
Launch HN: Dex (YC S19) – personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch - ksun
Hi HN!<p>I’m Kevin, founder of Dex (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;getdex.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;getdex.com&#x2F;</a>). Dex is a personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch with people you might otherwise forget.<p>I started working on Dex because I felt like I was falling out-of-touch with people I cared about. I wanted to be aware of “how long it had been” and more proactive about maintaining my relationships.<p>Looking to solve this problem, I tried data tools like Airtable, Notion, and Google Sheets. It was easy to setup a sheet to track relationships, but I eventually found these tools difficult to keep up with. I’d end up procrastinating on updating my records and would rarely find the time to revisit them.<p>Dex is a personal CRM that aims to be simple, intuitive, and accessible.  To get started, users sign up for a web application that connects with their Google contacts and calendar (and optionally Facebook and LinkedIn data).  With this information, Dex suggests people to contact every day. Over time, these suggestions become better as users customize how frequently they’d like to reach out.<p>Dex includes the functionality you might include from a CRM: logging notes, setting reminders, and organizing contacts. A feature which makes Dex unique is a Chrome extension, which allows you to view relationship history and add people without leaving social networking sites like LinkedIn, Messenger, Twitter, and Facebook.<p>Most people realize the value and fulfillment that come from maintaining relationships, but occasionally still fall out of touch due to forgetfulness. Dex helps these people with a system of regular reminders to keep in touch.  I’ve noticed many people already have their own ‘system’ for managing relationships, and I’m always interested in hearing about different people think about dealing with staying on top of relationships.<p>I’d also welcome any other feedback about Dex! Feel free to also email me directly at kevin [at] getdex [dot] com. Thanks for your attention! :)
======
sbr464
It seems you have fullstory.com tracking all input & mouse events. Can you
confirm?

Every few seconds, a large payload goes to fullstory with all details:

    
    
      47: {When: 397746, Kind: 2, Args: [8881, -1, [[4405, 2], "cell day blank"]]}
      63: {When: 397746, Kind: 2, Args: [8881, -1, [[4405, 2], "cell day", [93, 2], "15", 96]]}
      71: {When: 397746, Kind: 2, Args: [8881, -1, [[4405, 2], "cell day", [93, 2], "23", 96]]}
      72: {When: 397746, Kind: 2, Args: [8881, -1, [[4405, 2], "cell day weekend sat", [93, 2], "24", 96]]}
      73: {When: 397746, Kind: 2, Args: [8881, -1, [[4405, 2], "cell day weekend sun", [93, 2], "25", 96]]}
      74: {When: 397746, Kind: 2, Args: [8881, -1, [[4405, 2], "cell day", [93, 2], 5593, 96]]}
      90: {When: 397746, Kind: 2, Args: [9087, -1, [94, "Last note6m ago on 8/14/2019"]]}
      91: {Kind: 4, When: 397746, Args: [8984, "class", "cell month selected"]}
      92: {Kind: 4, When: 397746, Args: [8986, "class", "cell month"]}
      94: {Kind: 6, When: 397746, Args: [8294, " in 14d"]}
      95: {Kind: 6, When: 397746, Args: [8876, "Aug 2019"]}

~~~
martin_a
How would any website or application these days work _without_ full-blown
analytics tracking the hell out of every user?

~~~
sorokod
By using a business model that doesn't require raiding the customer's personal
information.

~~~
gkoberger
Hmm, FullStory would be hard to use for evil. It's used to creators can track
down issues and bugs and provide better customer support, not to do anything
malicious.

You can still argue you don't want your data sent to them, and that's very
fair, but the only way this helps their business model is if their business
model is "provide really good, tailored customer support."

------
akgvn
An open-source alternative, Monica, has been discussed before:

* (2018) "Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family" -> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18318547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18318547)

* (2017) "Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family" -> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497295](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497295)

~~~
simulate
I've been using Monica for a couple of years now and I'm very happy with it
for my personal network. It's a great tool to remind me who is connected to
whom and what to ask about before attending a party. The online version is
here: [https://app.monicahq.com/register](https://app.monicahq.com/register)

~~~
shostack
Any thoughts on the security model for the hosted service?

~~~
o-__-o
We stopped using them at our workplacedue to compliance. they have a lot of
issues and not interested in fixing them

~~~
zufallsheld
Can you expand on these issues?

~~~
o-__-o
No. But if you’re a startup you are probably okay. If you are a Fortune 500,
probably not. May I recommend reaching out to their sales team to find their
customers or better recent customers and why they left

~~~
simulate
Why would you use Monica at a start-up or Fortune 500 company? I had assumed
that Monica was purely for personal use. It never occurred to me that a start-
up, much less a Fortune 500 company, would use Monica for anything.

------
scrollaway
Do you have a demo or some more insightful screenshots of what the app is?
Even if I wanted to sign up to the site, I'd have to fill in a bunch of stuff
to actually have a meaningful overview of the UI.

I appreciate you have two-way contact syncing with Google Contacts which is a
big thing that's lacking in monica.

I also appreciate the Chrome Extension you mentioned. Is there deeper
integration there, eg. do you allow me to back up / view data on my facebook
friends through Dex?

What I looked for in Monica, and simply did not find, was a true single-
source-of-truth for all my contact interactions, be those on Facebook,
Twitter, Discord, SMS, Hangouts …. It's less a matter of wanting to keep in
touch with people (I love being able to set reminders for specific things, but
lacking a good UI I just end up making those in Google Calendar), and more a
matter of being able to quickly find things I may have discussed with someone.

For example I talk to my girlfriend through all three of Messenger, Discord
and SMS, and I'd like to be able to have a single history to sift through
should I look for something she told me (groceries to get, an address / door
code to remember, a photo she sent …).

Again, to me the selling point of these kinds of personal-service websites are
to offload parts of my brain to software that is more efficient at the task.
Notion does a great job being a generic note-keeping / database app. Calendar
does a great job at helping me remember everything time-bound events. A
personal CRM should do a great job at helping me remember everything there is
to remember about another person / a relationship with that person.

~~~
ksun
Re: demo / screenshots, I totally get this. Honestly the landing page hasn't
been a huge concern, but I'll take your feedback that you actually want to see
the feedback first; we'll make changes.

The Chrome Extension unfortunately doesn't do a deeper integration -- we're
looking into how to make this happen! You're absolutely right that a personal
CRM needs to be a single source of truth -- the hard part is getting data in
the actual product!

~~~
scrollaway
Do you consider messaging history as mentioned to be in scope? I'd love to be
able to quickly refer to emails, convos etc. And the best CRMs do let you keep
track of people based on conversations.

I get you that getting the data in is difficult though. A lot of API work.
This is one thing where if you were open source and had a plugin / provider
API people could contribute. I certainly would.

~~~
ksun
Emails is definitely a straightforward thing to do. SMS is also pretty
possible. For really interesting use0cases like Messenger, the difficulty
becomes more of collecting and storing user permissions. I recently came
tooling like [https://github.com/Schmavery/facebook-chat-
api](https://github.com/Schmavery/facebook-chat-api)

------
lifeisstillgood
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 not recognise

My idea was to only recommend people whom I had replied to on email - the
presumption being I must have wanted something

So perhaps in the info field show me their last email or two so I can work out
who they are

Keep up the good work !

~~~
ksun
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 off people)

I like your idea on emails that you've actually replied too - will consider
that for a future release!

~~~
lifeisstillgood
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"

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
Maybe #1 means you've recently connected with yourself and so it isn't the
most urgent, but something is still there needing addressing, so it stays
close to the top of the stack until you connect with yourself around it? ;)

Don't mind me. I'm just having fun projecting meaning onto things.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I have been searching for the real me for many years but never found myself.

Perhaps they are using a MetaPhysics engine to help me find myself?

If I feel connected I will tell you :-)

------
gexla
I signed up and tried to skip adding a Gmail account but it wouldn't allow me.
I really don't want to just dump all contacts into an app like this because I
don't really use Gmail as my contact repository and there might be stuff in
there I just don't want to see. I might trigger myself. And I would rather
give it a spin before committing a load of my real info.

I instead used an alt which doesn't get much use. No contacts. Seems to work
fine, why couldn't I just go with no contacts in the first place?

I added a contact manually and...

No pic? I can't upload a face? I'm visual. And what if I wanted to use this as
my black book? I want pics! ;)

Nice effort but I'll need to hang on the sidelines a bit. Congrats on the
launch!

~~~
ksun
Thanks for sharing your experience -- as you mentioned we've built Dex around
the import experience for now [since typically those people get more value out
of the product], but definitely trying to make Dex more fully featured for
folks who would prefer to add manually!

------
caust1c
Give me an option to pay and be more clear in your data policy and maybe I'll
give it a shot.

I've been wanting something like this for a while but the privacy policy is
pretty vague and far too broad for me to trust a service like this:

[https://getdex.com/privacypolicy](https://getdex.com/privacypolicy)

~~~
ksun
I'm happy to take your money and also clarify the privacy policy -- will
follow-up with you when that's done!

~~~
_ah
The data security / privacy policy is super important. I've also wanted a
personal CRM for some time so this definitely hits my pain point. However, I
anticipate this would become most useful when I start adding personal, honest
notes for all my contacts. That's obviously a problem if this database were
ever to be leaked, or (worse) subpoenaed.

I'd be much more excited about this product if it used zero-knowledge
encryption for my data. Yes you can't data-mine it (and if I lose my password
I'm hosed), but I'd prefer having the only copy of the decryption key.

------
ticmasta
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 forgetfulness

I think these is the fundamental premise that I don't personally agree with;
the value of the relationship is what keeps you engaged. It's not simple
forgetfulness that causes you to lose touch - you are prioritizing other
activities over the relationship.

This doesn't seem right or make me feel good though; it makes me seem like a
self-centered jerk, so can't be true - I must be lacking (yet more) networking
applications that "promote keeping in touch".

I think there is opportunity for very specific purpose networking tools, like
linkedin before they decided to be a general-purpose social network or
centered around communities and activities. I don't think "relationships" is
specific enough, unless you're focusing on physical relationships like dating
or hookups.

Also, the amount of private information you're asking to expose right out the
gate is a non-starter for me. If it's curated (and thus meaningful) make your
on-boarding & setup reflect this. I realize it's largely due to eas-of-use,
but to me the process is a giant data vacuum.

~~~
ksun
I agree with your statement that the value of a relationships is what keep
relationships alive. I'll add we do believe forgetfulness plays a role in how
you prioritize. One benefit of using Dex is just having visibility into who
you know so you can do this prioritization better.

Dex as a 'personal CRM' does intend to provide professional utility as a tool
that helps you keep in touch. People who depend on relationships for their
work, but might not already have a CRM with their company, are part of Dex's
core target audience.

Thanks for your point on private information: we know that our onboarding
experience isn't perfect and it's something we're working on.

------
bprasanna
Why the extension is targeted for Chrome only! What is so difficult about
porting it to Firefox? When you come up with a product for mass user
consumption, please don't assume everybody use Chrome by default.

When a product is targeted for Windows only, that means the product doesn't
make sense to run in Linux. But, if the product is applicable to Linux, and
the person or company who developed didn't consider porting it to other
platforms, then it is left to the pain of users to find the possibilities to
make it run on Linux. Or pray god one day it will be available in Linux.

In case of Extension for browsers, it doesn't make sense for users if the
extension says it is targeted for Chrome browser only. Also, most of the
extensions developed are not open source, so users don't have a chance to
taken an effort to make it run on other browsers.

Hope you consider porting your Extension to support other browsers as well.

~~~
AlphaWeaver
This, so much this. Chrome and Firefox both use the WebExtensions standard.
There's no reason not to write one extension for both. There are a few
incompatibilities here and there but I wrote a FF extension (with around 1K
MAUs) that I ported and added Chrome support in less than 2 hours.

~~~
ksun
This is a great point -- will look into this. I have to admit I haven't looked
into this but agree it's a good idea + probably a quick thing to do!

------
ArmandGrillet
Great project. I don't see privacy being mentioned in your message nor on the
website, that + the comment about the extension's permissions are a big no for
me.

It's 2019, I would expect such info to be given when reaching to the HN
audience. We know you need to make money, the website doesn't say how, the
logical assumption is that we're giving data to pay you and personally I like
to know how much I have to pay before trying a new service.

~~~
ksun
Totally get your concern. We'll surface the privacy policy more prominently (+
work on making this more clear), which you can access here
[https://getdex.com/privacypolicy](https://getdex.com/privacypolicy).

Dex is run as a subscription service ($7.99/mo), something we'll also make
more clear on the site. Appreciate your feedback here -- this helps me
understand what I need to change!

------
AIME15
> Add "Dex for Chrome"?

>> It can:

>> Read and change all your data on the websites you visit

No thanks

~~~
gitgud
With chrome extensions, unfortunately that's the only option for developers;
read all urls/data or no access to urls/data

~~~
skeletonjelly
Are you sure that's current? I made an extension (just for myself) a few
months back and I could restrict the domains via the permissions array in the
manifest.json

[https://developer.chrome.com/apps/declare_permissions](https://developer.chrome.com/apps/declare_permissions)
(see reference to "match pattern")

This then in turn populates the list of sites in the extension settings where
you can choose to deny access to the aforementioned websites listed in the
manifest

~~~
gitgud
Oh sorry, yes I am mistaken (been a while for me). I guess a lot of developers
just use permissions "host": " * " because it's easier...

What extension did you make? I made [1] an extension a while ago, and spent
more time than I'd care to admit. Now that I think about it, I used "host": "
* " too! (even though it's necessary for that particular extension)...

[1] [https://newsit.benwinding.com/](https://newsit.benwinding.com/)

~~~
skeletonjelly
Hey neat! See your extension would obviously need access to all sites to check
against reddit/HN so that makes sense.

My extension wasn't published, it was targeted to a specific site (so could
narrow the scope of the permissions) and was just set up to allow downloading
of images individually (via an overlayed button) and an album as a zip. Pretty
legal grey area hence me not publishing it.

------
lordnacho
Wow, this sounds an awful lot like the exact app I want. Was thinking about
how to build it, but wasn't sure what services could be integrated.

Tell me if does this:

\- Connects with FB, WhatsApp, Messenger, LinkedIn, and Gmail

\- Checks the message history for each person

\- Optionally coalesce users based on simple heuristics (similar name)

\- Give you a list of people according to last contact

\- Tells you the my turn / your turn of each conversation

~~~
ksun
I would really like for the version of the product to move towards something
like this -- a big struggle with relationship management now is some degree of
fragmentation.

Some of the integrations you mention (FB/WhatsApp/Messenger/LI) are hard to do
since these companies don't expose API access (and we'd have to ask for user
credentials, which aren't always straightforward!). I'm very curious -- would
you be open to sending your credentials to Dex to enable these integrations?

~~~
lordnacho
When I looked at the docs it seemed a lot of the features used to be there but
have now been removed, but I didn't spend much time on it.

Would I send my creds, I guess if it did what I need I'd click one of those
give access buttons. I hope you don't mean give user / pwd.

~~~
skinnymuch
Yeah it would likely be user password for services that don’t give API access.
Access button means API.

------
zhicong
Ugh, I wish this existed before I went to build a simpler extension to help
remember my Facebook friends better!
([http://trybackstory.com](http://trybackstory.com) \- shameless plug)

It's great that you support all the social sites - it was enough work for me
just to integrate private notes and tags into Facebook. If only I had put in
more time into Backstory to turn it from a side project into a full-fledged
product like yours!

One thing I don't like is how intrusive the sidebar integrations are. They
take up so much space that I can no longer see the other content in the
sidebar at first glance. The Messenger integration also doesn't seem to be
working for me.

Congrats on launch! I'm going to start using Dex, hope it helps me keep up
with friends in the next few weeks! :)

~~~
ksun
Backstory looks super interesting! Will definitely try it out too :) Thanks
for the feedback about the sidebar integrations; we're in the process of
revamping it and will likely move some of this information to a popup instead.

------
bravura
I was very excited to try this. Particularly as a hypersocial super-connector,
I've dreamed about my ideal personal CRM.

What I want is:

* The ability to do something like a spaced repetition with my contacts. If it proposes I connect with someone, and I'm like "great", they stay high priority. Or I can snooze that contact for a little while or a long while. (There might be an orthogonal feature to track who is important but I only need infrequent contact with.)

* The ability to accurately search my contacts. e.g. Friends who are into crypto and art.

So I went all in on Dex for ten minutes and granted read permissions for my
calendar + contacts and added the extension access to read and change data on
all websites.

The results were pretty underwhelming. It showed me a handful of contacts
scraped from Google, many of which I didn't even recognize. I understand that
this is perhaps I'm not much of an email guy, so I do know that a scrape of my
Google contacts (or even my emails) will poorly reflect my social graph.

Here's what I want:

* Scrape and import my contacts across all platforms. If you need to use a Chrome extension to read my Facebook activity (not the messages, but just the people involved), fine. If you want me to spend 20 minutes downloading Facebook exports that don't include message text, or maybe screenshotting my message feed subjects for Facebook and Instagram and emailing them to you to OCR, to avoid you being liable for TOS breaking, fine.

* Auto-tag contacts, and allow me to update my tags.

* Auto-prioritize my contacts, and allow me to update the priorities.

Dex isn't really what I need, but thank you. I appreciate you trying to solve
this problem.

[edit: Give me a Chrome extension to take screenshots of pages with key
information about my social graph, whenever I browse onto them, that will then
find sensitive info like message text and black them over and then allow me to
easily email them to you?]

~~~
ksun
Appreciate this feedback -- I recognize Dex is underwhelming for you and
we''re working to fix that. We actually do have an experimental feature for
Facebook import (it does take a few steps), but I don't think we come close to
the automation you're looking for unfortunately (we're trying to get closer!)

I think the end goal of a product we're looking to build might not be too far
off from what you're looking for, and I appreciate your comments on what you
want. (it's always nice when someone directly lists features they are looking
for). I'll make a note to follow-up when Dex is a better solution for you!

~~~
bravura
Reading your responses up on the thread, where people are also like: "Free my
WhatsApp contacts" and your only response is: "Would you give me your username
and password?", you're thinking about this in too basic a way.

Legal and safe ways to help users export their own data from other platforms
could be the innovation of your entire company.

I might not give you username and password, but if you gave me an Electron app
to run (with source code I could verify, executables for the newbies) that
would read, using machine vision, certain websites, WhatsApp desktop app, etc.
you could get a lot more data without breaking the TOS. Since it is _I_ the
user who is initiating the data transfer.

------
kilroy123
Funny coincidence, just today I was toying around with Monica and looking
around for another person CRM.

I'm a bit frustrated by the lack of features in Monica.

What I want is this, reminders to stay in contact with someone. I want a
notification to appear on my phone saying something like, "hey you told us to
stay in touch with Bob every month, click to open WhatsApp and message them."
Or slack, text, email, etc.

I also want a central location for all my contacts and info about this. Notes,
when we last got in touch and how we communicate (messenger, slack, email,
LinkedIn, etc.) I really want it to stay synced with iCloud, Google, Next
loud, etc.

I want as much automation as possible.

Every CRM I've looked into seems to revolve around a lot of manual work.

I'll have to give getdex a try.

~~~
ksun
Automation is definitely an area I've thought a lot about -- it's the most
common feature request by far. If you actively use your calendar, Dex does a
reasonable job of integrating your calendar events with your records. Email is
on the roadmap.

We've built the Chrome extension as a temporary substitute, but full
automation is definitely the eventual vision. Unfortunately the more
interesting channels (Messenger / Facebook) don't have accessible APIs so
integrating with them has been an ongoing challenge. Would appreciate any
automation suggestions as you try it out!

------
sbuccini
I really, really need something like this in my life. In a previous life, I
ran for political office and raising money would have been so much easier if I
had kept those contacts warm over time. Big problem here is that it requires
Google Contacts. Do people actually use that? Phone/FB contacts would be much
more useful in my book.

I actually was just thinking about this type of product just yesterday while
walking around a part of the city I've never been to -- how cool would it be
to proactively shoot folks a text whenever I'm in their part of town
(determined by GPS)? I end up doing this manually and I always forget folks
until it's too late.

~~~
ksun
Google Contacts are useful for email data (since folks often add to Google
Contacts, which does create issues with noise...)

I'll add you can add your iCloud contacts into Dex if you're an iPhone user!

------
philip1209
Cool! I keep a personal CRM in Airtable. But, my biggest problem is that it
doesn't have an awareness of when I contact people (e.g., via email,
messenger, Whatsapp, Twitter, etc). How do you plan on addressing this with
Dex?

~~~
ksun
Right now we do this with the Chrome extension (you can have a panel in
Twitter / Messenger without leaving the page). The calendar integration also
helps if you use calendar invites, but that isn't relevant to all
interactions. Email is on the roadmap.

For other channels like Messenger and Whatsapp, a big constraint is no API for
messages. Making an integration for these channels the 'right way' is a
challenge we're still working on -- we could ask for user credentials but that
doesn't seem like a great long-term solution.

------
AlphaWeaver
I've tried Monica, and am optimistic about the future of personal CRMs, but
nobody has taken advantage of the most obvious data source for determining
frequency of communication:

Why are there no apps that will read my SMS / call history and remind me to
follow up with people I haven't interacted with?

Monica only allows contact import, there's no direct syncing and no automatic
updates when you call / text / email someone. That seems like a no brainer of
a feature before anything else? Is there some huge technical barrier I'm
missing here?

~~~
judge2020
Would like to add that there is a "siri suggestion" in iPhone since iOS 12
that might remind you to call someone back if you missed their call.

[https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/10/16/siri-shortcuts-
sugg...](https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/10/16/siri-shortcuts-suggestions-
iphone-lock-screen-tutorial/)

~~~
AlphaWeaver
Interesting, but I think this would be relegated to the same category as the
"nudges" that Google gives you to follow up on an email in the new Gmail.

That's not really what I'm (and perhaps most people) looking for in a personal
CRM. I think the potential value add is the ability to "follow up" with long
neglected personal relationships. (Friends who you've fallen out of touch
with, etc...)

------
atemerev
Trying to fetch my Gmail contacts at the first sign-up? No option to continue
without that?

I am sorry, I can't do that. I don't know anything about your offer, how you
will be using my data. Will it be resold later? In your privacy policy, there
is an option of using my data (my contacts network) to run targeted
advertising, etc.

While I need something like this, I'll now have to search for more privacy-
conscious alternatives.

------
louisswiss
Great stuff!

I've been thinking about a way to solve the exact same problem on and off for
a long time (I'm terrible at proactively keeping in touch with friends).

My original solution was the same as yours, but it quickly broke down for me
because I just couldn't get all of the data (in particular when I last talked
to someone) into the app. I imagine you'll face the same challenge.

Two approaches have worked well for me though...

1\. a dumb version of Dex. Basically just a list of friends/acquaintances and
a periodic reminder (weekly, monthly, quarterly) to make sure I'd been in
touch

2\. a weekly prompt to reach out to _anyone_ who fits a certain set of
criteria. For example, "send a message to the last person you met at a
networking event" or "reach out to the contact you'd be most likely to
recommend for a marketing role"

Weirdly, the latter version has been way better for me at maintaining and
growing relationships outside of my closest circle of friends. Especially on
the professional side of things.

If you want to chat more about my experience or the problem in general, my
email is in my profile and I find this super interesting :)

Good luck!

~~~
ksun
Will follow-up via email :). I'll note I think one thing that Dex does
different is it tries to be actionable as best as possible (like your #2
weekly prompt). Without a prompt, it's much harder to get regular value out of
the product!

------
dgudkov
A suggestion that I also proposed to the Monica's founder (with no reply,
though) - make it possible to organize contacts around interests. In real life
there almost always is some kind of common interest that you share with people
- computer games, politics, cars, cooking, whatever. However with different
people you have different shared interests.

~~~
ksun
Thanks for this suggestion -- this is something I've thought about (especially
in relation to helping users remember a good reason to reach out). You can do
this sort-of with the tags in Dex now, but admittedly not a perfect solution.

------
lars_francke
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.

~~~
ksun
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.

~~~
atemerev
Why you are collecting personal contacts pervasively, then?

~~~
reificator
I mean, the app is meant to help organize your contacts, is it not?

If I see an app ask for my contact data without good reason, I'm immediately
out in most cases. But they've got a good reason: it's what the app is
supposed to do...

~~~
atemerev
The app is "a personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch". There are
people that I want to keep in touch with (which I can add manually), and the
rest of my contact list, who don't need any organizing.

------
rodolphoarruda
My first CRM implementation in a large enterprise was back in 2004, so 15
years ago, OMG. Since then, I have seen and heard of many implementations that
failed miserably because one critical factor: data entry was too
hard/complicated. Just look at any CRM solution out there, pick up any entity,
let's say, an Account. Click 'add new' and you will see 3 thousand different
fields populating your screen, for those you won't have 30% of the data to
fill in. Some process will mandate that you fill in at least 60% of that data
somehow, so you cancel that creation and move ahead using a workaround.

In my opinion, CRM data entry should always be incremental/progressive, very
granular, allowing processes to flow without frustrating users. That is key to
user adoption and to any project success. Just my 2cents on this.

------
the-peter
Interesting product! I recently used a mind-mapping tool to make a web of
everyone (EVERYONE) I've ever known. I started with my family, all of my jobs
and all of my schools, added everyone from those places and methodically
looked at each person in the list adding people I met through them. Later I
added trips like vacations, conferences etc and added everyone I met there. I
was a nice nostalgic trip but I was amazed how many people I genuinely liked
but haven't talked to in years. The thought crossed my mind to somehow track
'last contact' dates and have something popup to remind me to get in touch
with people but it seemed too daunting a task to keep it up to date. I'll take
a look a Dex for this now.

------
michaelmior
Sounds exactly like what Socialfly was doing several years ago. (Different
Socialfly from what you'll find from a Google search now. I couldn't seem to
find any trace of the Socialfly I'm referring to online.) Anyway, I did find
that service helpful so I hope Dex works out.

~~~
ksun
Thanks for the note! Curious to hear more about Socialfly if you have any more
info -- there have been a lot of attempts at a Personal CRM and always
interested in learning from past examples.

~~~
michaelmior
I don't remember much about it tbh. It would import contacts and let you add
birthday info and other personal details and schedule follow ups. I don't
think it was anything groundbreaking tech-wise, but the concept seemed unique
at the time.

------
Mikho
Looks like you are heavily utilizing Segment to funnel lots of private user
data to unknown third party providers as also use CloudSponge -- which also
basicall sucks up to all of my contacts and nobody knows what with it. That's
too much third party data access without proper justification.

BTW, Kevin, in your graphics you have a Russian name as an example. Are you
Russian and just pretending to be westerner or you just like Russian names?

------
mr_puzzled
It looks like Dex is fairly early stage and has a single founder(?). Many
people including myself see this as a fairly rare occurence though YC insists
otherwise (and YC is likely correct). I wanted to ask you a few questions
about your company and journey leading up to to YC.

* When did you start the company and how many founders are there?

* What was your traction (MAU or anything else) prior to being accepted into YC?

* How do you plan to grow the userbase? Content marketing, ads, partnering with other companies?

* How do you plan to make money?

* How big is the market size?

* Are there any adjacent markets that you could see yourself expanding into?

Good luck!

~~~
ksun
You're right on both counts. The company started approximately 9 months ago,
focused on different ideas in the relationship management space; traction
prior to YC was minimal.

The plan to grow the userbase is content marketing + advertising as we figure
out unit economics. The plan to make money is to charge $7.99/month for the
product. Market size estimates this early are tough to get right, but we
believe anyone who uses LI (645 million users) can manage relationships better
with Dex.

------
wil5for
I've been thinking about solving the same problem for myself personally (Even
made an app here: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/prim-relationship-
manager/id14...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/prim-relationship-
manager/id1455596937)).

How are you avoiding manual data entry given social media's reluctance to
release this information? Semi-related, how are you respecting user's data?

~~~
ksun
Thanks for sharing Prim! Really interesting. Manual data entry as you know is
the hard part -- any personal CRM will require some data entry. We try to make
this easy with a calendar integration and Chrome extension, but it's not
perfect and always a challenge.

With user data: our privacy policy is here
([https://getdex.com/privacypolicy](https://getdex.com/privacypolicy)) and we
chose a subscription model so your data stays yours -- and private.

------
karimf
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?

------
dantiberian
From the privacy policy:

 _We also may collect limited information from the people with whom you
interact by email when you use the Site and Services. This information may
include the recipient’s name and email address, the number of times that the
recipient opens your email, the recipient’s IP address and the computer
platform that the recipient is using._

Is there a way to turn this off?

------
omarhaneef
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?

~~~
ksun
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.

------
baby_wipe
Interesting because I did contract work for a very similar app about a year
ago.

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sunny-organize-your-
contacts/i...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sunny-organize-your-
contacts/id1399782974#?platform=iphone)

~~~
orliesaurus
What happened to the company/app since?

~~~
baby_wipe
I don't think they got much traction.

------
sansnomme
Comparison with Monica?

~~~
ksun
Overall: Dex isn't open source, but integrates with your Google Calendar, has
a Chrome extension that integrates with social media workflows.

We're definitely solving a similar problem, and in the past I was a user of
Monica until I found it too much work to keep up with. Monica notably does
have more fields and performs functions (like journaling) that Dex does not.

~~~
trilila
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.

~~~
emptysongglass
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.

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

~~~
SEJeff
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?".

------
getpost
I think a personal CRM should include knowledge of Dunbar's number.[0][1]

Like,

"You are spending too much time with C people. Is C person Andrew now a B? B
people like Joe and Jane need more attention."

"You could use another A relationship. The following B people might be good
candidates based on your contact frequency."

This is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but it is often true that people don't attend
to relationships with apprppriate priority. And, knowing your situation with
regard to various relationship levels provides insight for growth.

[0] [https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-
med...](https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-media-affect-
math-dunbar-number-friendships)

[1]
[https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2004...](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2004.2970)

~~~
ksun
This is an interesting insight -- definitely aware of Dunbar's number but
haven't thought about the best way to incorporate it into Dex. Appreciate the
suggestions!

------
Rainymood
Shit. Companies with "my idea" keep getting into YC ... I always feel that my
ideas are too crazy but then I see companies with exactly my idea getting into
YC. I should just start building them out I guess ...

Looking forward to what you guys build, Dex!

~~~
o-__-o
Are you me?

do you want to pair up on something and mash something out over the course of
a few weekends?

~~~
Rainymood
Hell yes, feel free to reach out to me (website is in my profile)!

------
Chirael
I thought I was going to have to build something like this myself but finally
found a “good enough” app (ABC / Always Be in Contact). It has a few warts but
since it’s free I can’t complain and it’s definitely helped me stay in touch
with people

------
SEJeff
[https://github.com/dexidp/dex](https://github.com/dexidp/dex) is an existing
project which was part of CoreOS's commercial kubernetes offering.

~~~
dymk
"dex" is also the file extension for Dalvik VM bytecode files, and "Pokedex"
is for keeping lists of Pokemon, "Roladex" is yet another product for keeping
lists of people, and it means "dexterity" in role playing games, but nobody is
getting confused with CoreOS's thing.

~~~
SEJeff
I have literally no idea why I'm getting downvoted for pointing out something
with the same name. I just figured it added value to the "dex" convo. I
realize it isn't going to confuse people as it is vastly different. It is
_still_ relevant as it has the same name, even if you downvote me.

~~~
lubujackson
It is probably because you seem to be unaware of rolodexes, which is what
everyone used to manage contacts before computers, and the source for all the
"dex" naming trends:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolodex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolodex)

~~~
SEJeff
I was born in the early 80s, can confirm, am aware of a Rolodex :)

------
simonebrunozzi
Congrats on launching, and good luck with your startup. Personally I am much
more old fashion - I stubbornly don't want a CRM to remind me of keeping in
touch. I want to have my own mind to tell me...

~~~
reificator
> _Personally I am much more old fashion - I stubbornly don 't want a CRM to
> remind me of keeping in touch. I want to have my own mind to tell me..._

My own mind has proven itself incompetent at this task, so I'm good with a
little assistance.

I was actually planning on re-reviewing Monica soon, so I'll add this to
compare against. For me my goal is just about tracking what people enjoy or
don't, what we last did, important developments in their lives, whether I've
updated them on my own important developments, etc...

Just offloading all the things my brain has repeatedly failed at in favor of
garbage like song lyrics or API documentation.

------
Brajeshwar
Nice. I so wanted something for quite a while. Brainstormed, sketched out
quite a few times with my friend. Would be intereting how this progressed.

Was using Contactually but was not happy.

------
tamasnet
I don't use Chrome. Or Gmail. Am I SOL?

Also, I used to use Contactually for this a few years ago, was great with
email integration and FB before they killed the API. Good luck!

------
Invictus0
I currently use Notion for my personal CRM but I'm frustrated by the reminders
and poor note taking features. Will be giving Dex a try.

~~~
scrollaway
I'm curious, what's your workflow in Notion for CRM stuff?

------
DarwinMailApp
I built something just like this years ago!

It’s called Contact - People Organizer by App Addiction

PS: I don’t track anything you do!!

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

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

~~~
SEJeff
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!

------
Zaskoda
A personal CRM should be federated. I shouldn't need to keep my friend's
contact details up to date manually. If they run a digital address book of
some kind, my software should just ask their software for the latest data and
subsequently update my local data. This should be an open protocol like email
or calendaring.

------
jeeshan
Any functionality to log text messages, WhatsApp, and email?

------
betimsl
So basically a smarter address book?

------
nickporter
I need this in my life. Great idea!

------
drwl
What's behind the name?

~~~
ksun
It's meant to evoke 'Rolodex' but not directly :)

------
maz1b
I also planned on doing a startup for this, but didn't have enough time. Best
of luck to you!

