Built A Platform To Track & Monitor Networking Contacts - Feedback/Thoughts?
Posted on r/Startup_Ideas but I thought I'd post here to get some feedback, potential bugs, suggestions, potential support, or just trash it. Started building it as a side project in my free time, but since I work in private investing I don't have a ton of free time.
I've been working on a website (topfloorguide.com) to serve as a contact management platform to help track and monitor my networking contacts in the industry.
I went to a smaller liberal arts college and studied computer engineering and got the jobs I've had in finance in large part due to a lot of networking and reaching out to alumni or relatable people in the industry. During this process I struggled keeping track of everyone I had reached out to on LinkedIn or email and the multitude of phone conversations I had. So I decided to build this for all of the current college students still looking to find a position and that have been hitting the ground hard networking.
The website is currently free and lets you add contacts, record tasks for specific contacts, as well as audio and text notes, call logs, and create templates to send out through email. This is very much still a work in progress, as I've been building this out in my free time after work and on the weekends when I can find the time. I'd love to get any thoughts, feedback, or potential bugs on the platform and if people think this is a useful tool.
Hi,
I actually have some insight into this industry since I'm building mogulnetworking.com (Simple and privacy focused personal CRM - very similar to what you are building minus a few features like email sending/audio recording)
I think targeting a specific niche is a great idea honestly for a tool like this. Something I've realized is a lot of people have very specific needs when it comes to a tool like this and building something that satisfies everyone is impossible. Targeting a specific niche is interesting (and something I've considered as well, like creating variations of Mogul targeted at specific industries) because you can actually build a tool that speaks to these users and have a better chance of acquiring them than a generic tool like mine can.
I'll also be honest though, I don't think there is a big market here. And I'm not just saying that because I built something in the space and want to deter you from pursuing it.
I've been in the space for almost 5 years and from what I've seen most personal contact management apps end up pivoting to sales because that's where the money is. $10K/mo business is very doable I think, but anything past that is a bit hard given how small the market is for something like this.
I am pursuing it because I genuinely use the tool and have fun doing it, but I came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth creating into a serious business because of the market size. I think this can change in the future, especially with the rise of other what I call "luxury" apps like Superhuman and Fantastical, but consumers just don't know they need something like this for contacts yet.
Happy to chat sometime if you want to hear more about what I think about the industry ✌️
I know what you mean in terms of scaling and also don't really see it as something that would be able to grow that large. I really appreciate the feedback though and would love to chat and pick your brain since you've been building something similar. I'm fairly new to this site but shoot me an email sometime!
I had this problem and tried using CRMs but that wasn't ideal. I found monicahq.com, an open source "personal crm" which checks a lot of boxes.
This is not to say that you shouldn't build what you're building. Build one better than Monica and i'll sign up right away
Thanks for sharing