What not to build: Sunshine Contacts

Please allow me to pick on a VC-backed product that I think won't work, and that you shouldn't try to emulate.

If you're thinking of building an app like Sunshine Contacts, don't. It won't work.

It's an app that aims to fix a problem that doesn't really exist. As a creator, you'd think it's a nifty problem to solve there, something new and innovative. A pain point that you've probably felt yourself! But if you build an app like this, it won't make you money. And hint hint, despite the fact that it's funded by investors with clout (Marissa Mayer, no less), they won't make money either.

Sunshine Contacts uses AI to fill up your contacts app (iOS) with up-to-date information.

Their landing page seems to be doing all the right things:

1. It connects with a pain point: nobody trusts their contacts app for having good information. Okay, I see that. Struggle-first...
2. It describes a better reality: you'll have your life changed by having connected with the right people. Pushing it a little bit, but fine...
3. It shows what the app looks like, with all the extra information added about the contact. Before and afters are great. Good job!
4. It addresses anxieties: How does it work anyway? It uses AI. What about privacy? We have a privacy pledge. Rolls eyes, but okay.

Despite all that, this app won't work. These VCs are deluding themselves.

Three Levels of Understanding

When you're trying to put yourself in the mind of a buyer, to see if there's going to be a sale, there are three levels you can get to, to qualify how well you understand, how well you can predict success or failure.

1. Not Sharp Enough: Understanding the Role, the Market and The Benefits
2. Sharp: Understanding the Problem and the Aspiration
3. Sharpest: Understanding the Situations That Are Ripe for the “Switch”

Sunshine Contacts seems to be an idea created from a Level 2 understanding:

• The problem: “My contacts app is a mess of outdated information”.
• The aspiration: “I’ll be able to have a reliable source of information in my contacts app”.

That's not a real struggle to warrant a hunt for a better solution, and that aspiration isn't strong enough.

So let's look further. Let's try to get to Level 3.

Using "When" Statements

To find the situations that are ripe for the "switch", let's use "when" statements. This is also known as Job Stories for all the Jobs-to-be-done folks out there.

• When I’m looking up for a contact and I see the information is outdated and useless, I want to search online, on LinkedIn or the person’s website for the latest info so I can reach out and make my project happen.

Here, we set up the struggle. It's not a hard struggle, and you see that the user will go for an alternative that's good enough: search online for information on that person.

But sometimes a switch-worthy struggle swells up with repetition. The "enough is enough" condition is built up by recurring annoyances and a bigger context:

• When I’m contacting the fifth person in a row and every time the information in my contacts app is useless, I want to find a way to press a button and get all my contacts updated at once using the web so I can get my contacts app back on track for when comes time to contact 15 more.

Nobody uses their own contacts app to contact 5 people in a row (let alone 15 more). That is, unless you’re a venture capital douchebag. All the sales creeps use a proper CRM tool. Does Sunshine Contacts populate CRM tools using AI? Maybe that’s what they should concentrate on.

That's my rant. I wrote a more detailed piece, going further into a showing why this idea won't do the job, including if you consider an even broader job-to-be-done: the person wants movement in their career and wants to get ready for the big move. Even still, the app won't get bought.

Don't build apps like Sunshine Contacts.