Show HN: A “CRM” for personal relationships | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: A “CRM” for personal relationships

elim.app

126 pointsRitepaw96 comments

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spreadvk.e...

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-new-elim/id6463781107

We know life can be busy. And we often struggle to make time for the people that matter most to us.

According to a Harvard study from 2021, "36% of all Americans [...] feel “serious loneliness.”" [1]

We created an app to help people focus on their most personal relationships and guide them through forming more meaningful connections with them, in the hopes to combat the "Loneliness Epidemic".

We just launched the first iteration - call it an MVP if you like - something to validate our ideas and get the conversation started.

We are looking for people to try out what we have built and share their thoughts. The functionality is very basic for now, but we are planning to expand based on our users' feedback.

Here is what you can do today:

* Tell us who the people are that matter most to you

* Get daily reminders to reach out to them

* Send them virtual postcards with over 50 handcrafted designs

[1] https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/loneliness-in-america

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Some implementation details:

The whole app is built in Flutter. It was a first time experience for us. Everything went pretty fast and smooth and the Flutter documentation is amazing! There are tons of resources out there that helped us solving our problems. We just needed to be a bit careful about the plugins. Some were pretty outdated or even unmaintained. But we made sure we encapsulated every plugin so we can easily replace if necessary.

Dart is a language we felt immediately comfortable with. It didn't feel too dissimilar from Java.

For now, our app is client-side only. There is no server. Which is nice. Cause it removes complexity and we can leave all the data on our users' phones. Nothing is sent to us, or any other 3rd part. This is something we are pretty proud of and hope we can keep up for a long time.

> Nothing is sent to us, or any other 3rd part.

Thank you. Good design choice. The privacy policy was the first I scrolled to in the AppStore.

I am paranoid about these things myself, and one of the few people in my circle who actually like being GDPR-compliant. So this was a no-brainer to me.

> For now, our app is client-side only. There is no server. Which is nice. Cause it removes complexity and we can leave all the data on our users' phones.

That's a relief, when I saw this in the OP I got pretty worried:

> Here is what you can do today: > > * Tell us who the people are that matter most to you

A company specifically wanting to know that sort of thing sets off some alarm bells!

This feels a bit like complaining a health app wants your medical data though. How else is a personal CRM going to work other than by data about your social graph?

I don't mind putting data in the app. I don't want to tell the people running it anything.

Maybe I wasn't precise enough. The data remains on your phone. Nothing is sent to us.

Congrats on the launch!

What features are on your roadmap to make it more CRM than personalized greeting cards?

There's also https://www.monicahq.com/, an open source personal CRM that doesn't allow you to directly engage with people like elim allows.

A shortlist from the top of my mind:

* Individualised settings per contact

* Who is this person to you?

* How often do you want to engage with this contact?

* What kind of ambitions do you have with this contact?

* More refined suggestions based on the above

* Training module to improve your social skills

* Knowledge base

* Regular blogs/videos/podcasts about the loneliness topic

* Seasonal events and designs

> * How often do you want to engage with this contact? and perhaps have a reminder "you usually call X person every Friday around 6pm, it is now 6pm"

> * What kind of ambitions do you have with this contact? pop a reminder/message: "did you manage to establish phase 5- "ask Mary out for a date"?"

> * Knowledge base a la IMDB on the bio: spouse, siblings, birthday, etc.

At least on Android there is a nice app for the first point. It will track your calls and messages and remind you to contact people in certain intervals based on predefined contact group settings: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.barta.stayi...

Big discussion on Monica when it did its Show HN 6 years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497295

I've been looking for automated help with the kinds of problems this app claims to solve for some time. I've done the usual HackerNews thing of finding imperfect solutions (currently a series of overlapping periodic tasks in todoist) and considering making my own service.

I understand this is very early, but right now this feature set feels like an anti-product. The idea that I would get "daily reminders" of every relationship I am tracking (At least twenty people, but perhaps as much as hundreds depending on how widely you cast your net) is less of a promise and more of a threat.

> * something to validate our ideas and get the conversation started.*

This potential user would like to hear your ideas for how to deal with this "at scale." The high points you describe here seem out of sync with even mildly busy adult lives.

The only thing I can say right now is: you are absolutely correct. This is something we need to address asap (and will!)

I'll watch your efforts with enthusiasm! I think it's hard and I think commercializing it is particularly hard. I also think your framing is exactly correct - the shape of our social relationships is transforming quickly, but our social habits aren't transforming as quickly (as least mine aren't). I hope you succeed!

Thank you for your kind words!

Pretty app! I created something related, but more utilitarian. It's called CommuniqAI and may be found at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.mtc.ga.

This looks great! Sadly I can't check it out right now, as I don't have my Android phone with me. Do you happen to have an iOS version as well?

Unfortunately I do not. The app has some advanced functionality that Google approved, but I can't imagine Apple would allow the same integration with iMessage.

You can corporate with Beeper, they have a deep integration into all major messaging apps and an API that allows you to read and send messages. Works for iMessage too!

Congrats on the launch! I love the focus on local data only.

I've tried several different CRMs to help remind me to keep track of friends, family, and acquaintances. The problem I have is I have thousands of contacts from tons of different sources and from over the years.

From Google, old phones, LinkedIn, Apple, and people in emails who aren't contacts. I would love an app that could consolidate all my contacts into one place as seamlessly as possible.

Then help remind me to get in touch.

You sound like a great person to do a user interview with :) Would you be willing to answer some questions in a private chat or call?

Feel free to email me. Details in my profile.

I kinda have the opposite problem. I have 50-100 people in my phone, and I would only care to use the app for maybe 20ish... Here's the thing... I absolutely don't want to give it cart-blanche access to my contacts (perhaps irrational; I'm being honest). As a super-nerd (as are 94% of us here), I completely understand from a technical perspective why it's that way... But, it just feels creepy and I don't trust it (again, I'm quite sure this is irrational).

That was a long-winded way of saying "this is cool, but I wish I could key in contacts separately."

Hope that made sense.

This is good feedback. If anything, we should all be more paranoid about whom we share our data with. And the contacts in your phone book are especially sensitive. Let me take a note and see what we can do about that. I don't see why we shouldn't allow for users to add their contacts manually.

Cool. Thanks for taking the time. I'll keep an eye on it <3

My use case is keeping tracking of business contacts, but not as a salesperson, which is who business CRMs target. I have not seen many CRMs address this application, and I don't know if you care to. Here are some features I'd like:

* Make it easy to keep track of what I've been discussing with a person, and the last time we communicated. Set reminders for following up.

* Allow me to enrich information -- people, events -- with metadata such as tags, and query them with a conversational interface.

* Integrate with all my communication tools. Maybe create a plug-in system so users can help out.

Thanks a lot for the input! I've noted it down (and already saw some overlap with what we have in the pipeline) :)

Just downloaded it because I do struggle a lot with this problem. When I was single, I was better at keeping in touch with a lot of my friends. After getting married though, I feel like I need to put in effort to still keep in touch because life gets in the way and priorities change.

Feedback on the app - I really like the design. Very intuitive. Had no problem getting through my core flow and i’m all set. I do wish you ask for permissions for contact a little later in the flow when i’m actually trying to add people to my list. It will make more sense and it will be more intuitive. I was a little taken back by the permissions dialog right after opening the app even before I got a chance to check out the app. That’s the only thing I would probably change if I was you.

Congrats on the launch!

Something I would love to see is an integration with all my messaging apps where I stay in touch with people.

Beeper.com offers such functionality (can also be self hosted, which is something I did) and it’s amazing if you can see when you last messaged people, what the content was, etc.

Beeper itself is purely built for messaging, so an app like yours would be the perfect companion to give you all the CRM functionality and could then use beeper to send the messages out and log the interactions.

The disadvantage if you don’t self-host is though, that you need to trust beeper with your messenger connections.

Keep up, this is a super interesting area!

We'll check it out. Thank you!

Does anyone receiving these feel like it's personal enough to be meaningful? I can't help but think that even with some cutesy text, if it wasn't exactly the tone of the person who sent it or it didn't contain some kind of inside joke, it would just come across as a cookie-cutter afterthought. It seems like the Bitmoji of greeting cards, all splash and no depth.

Is the goal to "exit" with a sale to Hallmark or something?

You are absolutely right in that we need to strike the right balance between convenience and value. We discuss this a lot internally and will certainly need a couple iterations before we find the sweet spot.

My number one “personal CRM” challenge isn’t getting reminders to call people, it’s remembering things people told me. I’ve taken recently to using the Notes field in Contacts, but something more structured would really be nice.

Thank you for your suggestion! I've taken note of it and we will discuss :)

So how do you plan to make money? Do you want to move to a subscription based model, do you show in app ads, do you sell data? I cannot find a reference for such information on your website besides maybe your privacy policy.

We haven't quite figured it out yet. We are a business after all and need to make money at some point. Here is what we decided to not do:

* Show ads

* Sell data

In the end it will probably come down to a premium subscription, we have to hash out the details and do some research around it. Would also love to connect with someone in the industry who has experience in creating fair subscription options!

Thank you for not including telemetry or other surveillance in your app. It's rare these days and appreciated.

Tbh we were initially looking for a GDPR-compliant telemetry solution cause we thought we need to track something to gauge engagement and retention. I was surprised to see that Google Play Console and App Store Connect give these insights already for free (if the user opts-in).

Would love for connections to things like LinkedIn, FB Messenger, WhatsApp etc. As someone who lives in a couple countries, I do not use my phone's contacts much.

This is fascinating to me

Your contacts are all in disparate systems?

Do you have any desire to consolidate them?

Is it normal for you to understand that Alice is a "Facebook friend" and Bob is an "Instagram friend"?

With regards to linkedin I imagine these are all "professional friends" - are your other friends able to be put into clean buckets like linkedin?

I wanted something similar so I made myself a list in the Reminders app. I recommend doing it, it’s made keeping up with friends who moved to another country easier.

I commend you for making this effort! It is such an easy thing to do and so worth it. Is there any specific schema or method behind it?

Mine was as simple as it gets: a list in Reminders, recurring reminders every 2 weeks/1 month/3 month depending on how close we are/how frequently they have interesting things to say.

If I see the reminder I try to call/text that person when I have some down time. I tick the box when done, or if I think I've seen talked to them organically recently enough.

I'd be cool if it could somehow tell from my call/whatsapp log/calendar how long it's actually been, but it being a fuzzy is a feature too.

And as you say, definitely worth it.

This is a weird question to ask but why's your website German for me?

Edit: Oh, I got it. This submission links to the English version, but the "the next elim." link at the top links to a not specifically English URL, and going from there to any other page gets me to the German version. Huh.

Time to learn German then ;-) Good find! Let us get this fixed.

I'm German, that's why I was spooked! I'm not in Germany and nothing on my system should be set to German so I was worried you might be applying some sort of mind-reading analytics tech.

No need to worry then, it's merely a bug :)

Even the order of entries in the Accept-Language header, as per browser settings? That's usually the source of half the problems I have with websites suddenly defaulting to an unexpected language.

(The other half is websites suddenly displaying in Norwegian; it started after I was in Oslo for a few days and, while there, had to re-activate Skype from the website. Even a decade and two jobs later, on completely unrelated computers, some websites will suddenly display in Norwegian, for reasons completely unknown.)

Nope, I suspected something there too but it turns out I only have en-GB there.

I used to have an app that could display my iphones contact list in reverse chronological order.

That was very helpful for "what was the name of that guy I met yesterday at that conference?

The app I used has long since been abandoned, and the niche seems littered with scammy apps.

By chance, was it an app called Protact?

This is a great idea.

Also this would be very valuable for folks joining large organizations who need to keep track of who is good / bad and capture how happy they are with whom they work with.

Opening the page the first time it starts at the bottom and i need to scroll up. Opening it a second time it works fine (starts at the top). Behavior replicated with new private window.

This isnt an issue worth fixing, just wanted to mention it in case its directly apparent what isnt correctly initialized. I (and i think most others) prefer this over the site not working without javascript. Requiring to unblock a random site is a lot higher hurdle for accessibility then just scrolling up. In all honesty a non issue.

Interesting... obviously not how it should be. Can you share the browser (and version) you are using?

Firefox 117 with adblock and noscript (nothing allowed).

Again, this is much preferable over the site not loading. I am not that familiar with web development but it looks like something that isnt initialized correctly (likely set afterwards in js?). Its really not worth putting in the effort to try to debug it if its not obvious.

Its pretty clear that its a side effect of the blockers so you shouldnt be worried about bad impressions. I took it as a very good sign that the page just loaded as is anyway, especially given that you are working with quite sensitive information. Anyone with a similar setup will likely take it the same way as they are used to sites not working.

This way i was able to look at it, which i wouldnt have if the site required any additional scripts. That should count as a win and a job well done.

Why is the app categorised (iOS) as “Health & Fitness”?

Also: can’t find it if I search for “Elim” in AppStore.

Very interested is seeing where this app will go.

The lack of a web app is a deal breaker for me.

Interesting! We haven't thought of it so far but shouldn't be too much of an effort to port to the web, given that we use Flutter.

Could you elaborate the particular reasons as to why you'd prefer a web app? (Would a desktop app be relevant as well?)

Screen real estate, ease of linking, etc.

No, I don't want a desktop app. For one, I use all three os platforms regularly and it's just annoying to think about getting it on each.

is it possible to have a web app and keep the data in sync with the mobile app without having a server?

I appreciate more takes in this space and what elim could be. Best of luck!

That said, I find Fabriq to be more inline with what I (no affiliation) think about an app to help cultivate relationships: https://ourfabriq.com/fabriq

Assuming this works, I’d assume I’d want to have for decades right?

So what’s the plan to ensure this service does not degrade over the next few decades?

Our design philosophy is to sync as much as we can back to the OS, so that it can be picked up by other apps.

Let me take a note though and look into a manual export solution!

Yeah I think it's worth thinking through how to make the data easy to be portable

I know that sounds counterintuitive, and that data lock in is usually valuable, but I think it's generally a liability and history seems to show that building great services around mostly open components is the best way to build software for longevity and happiness.

If you can improve on or coopt an open contact format, that is third party accessible, and then you build the best interface and services around that, then you might have something important and lasting here!

Thanks

elim is mile backwards?

and elims would be smile!

I love that :)

Any plans for a web version? For those who are keeping an eye on the space, here are some others:

- https://MonicaHQ.com

- https://Clay.earth

- https://GetDex.com

- https://Humans.io - A little side project of mine since 2015. PWA, works offline, will likely open source soon and add E2E encryption.

Interesting. I've wanted to build something like this for years.

For what it's worth when I prototyped I called it "PRM" - Personal Relationship Management.

Thank you so much for sharing these links!

I like Monica a lot. I tried Clay, and even pre-paid to get early access, but ended up cancelling one day after I finally got to try it. It just didn't work for me.

Humans.io seems like an awesome project!

The two critical things Monica / Chandler are missing are: zero-knowledge E2EE (I want to put very personal things in there and not worry about breaches), and no integration with phone contacts / CardDav (I want to be able to use CRM to manage contacts, ofc!)

Etesync may be useful for hosted zero-knowledge E2EE; it should be pretty plug-and-play.

I've been using Monica [1] for the personal CRM and it does what it is supposed to do. It's a basic web app and lacks the sophistication moderns apps have, but it hasn't died for 5 years at least. Just FYI.

[1] https://www.monicahq.com/

We'll check it out. Thank you!

I like this! One request: if you ever go for pay, please don’t get greedy. I don’t mind paying for things, but take Dex for example. I like it, but I’m not paying $145-$240 per year for something I can reimplement badly with Reminders. I just want something to say “hey, don’t forget to say hi to your friend every once in a while” without paying an arm and a leg.

For contrast, 6 years ago I paid $80 for Things 3 across all my devices, and it’s still being developed and updated. I’d have a hell of a time paying twice that per year for a vastly simpler app.

The core product will remain free. And we will never take anything away that is already out there.

Great looking app. Though I'm curious of the origins of the name Elim. It feels like eliminate, but you don't want to eliminate people. So maybe you had a different meaning in mind.

Beautiful looking app. I'll download it when I get a chance.

I'll be launching an MVP app in the mental health/anxiety space next week (currently in TestFlight), so I'd like to connect and find out a bit about how your experience with your launch, and distribution plans if you're up for it (my linkedin is in my profile).

Copy & paste from the other comment: I have to ask my cofounder about this, as she came up with the name. I remember it meaning something like "an oasis in the desert" which is quite fitting to the whole loneliness problem.

I'll send you an invite!

If "relationships matter" and you need an app to remind you of that, I'd posit you have a larger problem than any app can solve. Consider putting down the device and connecting with your peeps in the real world every once in a while.

The way we see it is that most people want to be connected and want to be good friends. But they either

a) Lack the social skills or

b) Lack the time management skills

This is where we want to help.

As an adult deeply involved in my children's lives, with a demanding job, and volunteering in local athletics, your comment completely missed the mark. It's trivial to lose track of social relationships.

Why use a calendar? Just remember everything you have coming up. Why use a to-do app? Just remember all the things you need to do.

Life gets busy. I want to drop a note to my distant family regularly, but between work and family and friends and hobbies, sometimes out of sight becomes out of mind. I like having a periodic nudge to ping that far-off person. Today I’m using Things for that, with repeating tasks to text so-and-so periodically. Something that integrates that with a record of what we talked about last time (so I can follow up with them) or alert me on special days would be nice.

I do all this because I care about those people and want to make a special effort to keep up with them. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be interested.

Sibling comments are rather affronted at this, but I happen to agree that leaning into technology to reclaim what we lost to technology in the first place is not actually solving a problem, it's slapping a bandage on and juicing up with some morphine.

Technology can't give a person more than the set amount of time, energy, and attention they have by virtue of being human. We're cramming more and more into our lives, but I doubt that in general we feel more satisfied and fulfilled. You can add and add until you can't. At some point you need to subtract. In this community there's likely to be at least some stigma around not optimizing every last second of your life, and personally I think that attitude should be stigmatized. It's insulting to personal dignity.

But optimization is exactly what you called for - subtracting things, rearranging things. Because the issue is that we have little choice in how much stuff we have to cram in our lives. That's the social problem of technology: it's a ratchet.

Consider a clock. Why do you need to know what time is it, with minute accuracy? Because you need to synchronize in time with other people. Why do you need that? Because everyone else does that and it's now a basic part of how society functions. You owning a clock is a default expectation.

How did it came to be this way? The first clocks invented weren't very useful for this (they were for navigation at sea, though), because approximately no one had them. But then someone put clocks on church towers and someone else miniaturized them, and at some point we crossed from it being a convenience to it being necessity.

Same story with calendars, todo lists, having a phone at home, having a phone in your pocket, having a bank account. Emerging additions to this list include having credit/debit cards, having smartphones, having social media accounts. Individually, we can do little about it; at some point, resisting costs more than giving in.

I think we're agreeing just from different angles. We seem to have the same opinion about the veritable rat race of being forced to juggle ever more things, because technology. It seems that where we're not agreeing is 'optimizing'. IMO the end goal of optimization is to do as much as possible, which is additive. I can see on a personal level some optimizing might be subtractive, but for society as a whole I don't think so.

Might you consider for just a moment, if you will, people who do have a larger problem. People who are neurodivergent who may be challenged with object permanence. Apps like this help greatly. It's not that we don't care or we're stuck with a device in our face, it's that the person doesn't exist unless brought to the front and center.

That's why I suggested it... I myself am diagnosed ASD and have realized the amount of time spent finding, curating, tinkering with these "life-hacking" apps... and the diminishing returns they all produce. By all means, use a Contacts, Calendar, and ToDo app to get a reminder... Then take any spare time remaining and actually get out and connect with the people you care about, instead of endlessly optimizing, in solitude, in front of a device, the systems and processes around the meta for personal relationships.

The premise that one of the myriad of other tools that already exist to get a reminder to connect with someone you care about are somehow so insufficient, and that if only I had this new CRM app for personal relationships that I'd finally be able to cultivate those relationships like I've always wanted, is just so preposterous sounding to me that I felt I had to comment.

Oh, I see. Thanks for your perspective. I can understand trying to use contacts and calendar for this and the need to keep it simple. I had a really hard time keeping those organized and the data entered but as apps like Messages get smarter and recognize when I say Happy Birthday to someone that it needs to put a birthdate on that contact, it’s getting a lot easier for me to stay organized.

Ok but why call it "eliminate"? Sry the bluntness

I read it as Elim, as in Elim Garak, a famous tailor from a relatively well-known sci-fi show.

That isn't really any better in terms of connotations, though.

Everyone's favourite station tailor has no part in this (sadly) ;-)

I have to ask my cofounder about this, as she came up with the name. I remember it meaning something like "an oasis in the desert" which is quite fitting to the whole loneliness problem.

It's from a religious text - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elim_(place)

Put something clever involving “N-O-P” near the top of your website, and people will think it’s a cute alphabet reference.

Yes that’s the first thing I thought of. Seems like a terrible name for an app meant to strengthen relationships. App idea seems good but my unsolicited advice would be to change the name asap.

Great app! I built bravoboard.xyz to celebrate friends and loved ones and build a culture of gratitude!

As someone who puts way less effort than I should into maintaining lasting relationships with people I don't see on a regular basis, this is a great product. Having said that, I feel that "Dear Jo, thank you for being part of *MY* story" (emphasis mine) is the most narcissistic/solipsistic wish imaginable.

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