so I can easily add info on the go via email, twitter, or something.

For example, let's say I'm at a party and meet some people I want to log.
Mobile input is really key there because I may have been drinking and won't
remember that info in the next 15 minutes.

------
voidmain0001
You spoke about how to monetize Monica. Based on the number of comments
requesting a mobile app, perhaps that's the launch point. I would use Monica's
browser interface for bulk data entry, but I would use Monica on a mobile for
push reminders since that's how I get my reminders/appointments now via Google
Calendar. So, keep the browser interface free, but charge for the mobile app.

~~~
lohengramm
I would expect charging for storage. Let the user try whatever he wants for
free -- both the mobile app and the website, but after some point, say one
month of average usage, one faces a limited storage problem, solvable with an
account upgrade.

------
moccachino
I saw this the other day and it looks like something I need! But I have been
periodically checking it since to see if a crucial (for me) feature is added.
Which is: Do you have plans to add the ability to put "real" people as SOs or
children? I recently found your roadmap on Github and didn't see it there. In
any case this is super cool, thanks for building it and sharing it :)

------
TimJRobinson
This is amazing! I've been looking for a CRM that is "people management
without a sales focus" for a while. Mostly I want a tool to keep track of
people I meet at events and the skills they have as well as problems they are
facing. Then later on I can connect people who are able to solve each others
problems.

Looks like this fits the bill, and being open source is great. Thanks for
creating this.

~~~
robinhood
My pleasure. Glad you like it :-D

------
fil_a_del_fee_a
I like it! I definitely could use something like this. I am GLAD that you
mention "It’s for your eyes only.". Very important feature.

------
r0muald
I'm surprised no one has mentioned friends
[https://github.com/JacobEvelyn/friends](https://github.com/JacobEvelyn/friends)
a command line tool that does a lot of what Monica aims to do. A Ruby gem that
will be "friendly" only to laptop users, but with a wide community and
continued development.

------
jakecraige
Cool product. I've used calendars in the past to maintain this kind of thing
but a product has many more features than a calendar so I'm into it.

A mobile app would definitely be nice for this kind of product at some point.
Push notifications for reminders / an easy entry system, integration with
contacts, calendar, etc.

Either way. Thanks for this cool product, and OSS-ing it.

~~~
robinhood
Thanks. Definitely. I also love the idea of OSS-ing a product. At least people
will be able to contribute, or read the code and see that I have no plans in
doing nasty stuff with their data at all.

------
rl3
> _Here are everything you can do with Monica_

> _Manage significant others_

I really hope the writers of _Silicon Valley_ are taking notes right now.

------
DonCarlitos
Great idea. Good luck. I _did_ notice a few grammatical and spelling errors on
the homepage. Easily corrected. And, the content reads like a non-English
speaker wrote it. Also easily remedied. The initial page needs to reflect the
creativity of the idea and the professional nature of the developers. I could
help, as could many others...

~~~
robinhood
Indeed :-D Non native speaker here, hence the errors probably. Good thing:
it's all open source, and all on GitHub, so... :-D
[https://github.com/monicahq](https://github.com/monicahq)

------
brightball
Need to get that privacy policy link working. Love the idea of the project and
it's definitely something I struggle with (especially when I get wrapped up in
thinking about project problems) but when you have a "Try" link to enter a lot
of personal information your Privacy Policy link needs to be explicitly clear.

~~~
robinhood
I understand. The fix is ready, but I don't want to push it to production as I
have a lot of users logged in right now thanks to HN. I'll do it as soon as
the traffic drops.

------
disqk
This could also be named "Gary", like Gary Walsh (character) from the TV
series Veep. Though it also has to carry tampons and tissues ;)

Not that Monica's not a good name, obvious throwback to a certain character on
TV from the late 90's. (or maybe I'm watching too much TV and experiencing
hammer-nail syndrome...)

------
jszymborski
This is fantastic (and I'm not just saying that because it's based out of
Montreal).

I don't realistically see myself ever using an instance of this that isn't
self-hosted on a server I physically own, but there is obviously quite a bit
of fair-will expressed in the no-non-sense Privacy Policy which I greatly
respect.

------
vivekahuja
This is great! Just signed up and poked around.

FWIW, right now I just use a combination of Evernote and a Trello board to
keep track of personal tasks and projects; I could see a "PRM" tool like this
supplanting or complementing those other tools.

I hope you keep building. Feel free to reach out if you want some user
feedback in a few weeks.

~~~
robinhood
I will definitely keep building, especially since I see how much interest
there is for a tool like this. Feel free to signup to the newsletter (that I
actually never sent), I'll post updates on it regularly.

------
anonu
Isnt this what facebook does? Except facebook is actually way more fun to use.
Sure - they take all my information and sell it to the highest bidder. But I
get cool "personalized videos" in return, for example. And all my friends are
already on there - so they can do most of the CRM data input for me.

~~~
robinhood
This is exactly what I don't want this product to become: Facebook. Facebook
is social. Monica is NOT social. It's only for you. It's like your personal
diary, except online. It's made to store things that shouldn't be seen by
anyone. It's to manage YOUR personal relationships. It has nothing to do with
a social community.

~~~
menacingly
For me, that distinction was clearly expressed in the link and product info

------
danr4
At first glance this looks awesome. I'll set it up tomorrow on my personal
server.

I saw in the github repo you've asked people not to try and make money using
the code. If you really intend to build a sustainable business off this, I
suggest you change the license to something stricter than MIT.

~~~
robinhood
Yeah, good point, somebody pointed out this on the github repository. Do you
have any idea of which license I could use instead?

------
alexintosh
I like the idea, it's supped buggy tho. I've been trying this for less then 30
minutes and I already landed to different error page. Right in this moment I'm
stuck into the "Whoops, looks like something went wrong." page while trying to
access /dashboard

------
angry_octet
Yet another cloud based system for insecurely storing very personal data that
I won't ever be using.

~~~
vultour
It says open-source in the first half of the title.

~~~
angry_octet
Open source won't keep your data confidential by itself. Are they going to
port it to run offline, or exclusively sync via encrypted blobs?

It's not the technology, it's the philosophy.

~~~
vultour
My point was that you have the code so you can host it yourself.

------
TACIXAT
Great work! I had a similar idea and built
[https://socialite.ooo](https://socialite.ooo). It's been a bit neglected as I
was finishing up grad school. It has a heavy focus on events and locations to
tie everything together.

------
pkulak
Really great idea. So, the first thing I did was add my wife, because that
just seemed like the right place to start. But then I got into this situation
where I was adding myself as the significant other. Is this intended? Is there
any concept of "me"?

~~~
lucb1e
I half-assume, without looking at the application beyond the front page (I'm
still going to), that you're kind of expected to know what your wife has been
up to. It might not be a common use-case to select "Me" in the significant
other field.

~~~
pkulak
If this thing assumes that I don't need help remembering that stuff, then it
has severely overestimated me!

------
schemathings
Just signed up to take a look. If you're gonna have gifts as a category, maybe
hook up to
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/search](https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/search)
??

------
thomyorkie
> Just hanged out.

Just FYI, this isn't typical usage. People say hung instead of hanged in this
instance.

~~~
jzymbaluk
Typically the word "hanged" is used in the context of an execution ie "she was
hanged from the gallows for her crimes"

------
lsjroberts
Looks great and useful! One small UX issue I've just hit - I missed the "edit"
button in the "Personal Information" box when viewing a contact for a few
moments. Kept trying to click the "Birthdate is not set" etc text.

~~~
lsjroberts
Oh also, there are >16000 countries in the select box on the edit person page.

------
wikibob
Looks so much like JIRA that I had to check it wasn’t an Atlassian side
project.

Who did the visual design?

------
hayden592
I really like this and we actually thinking about trying a CRM earlier today.
Hopefully, I can find sometime to contribute. The ability to import contacts
would be super useful. I might be able to get to it this weekend who knows...

------
dsschnau
The privacy policy page is a 404:
[https://app.monicahq.com/privacy](https://app.monicahq.com/privacy)

Is this a thing you pay for as a user or is this a thing like fb where user
data is sold?

~~~
robinhood
Yeah I'll fix the link as soon as I can push to prod without interrupting the
traffic thanks to being 2nd on HN today.

None of this. You don't pay for a user, and I don't sell data to anyone. I'll
introduce paying features later this year, but I have no idea which ones, and
it WONT be about limiting the number of contacts.

Also, I'm like all people on HN, I hate the notion of selling data WITH A
PASSION.

------
progrocks9
Love it. This seems to be the answer to a question that Facebook forgot
completely. To help you improve your social life with the people you really
care about. Not just distract you with irrelevant information. Keep it up!

~~~
robinhood
Thanks a lot for the kind words.

------
tshanmu
"Signing up signifies you’ve read and agree to our Privacy Policy."
[https://app.monicahq.com/privacy](https://app.monicahq.com/privacy) is 404 :)

------
TheWindUpPirate
Looks interesting. Definitely something that could be useful. Issue I have is
getting my data in to the system. Would be good to be able to pull contacts
from a CSV / Google account / Facebook account.

------
darylteo
"You know good and well that's not what they're saying."
[http://imgur.com/ffRSyJ0](http://imgur.com/ffRSyJ0)

Couldn't help myself. I'm sorry.

------
chrismorgan
Bug report:
[https://app.monicahq.com/register](https://app.monicahq.com/register) links
to /privacy which is a 404 because of the subdomain.

------
neil1
It would be great if you could add city as a form field and allow searching by
city. I'd love to pay for this/contribute as well. I was just about to build
something similar (but less pretty)

------
latortuga
Is there a way to mark someone as being related to me (e.g. Significant Other
== me)? Also, related, could Significant Others be set as "People" as well?

Thanks for this, I see myself using it quite a lot.

~~~
robinhood
Oh! Well... good point. There is no such things at the moment. What you want
seems to be relationships between you and the contact, or between contacts?

------
mangandini
It would be nice to have an option to set relationship (wife, son, daughter,
friends etc) so in the future maybe I can even watch my genealogical tree or
just select to see my family or friends

~~~
robinhood
I will do it :-D
[https://github.com/monicahq/monica/issues/19](https://github.com/monicahq/monica/issues/19)

------
hdhzy
This looks very polished. If only every MVP had such a good UX/design.

Personally my calendar with contact notes work pretty well so I won't be using
Monica but it was a pleasure trying it out.

~~~
robinhood
Thanks for the comment. Yeah a calendar with notes work also perfectly. We
should use tools that we love. Not everything should be a webapp.

------
zokier
Interesting. Would it make sense to integrate this to various social media, so
that you could see your contacts profiles or recent activity, or maybe even
integrate messaging?

~~~
robinhood
Yeah, one of my idea would be to have a Chrome extension where you would see
the private notes about the contact you are currently seeing on Facebook, for
instance.

------
xchaotic
It looks like you're using monotonically increasing numbers for people, I
couldn't exploit it straight away, looks like users have added around 900
people so far.

~~~
robinhood
What's wrong with that? It's just a counter :-D

------
patrickgordon
I am in the process (Slowly) of making something similar

[https://simplerm.co](https://simplerm.co)

Monica looks way more feature complete though! Nice work.

------
eevilspock
Why would I want trust even more personal data to a web service?

Why couldn't this be an app on my phone that synced securely with other
instances of the app on my other devices?

~~~
robinhood
You don't need to trust me. You can host it yourself locally if you want, it's
open source. [https://github.com/monicahq](https://github.com/monicahq)

------
will_pseudonym
Thank you for building this. I have been wanting to build something like this
for myself for some time. I'll check it out and see what I like for sure!

------
a13n
I have been looking for this / thinking about building this for YEARS. I tried
to sign up but got some kind of FB "redirect uri" error.

~~~
zuck9
Me too.

    
    
        The redirect_uri URL must be absolute

------
a1371
Great work yo! One thing: the privacy link on your sign up page is broken. You
probably want to fix this as soon as possible.

Isn't it odd nobody mentioned that?

------
_RPM
I find this utopian. Another strange thing: "Manage significant others". Maybe
it's just me, but I have exactly 1 significant other.

~~~
robinhood
Not your significant other per se - the significant others of all your
contacts, combined

------
hughes
Hope you don't have any friends or family older than 50! Entering birthdates
prior to 01/01/1967 is not allowed.

~~~
robinhood
Yep. So sorry about that, but a fix is ready to be shipped for that, but I
don't want to interrupt the prod right now, way too much traffic from HN :-D

------
dflock
"Here are everything you can do with Monica" -> "Here is everything you can do
with Monica"

------
dplgk
I look forward to trying this out. This idea has been on my mind for a few
years now. Never built it of course :)

~~~
robinhood
Me too, until now :-D

------
weisser
Really lovely. I signed up and will use this as soon as there is an ability to
import Google/email contacts.

------
vinothgopi
How about an option to organize family as a family tree? That's something I'm
looking for currently.

------
inbetween
Maybe you should call it "PRO" \- Personal Relationship Organizer :) Or
"Monica PRO".

------
grimmdude
Am I the only one who thinks Ja Rule's line in The Fast and the Furious:
"Monicaaaaaaa!"

------
jvln
Thanks for saving my time. I planned to write one for my self this year. Is it
open source?

~~~
bbaumgar
Yes, link [1] is in the footer of the homepage.

[1] [https://github.com/monicahq/monica](https://github.com/monicahq/monica)

------
supersan
Do you have any plans on making a mobile app? Reminders are most useful on
mobile only.

------
tabeth
Looks neat. As an aside, why is it named after a woman? I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
robinhood
Thanks. Well, I built this website because I didn't have a spouse at that
time, and I suffered socially from this, not being able to remember important
things about my friends (call it selective memory or what not). My partner
used to be the one who always reminded me these kind of things. It's an
hommage to her.

~~~
rconti
Huh. I was sure it was a, uh, racially-tinged joke from knowyourmeme.

~~~
rconti
(incidentally, NOT a joke)

------
webjames
Hey robinhood - Are you considering packaging this up as a standalone iphone
app?

~~~
robinhood
Yes! This is a second step though - the first one is to create the APIs first.

------
JCharante
I don't see how this is anything more than a wiki with a really nice skin.

~~~
robinhood
Wiki = most web apps = interface to a database. So in a sense, it's all the
same, just another way to look at it. So,no, it's not really different. Except
perhaps that a wiki doesn't send you emails for reminders?

------
radarsat1
I love this. I want to stick it on an RPi and keep it on at all times.

~~~
robinhood
If you do find yourself in a position where you do need to do specific things
related to Rpi in order to make this work, feel free to submit a pull request
with instructions, so others can also install it as well.
[https://github.com/monicahq/monica](https://github.com/monicahq/monica)

------
q1t
Can I specify myself as a SO for other person in my list? :)

------
vslira
I've looking for something like this for years! Thanks!

~~~
robinhood
You are welcome. Feel free to tell me how we can improve the product.

------
jon_black
Nice idea. Any chance you could fix the privacy policy link?

~~~
robinhood
Of course. In order to open source the product, I had to separate the
marketing app from the code of the main app, and I forgot to update the link.
Doh. Thanks for noticing, here is the link:
[https://monicahq.com/privacy.html](https://monicahq.com/privacy.html)

------
5_minutes
I've been looking for this for a long while!

------
gumby
BTW I use BusyContacts for this on my Mac.

------
akanoxx
Oh man, I really need this hahahah :)

------
jommi1
This seems useful for Tinder (ha ha)

------
ganessh
Privacy page returns 400 :(

------
vladletter
Seriously...

------
LarryPage
Yes but can I easily redirect my inlaws?

~~~
robinhood
Redirect to... what? Unless it's a joke I don't understand :-/

~~~
livingparadox
Its a joke. Based on the trope of people having a poor relationship with their
in-laws.

------
tajen
Sorry to be that guy, but isn't there a huge legal issue? In France, the CNIL
requires a declaration of any file, especially if you keep information about
people in it, whether it's a spreadsheet or in good old punch cards. Such
files can only be maintained for specific purpose; notably keeping tabs on
what people want or their secrets can be used for bribes and leverage. An
Excel file on your computer won't get you arrested because of leniency, but if
we start issuing such software, the defense is less solid than for Torrent
software.

i.e. What happens if a database is leaked?

------
nilved
edit: was wrong, see replies.

~~~
veritas3241
From the github[0]

> If you prefer to, you can simply clone the repository and set it up yourself
> on any hosting provider, for free. I'm just asking that you don't try to
> make money out of it yourself.

[0] [https://github.com/monicahq/monica](https://github.com/monicahq/monica)

~~~
nilved
Thanks for bringing that to my attention! That's fantastic and I think they
should put more focus on this option on the homepage.

------
camnangnhadat
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------
guest
I use Lewinsky to manage my favorites on www. p o r n h u b .com

