ksun

This is the reason I started Dex (YC S19) -- tried Monica and while it solved the right problem I found it a heavy -- it felt like to much work. To be a single source of truth I wanted to import from Facebook / LinkedIn etc, and I didn't find it possible with Monica. (plug: Dex does)

Founder of Dex here! Apologies for the involved flow + being booked through December. Since everyone manages relationships differently, we've found it a valuable step for our new users. ('do things that don't scale'). If you send me a note (you'll have my email from completing the survey), also happy to send self-service instructions as well.

Dex (YC S19) | Founding Engineer | Full Time | San Francisco + Remote | $80,000 - $120,000 + 1-6%

Dex (https://getdex.com/) is a personal CRM that helps anyone build stronger relationships. Thousands of users use the Dex dashboard and Chrome Extension to remember where they left off and set reminders to reach out.

We’re looking for a founding engineer with experience building and shipping product. There is a tremendous amount of ownership and autonomy you’d take on -- and you’d be able to ideate and build features from start to finish.

Tech stack: Vue.js, React Native, Expo, Firebase, Cloud Functions (Javascript, Node, Python)

Job posting: https://angel.co/company/dex-8/jobs/635625-founding-engineer

Feel free to reach out directly to kevin (at) getdex.com or apply through AngelList.

Dex | Founding Engineer | Full-time | San Francisco or Remote | $80-120k + 1.0-6.0% | https://getdex.com/

Dex (YC S19) is a personal CRM that reminds you to keep in touch. Thousands of people already use Dex to stay on top of their personal and professional relationships.

As the founding engineer, you'll be given unprecedented autonomy and ownership to solve a profound consumer problem. You'll also wear multiple hats joining this early — implementing new interfaces, writing integration pipelines, designing systems, and setting the course for how engineering works at Dex.

Founding Engineer: https://angel.co/company/dex-8/jobs/635625-founding-engineer

If you're interested, apply via AngelList or feel free to email directly with a bit about yourself to kevin (at) getdex.com. Remote candidates will also be considered.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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?

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.

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!

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!

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

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!

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!

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!

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) and we chose a subscription model so your data stays yours -- and private.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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!

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

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

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!

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.

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.

Thanks for bringing this up! Monica is definitely an inspiration for what Dex is working on. I think it'd be fair to characterize two main contrasts: 1) Dex is for relationships that are both professional and personal 2) tries to be more integrated with existing workflows (using your calendar)

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.

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.