[HN Gopher] Salesforce, but for Dating
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Salesforce, but for Dating
        
       Author : tontonius
       Score  : 159 points
       Date   : 2023-01-18 19:41 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (dateforce.app)
 (TXT) w3m dump (dateforce.app)
        
       | mmaunder wrote:
       | Lol! Imagine a date with someone who's hobby is dating.
        
         | scrumper wrote:
         | I laughed when I read this but then I thought more and...
         | wouldn't that be fun? Like, if it's their hobby and they're
         | good at it, why would the date be bad?
         | 
         | Gardeners like their plants to grow big and healthy.
         | Fishkeepers obsess over the health of their tanks. Musicians
         | want to play more challenging music with better bandmates for
         | bigger audiences on higher profile stages.
         | 
         | So if you were on the receiving end of a date orchestrated by a
         | dating hobbyist, it'd be fun, probably unusual, definitely well
         | organized. There are worse things to experience while dating.
         | And, just maybe, you make a connection and form a relationship.
         | But even the base case isn't _bad_ per se.
        
           | tennisflyi wrote:
           | Lol No. It'd be min/maxed to fuck and then dump. How naive
           | are you.
           | 
           | > dating hobbyist
           | 
           | Also, your use of hobbyist is so close to being on par
           | (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hobbyist).
        
       | baron816 wrote:
       | > I met her on Polk Street. We've been on a few dates so far. She
       | seems nice!
       | 
       | That's probably the extent of what 90% of guys would say about
       | any woman they're dating.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | nick0garvey wrote:
       | Dating has a large emotional aspect. Using heavyweight management
       | software for this kind of thing is ridiculous. If you need CRM to
       | remind yourself of the emotional impact you had on a date, then
       | some part of this process has gone horribly wrong.
        
         | that_guy_iain wrote:
         | Like you should know by the end of the date if you want another
         | one or not.
        
         | t-writescode wrote:
         | Honestly, this sounds like the gulf between men's experience
         | dating and women's, and neurotypical vs neurodivergent. Some ND
         | people like helpers like this; and, women get so many suitors
         | that a system to help them may be actually beneficial.
         | 
         | Also, journaling is a powerful tool.
        
       | crtified wrote:
       | I'm not sure if a database exists that's robust enough to handle
       | the massive, massive quantity of dates that my life entails.
       | /extreme sarcasm (or is that a DIVIDE_BY_ZERO error?, haha)
       | 
       | If you need something like this, then it's probably safe to say
       | that dating is not your weak point.
       | 
       | But, just as every multi-millionaire probably has an accountant,
       | because they have more wealth than they can easily manage, so too
       | must the dating conquistadors suffer, I guess.
        
       | PanosJee wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
       | EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
       | Programmers still trying to figure out dating? Give up already)
        
       | ugh123 wrote:
       | Might be a good opportunity here to integrate events, restaurant
       | bookings, and other paid "experiences" for some upside.
       | 
       | Does this integrate directly with the dating services/apps
       | themselves? Seems like a lot of work to plumb in and keep up-to-
       | date the status and latest information on each profile.
       | 
       | Also, if this is a legit service you should be extremely careful
       | how you store all this data. Exposing a bunch of dating profile
       | data via a security breach will land you into hotter water than
       | anything Marc Benioff could throw at you :)
        
         | pcthrowaway wrote:
         | Would also be a good to manage a date funnel.
         | 
         | Then for dates in the funnel who told you things like "too
         | busy", "not ready for dating" etc. you could schedule automated
         | messages for things like reminding them to circle back when
         | they're ready, checking if they're available to get on a call
         | to show them new features you've added (as a person), etc.
        
           | MikeTheGreat wrote:
           | I assume this is humor, since a lot of people will use these
           | responses to say "No" without having to come out an say it
           | (the "Nonconfrontational No", if you will - "I don't want to
           | date you" invites a direct conflict, but "too busy" can't
           | really be argued with).
           | 
           | So, building on your humor, I'd like to suggest a
           | feature/service we can sell to the vict _cough_ other person.
           | When they respond with "too busy" they can also set a flag in
           | the system indicating whether they'd actually like to _not_
           | hear from the person operating the funnel. We get paid, the
           | vict^H^H^H^Hdate doesn't get hassled in the future, and the
           | person running the dating funnel is none the wiser because
           | our software never notifies them again.
           | 
           | I think I'm ready for an MBA now :)
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | thih9 wrote:
           | Some email templates could help too.
           | 
           | > Hi (Name), are you getting the best experiences on your
           | dates? We've been chatting for a while, and I wanted to share
           | some news with you before I update everyone else. I've found
           | some new exciting dating spots and you're going to love them!
           | (Insert sales pitch) I'd love the chance to chat about my new
           | dating spots. Shall we arrange a meeting to talk you through
           | possible restaurants, bowling alleys or what movies we can
           | watch together? Let's book a call today and get things
           | started.
           | 
           | Source: https://www.flowrite.com/blog/sales-pitch-email ,
           | slightly modified.
        
         | stronglikedan wrote:
         | When I was dating, I kept track of all this manually, in a
         | notes app. I wouldn't mind inputting the same data here,
         | manually, since this has the added benefit of organizing it for
         | me in a way I couldn't do with mere notes.
        
       | seandoe wrote:
       | Met her on Polk street did ya.
        
       | kube-system wrote:
       | > Too many requests, please try again after an hour
       | 
       | Wow, you even have it running on NA14?
        
       | conductr wrote:
       | I clicked the Signup button thinking surely it's a joke and they
       | would have some witty page
       | 
       | > Too many requests, please try again after an hour
       | 
       | I'm really out of touch
        
         | usbfingers wrote:
         | How do you know that's not a part of the joke?
        
           | conductr wrote:
           | Good point, I don't. But sure was a missed opportunity if
           | true :)
        
       | insane_dreamer wrote:
       | Interesting start, but missing the "powered by AI" element that
       | analyses each date and computes compatibility and chances of
       | things moving to the next level, suggests next step, auto-
       | generates your text/voice script, etc.
       | 
       | (Also, tried to sign up by calling support but got an endlessly
       | looping `We are experiencing higher than usual call volumes, one
       | of our dating expert associates will be with you "shortly" (but
       | remember that your call _is_ important to us)`
        
       | tus666 wrote:
       | Sorry I cringed. Hoping this is a joke.
        
         | UniverseHacker wrote:
         | I'm about 60% sure this is just satire.
        
         | nickthegreek wrote:
         | Agreed. Do people actually have a good feeling when they hear
         | "Salesforce". I wouldn't want my app associated with it at all.
        
         | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
         | What tipped me off is how similar the logos are. What confirmed
         | it is the text at the bottom of the home page:
         | 
         | > P.S. Marc Benioff, please don't sue us. Remember that
         | imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
        
         | tgv wrote:
         | Don't you have a pipeline with girls you're going to cold-call,
         | and a dating life manager that breathes down your neck when you
         | haven't taken at least 10 girls out this month?
        
           | actually_a_dog wrote:
           | I don't date girls. I only date women.
        
             | kbelder wrote:
             | Well, if you're actually a male dog, you would mean you
             | only date...
        
             | whateveracct wrote:
             | hah I love this comment - when I hear mid-30s men calling
             | women "girls" I always cringe. Even worse when they
             | actually call mid-20s women "girls" since they've never
             | dated a women in her 30s..
        
           | grantc wrote:
           | Can there be endless meetings about whether your issues are
           | top or bottom of funnel?
        
             | red-iron-pine wrote:
             | [flagged]
        
           | mike_d wrote:
           | Don't forget paid lead generation (SeekingArrangement)
        
           | klyrs wrote:
           | > a dating life manager that breathes down your neck when you
           | haven't taken at least 10 girls out this month?
           | 
           | I never realized that my dream job would be so people-
           | oriented. Drop me a line if you're hiring...
        
       | dannyphantom wrote:
       | Neat, this isn't the first time I've seen something like this
       | come up so it essentially validates the use-case for them.
       | 
       | I remember seeing a post on Reddit[1] about ~4 years ago made by
       | the same person who made this[2] post on HN about a year ago.
       | 
       | [1] Does anyone else use salesforce as PRM (Personal Relationship
       | Management) System? https://archive.ph/3mB1U
       | 
       | [2] Show HN: Nat.app, personal CRM that knows who you're losing
       | touch with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30836418
        
       | calt wrote:
       | The little black book's next iteration. It really is inevitable.
        
       | robofanatic wrote:
       | Cool! wonder if it is created by 1 of the 8,000 ex-salesforce.
        
       | godelmachine wrote:
       | What would be the tagline?
       | 
       | "Forcible dating"?
       | 
       | You 2, date right now!
        
       | mosselman wrote:
       | Is it the 1st of April already?
       | 
       | Is there AI-powered communication as well? The profiles can let
       | AI communicate and receive a message when GPT-3 has determined
       | that an actual date should occur.
        
       | personjerry wrote:
       | Isn't this just a spreadsheet? You could probably build and
       | deploy the entire thing in a day in Notion
        
         | layer8 wrote:
         | That wouldn't scale though. ;)
        
       | aqme28 wrote:
       | I've been very actively dating and single for ages now. This is
       | unequivocally a good idea if executed well.
       | 
       | Is there a "notes" section so I can jot down details from dates
       | to remember? That part is currently occupying my phone's notes
       | app.
        
         | tennisflyi wrote:
         | Plethora of dates but can't add an "other" section in the
         | contact in the contacts app. Of course.
        
       | dietsprite wrote:
       | In before the cease and desist from Salesforce
        
       | prettyStandard wrote:
       | I was thinking about something similar, but less cringy. More
       | like: hey you haven't messaged your friend in 6 months, maybe you
       | should ask them how they are doing. A priority queue but to help
       | keep friendships alive.
        
         | throwaway29812 wrote:
         | This combined with the only useful feature FB had for years
         | (people's birthday).
         | 
         | Integrate a scraping and keyword search for public facing
         | social media postings to alert to people in distress, perhaps.
         | Or just a general "you should check on X" feature. Not with
         | automated messaging, that's too much.
        
         | gwern wrote:
         | I've thought about similar problems like rewatching your
         | favorite movie, and concluded that treating it as a priority
         | queue or trying to watch it every _n_ days is the wrong
         | approach; you want to instead be reminded when you've
         | _forgotten_ about your friend Alex or what _The Leopard_ is
         | about, so you can then ping them  & catch up or rewatch that
         | movie with a near-fresh mind. (If you ping Alex while you
         | remember them, then maybe there's another actually-forgotten
         | friend you could've pinged instead who would be more valuable
         | to get back in touch with.)
         | 
         | It is, in other words, the exact opposite of 'spaced
         | repetition', where you want to review right before forgetting
         | to strengthen the memory the most; in this use-case, 'anti-
         | spaced repetition', you want to review only after you've
         | forgotten it. (https://www.gwern.net/Statistical-notes#program-
         | for-non-spac...)
        
         | chuckwalter wrote:
         | This is where I'd like to go with FriendApp. Would love if you
         | wanted to check out where we are right now with our iPhone app.
         | https://www.friendapp.com/
        
         | nextaccountic wrote:
         | > hey you haven't messaged your friend in 6 months, maybe you
         | should ask them how they are doing. A priority queue but to
         | help keep friendships alive.
         | 
         | This is what social media and messaging apps should innovate
         | on.
         | 
         | But, without VC money, without ads, without feeds drive by
         | algorithms that optimize for engagement. Without dark patterns
         | and antifeatures that make our lives worse. Just a non-profit
         | that churns out open source code and is supported by monthly
         | recurring donations from a % of the userbase.
        
         | ThouYS wrote:
         | sounds like henlo to me: https://henlo.app/
        
         | adrianmonk wrote:
         | I want one for remembering stuff about people for personal and
         | business networking.
         | 
         | For a while, I was going to a weekly event where I'd meet
         | people, but I'd never remember their name next time because I'm
         | terrible with names.
         | 
         | So I started jotting down notes after it was over. Like, today
         | I met person X who is really into this one hobby and just moved
         | here from such and such city. And person Y who is looking for a
         | new apartment. And Z who came with Y.
         | 
         | Then before going next time, I'd review the list, and if I saw
         | X, I knew their name and could ask how they're adjusting after
         | their move. Or I could ask Y how the apartment search is going.
         | 
         | At first I thought if people saw this list they might think it
         | was a little weird. And maybe, but I'm OK with it since it's a
         | way of making an effort. As long as it's genuine and your
         | motivations are good, people like that you remembered stuff
         | about them. (I'm not doing it to impress people, etc.)
         | 
         | Anyway, I didn't have a good way to organize it. I stuck it all
         | in a document, which didn't work great.
        
           | chuckwalter wrote:
           | I've been building FriendApp the past year. The core feature
           | on iPhone right now is to just group people into lists, and
           | preserve messaging integration with whatsapp, text etc.
           | Trying to make it super simple. Also has ability to sync for
           | recent contacts list. Would love feedback, and thoughts on
           | the next features to iterate on.
           | 
           | https://www.friendapp.com/
        
         | npunt wrote:
         | Lots of attempts over the years at this personal crm problem
         | space but no success to date. I did one on Facebook platform in
         | 2008-09 called Socialfly, our tagline was 'be twice the friend
         | in half the time'.
         | 
         | Problem is there's a lot of input and upkeep which limits
         | appeal, the most important social data sources (text & phone)
         | are not accessible via api, its a personal tool that you don't
         | necessarily want to tell others you use which limits
         | distribution & scale, and even after all that in general it's
         | hard to scale personal authenticity.
         | 
         | I think the problem needs to be approached from a different
         | angle along the lines of a personal assistant rather that an
         | explicit data management tool. And it likely has to come from
         | those with access to privileged social data sources like Apple
         | or Google or Facebook.
        
           | michaelmior wrote:
           | I remember using Socialfly! I wasn't a heavy user, but I
           | actually quite liked it and was a bit disappointed when it
           | went away.
        
           | jxramos wrote:
           | Would accompany count? https://www.accompany.com/ not really
           | personal, I believe it's business oriented.
        
         | umeshunni wrote:
         | A personal CRM
        
         | rsstack wrote:
         | Not 100% what you describe, but functionally the same:
         | https://github.com/monicahq/monica
        
           | scrollaway wrote:
           | Monica is an excellent "Personal CRM" as people are
           | describing. It strives to achieve exactly the goals GP
           | describes.
           | 
           | Personally, I would just like to see a contacts app that
           | doesn't suck, and actually supports having both "companies"
           | AND "people" as contact without treating them exactly the
           | same. If I want to call some hotel or something, why does it
           | have to be "First name: Holiday Inn" in order to even show up
           | correctly...
        
             | count wrote:
             | MacOS/iOS Contacts supports this, for what it's worth. You
             | can enter a 'Company Name' and leave fname/lname blank, and
             | it'll give it a different default icon, as well as show it
             | as the company name in lists/sorts.
        
               | zvr wrote:
               | The same in Android Contacts and GMail Contacts.
        
         | omarhaneef wrote:
         | There have been several iterations of this sort of idea -- a
         | personal CRM -- and the main issue I have is they should
         | automatically scan my emails, texts and chats to figure out my
         | friends and suggest that I reach out.
         | 
         | Also, want it to be 100% local and privacy first.
        
           | lordnacho wrote:
           | > Also, want it to be 100% local and privacy first.
           | 
           | But I also want an AI personal assistant to know what to
           | write to everyone, what we last did, what would they be
           | interested in, and so on.
        
           | vageli wrote:
           | Something like monica may interest you to scratch the
           | personal CRM itch.
           | 
           | https://github.com/monicahq/monica
        
             | JadoJodo wrote:
             | I loved the idea of this until I realized the amount of PII
             | I was collecting of friends and family in one place that
             | could be hacked.
        
               | DenisM wrote:
               | Yeah, I entered exactly one contact before I realized
               | this.
               | 
               | There's also the problem of entering unflattering
               | details, and subsequently leaking them out.
               | 
               | The search continues.
        
           | derefr wrote:
           | > should automatically scan my emails, texts and chats
           | 
           | Great, easy to integrate one service with the APIs of a bunch
           | of others!
           | 
           | > Also, want it to be 100% local and privacy first.
           | 
           | ...but in combination? Never going to happen.
           | 
           | Ask yourself: who's signing up for the API keys to enable the
           | client-side service to talk to all these services? Is it the
           | end-user, or is it this software's developer?
           | 
           | If it's the software's developer, then they're effectively
           | leaking all these API keys by embedding them into the
           | software itself -- where not just the end users, but anyone
           | else could come along and reuse these keys for anything they
           | like. The service providers will find this out, and block
           | these keys. (No, you can't avoid this by proxying requests to
           | some gateway, operated by the service-provider, that holds
           | the API keys. Then you lose the "local/private" aspect.)
           | 
           | If it's each end-user, then the aggregate traffic from all
           | the instances of this app running at once, will look exactly
           | like a bot that's trying to evade API rate-limits using a
           | "residential proxy cluster" like https://www.zyte.com/smart-
           | proxy-manager/... and so the services will block these keys.
           | 
           | ---
           | 
           | Mind you, in theory, you could do this on the OS level, using
           | OS accessibility APIs to effectively "read" the messages off
           | the screen. But 1. is there any third-party ISV -- who isn't
           | a certified accessibility-software provider -- who you'd
           | trust enough to allow their software the ability to
           | constantly "read" everything on your screen? That includes
           | your passwords, you know! And also, 2., the messages need to
           | be _on_ the screen for accessibility software to read them.
           | An accessibility-API-driven CRM can 't load your chat history
           | unless you also grant it the ability to literally take your
           | mouse and scroll through it for you.
           | 
           | Or, alternately, coming at this from the perspective of the
           | Operating System vendor themselves, you could do this "in"
           | the OS, by forcing emails/text/chat message handling to go
           | through system APIs that can see these as special document
           | types, and so do things with them. IIRC there was at least
           | one pre-iPhone mobile OS that did this (BlackBerry OS,
           | maybe?), enabling all of these types of messaging-app traffic
           | to be muxed together into a single first-party app that did
           | indeed manage all conversations with your contacts in a
           | multi-channel way.
        
             | DenisM wrote:
             | I recall Google has an API for at least part of the Gmail
             | data (tasks) and that API is used on mobile devices.
             | 
             | Look into it, you might be surprised.
        
         | darcys22 wrote:
         | I've found just setting a recurring TODO in the calendar to
         | "Call XXX" is sufficient.
        
           | applejacks wrote:
           | I signed up for https://infrequent.app/ when it was a Show HN
           | just to try it out and it actually worked (probably about as
           | well as a "non-busy" TODO in my calendar app with an alert).
           | Enough to remind me to call 1 or 2 people that I like to talk
           | to but often leave for too long, anyway.
        
         | gjsman-1000 wrote:
         | > I was thinking about something similar, but less cringy.
         | 
         | Well, if you are worried about it being cringy, you probably
         | shouldn't watch the 2022 Salesforce Dreamforce (their annual
         | convention). It's cultish and shows the unbelievably arrogant
         | confidence they have in their own importance - along with the
         | most inexplicably childish moments for a professional
         | conference I've ever seen. (Let's put foam rabbit ears on our
         | "co-CEOs" to entertain the "trailblazers" as we gather around a
         | fake wooden stage imitating the outdoors with faux trees, won't
         | that be funny?)
        
         | i-dont-remember wrote:
         | I've seen a couple tools pop up around this idea. Haven't
         | explored them much, but:
         | 
         | - MonicaHQ (open-source)
         | 
         | - Dex (free version seems good enough for most people, i'm
         | trying this one out rn) getdex.com/
         | 
         | - Custom system in Airtable -
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30329475
         | 
         | - Infrequent app - blog post talks more about it, linked in
         | comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33308084
        
         | meesles wrote:
         | There's been a few of these since the topic has come up
         | regularly in the last few years -
         | 
         | * https://keepmyfriends.com/ * https://getdex.com/
         | 
         | I haven't used any personally!
        
         | kybernetikos wrote:
         | I remember moaning about twitter reducing the number of
         | characters people sent, and then yo! came out, and it was down
         | to a single bit of data. That made me think 'what would even
         | lower information content messages look like in a social
         | network, perhaps half a bit or even less?'. I figured that a
         | half bit of data would be where a social network sent some sort
         | of hello message automatically with the same frequency the
         | human user sent one manually, so given a message, it'd be 50/50
         | whether it was sent automatically or manually. Although I got
         | to it theoretically, in the end, I thought it could be pretty
         | useful practically, as a way of sparking conversations again
         | when you haven't spoken to someone in a while, etc.
         | 
         | Maybe combined with ChatGPT we could even make those automatic
         | getting-back-in-touch messages indistinguishable from the
         | manual ones.
        
           | calt wrote:
           | > Half a bit of data
           | 
           | I've never heard that idea before and I love it.
        
             | scrumper wrote:
             | Half a bit... yeah. I read a good description of a bit (I
             | think in The Information by James Gleick) as "a yes or no
             | answer to a single unambiguous question. I'm misremembering
             | the quote but that's close enough.
             | 
             | So half a bit would be like hearing "Umm..." in response to
             | that same question?
        
           | Kinrany wrote:
           | Yo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo_(app)
           | 
           | To be pedantic, this is not a single bit of data. This is
           | zero bits attached to an event. The event is not discrete
           | however, so I'm not sure what form of information theory
           | would be appropriate to describe it.
        
           | antipotoad wrote:
           | Thought-provoking and somehow ingenious, even if something
           | about this makes me deeply uncomfortable.
           | 
           | To try to be a little constructive, is a relationship really
           | worth anything if a half-bit is all one can spare for it?
        
             | jstarfish wrote:
             | The half-bit you actually send means more to the recipient
             | than the 160 bytes you don't.
             | 
             | I'm more unsettled by the automation part. At least the
             | half-bit received came from someone who consciously thought
             | about you enough to send it. Once you emulate that part,
             | all you have is a MITM initiating conversations between
             | strangers.
        
           | harryvederci wrote:
           | Maybe you could also "reduce" the bit in a different way,
           | where it would be 50/50 if a message would actually be sent
           | upon clicking the submit/reply button.
           | 
           | Like if you'd walk on a noisy street, see someone you know,
           | and greet them half-heartedly and wouldn't really mind if
           | they didn't hear you.
           | 
           | Oh man, the thrill of not knowing if this message will
           | actually be sent when I hit the "reply" button!
        
           | rytis wrote:
           | > combined with ChatGPT we could even make those automatic
           | getting-back-in-touch messages indistinguishable from the
           | manual ones
           | 
           | extending this bit further - we might as well reply with
           | chatGPT. then it's chatGPT all the way down, who needs human
           | interaction when we tick the boxes of "I called them" and "I
           | replied"?.. :)
        
             | MisterPea wrote:
             | This is exactly what happened in the show Silicon Valley
             | with Dinesh and Gilfoyle's AI
        
             | natpalmer1776 wrote:
             | In this situation, neither party need be aware that the
             | other party is 'antisocial' in this regard. The way I see
             | it, the following situations apply for a tool that produces
             | communication indistinguishable from the user's own writing
             | (AI)...
             | 
             | "AI" for the following cases would be beneficial:
             | 
             | Social -> Antisocial
             | 
             | Social <- Antisocial
             | 
             | "AI" for the following cases would be net neutral:
             | 
             | Antisocial -> Antisocial
             | 
             | Antisocial <- Antisocial
             | 
             | And finally "AI" would be inapplicable (since neither party
             | would use it) in the following cases:
             | 
             | Social -> Social
             | 
             | Social <- Social
             | 
             | In this drastically simplified model, there aren't any
             | cases where the existence of a sufficiently competent AI
             | would be detrimental to any party involved, while still
             | providing value for those who choose to use it.
        
         | xeromal wrote:
         | A person on reddit actually made this app and it worked pretty
         | well. I can't remember the name of it for the life of me.
        
           | arthurcolle wrote:
           | you might be thinking of Monica? I seem to remember that
           | coming out of reddit a while back, could be wrong
        
       | emrah wrote:
       | Wow, managing one's dating life with a crm app has got to be the
       | most distopian thing I've seen in a while.
       | 
       | I probably need to point out that I'm not dissing the app. If it
       | succeeds, the creators are obviously filling a need in the
       | market, but confirmation of such a need would indicate dating as
       | I define it is horribly broken
        
         | InitialLastName wrote:
         | > dating as I define it is horribly broken
         | 
         | Socializing as a whole is broken, triggered by the
         | disappearance of third places, the dissolution of communities
         | at the altar of the nuclear dual-income family, live-at-work
         | jobs and "hustle culture" (Veblen entrepreneurship), and the
         | unlimited streaming doom-scroll.
         | 
         | With nowhere to go but work and home, good luck finding anyone
         | to date or befriend via a nonexistent organic social network.
        
           | emrah wrote:
           | Very true!
           | 
           | While what you are saying is very true, dating so many people
           | at once, plus having dated so many in the past that you need
           | an app to keep track of them all is a whole other level of
           | broken
        
             | InitialLastName wrote:
             | The issue is that whereas in the past you could use
             | "knowing somebody as an acquaintance and/or by association
             | with an acquaintance" as the first stage of your "should I
             | date somebody" funnel, you now get "here's a list of all
             | the people in your who have signed up for a dating service,
             | the marketing blurb they wrote about themselves, and some
             | broad demographic filters; Have at it" as your initial
             | filter.
        
       | mensetmanusman wrote:
       | Also, use stable diffusion to generate possible family life
       | outcome images such as your future children around a fireplace.
        
       | sunjester wrote:
       | Ridiculous.
        
       | swyx wrote:
       | the video demo seems to use "archived" for old dates, but there's
       | a missed opportunity here to mark them CLOSED/LOST
        
         | Ultimatt wrote:
         | also need STALE and STILL-WARM
        
           | scrumper wrote:
           | Smaller market (hopefully), but then it'd serve as CRM for
           | serial cannibals.
        
       | SuperNinKenDo wrote:
       | Pretty sure this is meant as a joke, but dating has become so
       | twisted now that I'm not actually 100% sure. Which makes this
       | perfect satire.
        
         | throwaway29812 wrote:
         | HBO's Silicon Valley was ok, but didn't go nearly far enough on
         | the absurdity.
         | 
         | I promise you this is real.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | MattGaiser wrote:
         | I have had a few people I know go on piles of dates, so I could
         | see someone having a use for it if they are rapidly iterating
         | through individuals.
        
           | miguelazo wrote:
           | "rapidly iterating through individuals" What a dystopian
           | nightmare. So glad I missed out on this era of dating.
        
             | MattGaiser wrote:
             | In a world of increased diversity and expectations (you
             | can't assume the 2.5 kids in the suburbs of your local city
             | anymore or that marriage is even a goal) of what a
             | relationship looks like, I am not sure of the alternative.
             | I am happy that I am happy single though, as it does sound
             | exhausting.
        
         | humanistbot wrote:
         | Poe's law: any sufficiently advanced parody is
         | indistinguishable from sincerity
        
         | austhrow743 wrote:
         | Now? I was running a CRM for tinder ten years ago. I assume at
         | this point guys are using SDRs to qualify opportunities.
        
       | fabmilo wrote:
       | The problem with dating is that we enforce a 1:1 relationship
       | while nature encourages 1:N. Am I the only one seeing this? or we
       | shouldn't talk about it to not risk getting canceled?
        
       | trekkie1024 wrote:
       | This reminds me of the main character in Along Came Polly who
       | puts his new girlfriend and ex-wife into a Risk Assessment tool
       | to decide who he should stay with :D. Naturally, it doesn't go
       | well once the girlfriend discovers it!
        
       | monkeynotes wrote:
       | I hate modern life.
        
       | kareemm wrote:
       | A good left-brained friend of mine was dating heavily in the late
       | 2000s as he was in "wife finding mode".
       | 
       | He had a spreadsheet -- called girls.xls -- where he kept track
       | of important details about each woman he went on a date with.
       | 
       | We were sitting around musing about how hard it must be to keep
       | track of the key details given all the dates he was going on, and
       | he let drop that he had a spreadsheet.
       | 
       | He never showed it to anybody and it didn't sound creepy - it was
       | genuinely a tool he used in good faith given the volume of info
       | he was trying to keep track of.
       | 
       | And, he ended up marrying #42.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | wrldos wrote:
         | I did this a loooong time ago before there was really internet
         | dating. Had a decision analysis tool I wrote in excel 97.
         | Married a match in 2002. She was a crazy narcissist and made my
         | life misery for 18 years until I divorced her.
         | 
         | Beware the tools you create, for the input corpus isn't
         | necessarily valid over time. People change.
        
         | dvt wrote:
         | I don't really consider myself left-brained, but I've always
         | had a hard time remembering names. Partially because I'm not
         | great at empathizing with folks I just meet, and partially
         | because I genuinely don't care that much. Around college, I
         | discovered this is absolutely not a great trait to have
         | (incidentally, also most applicable when meeting women), so I
         | started a Names file in my phone. I have hundreds of names in
         | there now in the format "First Name - small salient
         | description."
         | 
         | People are amazed at how great I am at remembering names and
         | details. It's become almost a super-power, it's weird how
         | writing things down can completely change how people perceive
         | you. It's really cool to scroll through the names and see
         | people I met years ago: the cute barista that moved away right
         | after COVID, an old neighbor's boyfriend, a coworker's dog (I
         | extended the list to also include pets). Brings back good
         | memories and often makes me smile.
        
           | Octabrain wrote:
           | I do the same but without writing down anything. I just keep
           | it in my head. I always joke with how creepy I feel when I
           | coincidentally meet someone for the second time after months,
           | at a party or something and start to bring up details about
           | that person into the conversation we are having. For now,
           | everyone has been happy and kinda flattered that a pretty
           | much unknown guy is able to remember precise details about
           | their lives but I feel like a psycho.
        
         | berelig wrote:
         | I kept a note on my phone with details about my girlfriend (now
         | wife) that I would otherwise easily forget. Favorite flowers,
         | songs, restaurants, etc. As I got to know her family I briefly
         | had a few lines for her parents and siblings but now that we're
         | married I can just bug her for info instead.
        
         | lr4444lr wrote:
         | Of course he did.
        
         | phowat wrote:
         | So that's why the answer is 42 !
        
           | phoenixreader wrote:
           | Even better, in the original novel, the mice's guess for the
           | ultimate question of life, universe, and everything is "how
           | many roads must a man walk down?"
        
         | causality0 wrote:
         | I was probably 24 years old before I realized dating multiple
         | people was even a thing. I figured you talked to and dated a
         | person until you either decided you weren't having a good time
         | or you married them.
        
           | wrldos wrote:
           | Note that it's not universally true around the world. In the
           | US, yes. If you do this in the UK, it will result in an
           | evening where you end up ordering a taxi and slipping out the
           | back door while two women are pulling each other's hair
           | extensions out outside a pub and trying to beat the opponent
           | with a shoe.
           | 
           | Yes this actually happened to me.
        
         | downvoteme1 wrote:
         | Is he still married ?
        
         | breck wrote:
         | After the divorce he discovered a bug in his VLOOKUP.
        
           | wrldos wrote:
           | Narcissist flag was missing in my original dataset.
        
       | dusted wrote:
       | This strikes me as super creepy.. But I could see the use-case
       | for stuff like dating-sims where you're kinda supposed to be the
       | creep?
        
       | jarek83 wrote:
       | SalesForce is business - leaking business data is not that
       | problematic. This, is about storing extremely delicate
       | information about people. It better has top notch protection
       | against data breach massive fines will be coming soon.
        
         | endisneigh wrote:
         | is this supposed to be sarcastic? it's exactly the opposite.
        
       | dougdonohoe wrote:
       | I'm happily married for nearly 22 years and thankful more than
       | ever I don't have to date in today's environment. This sounds
       | awful. Like dystopianly awful.
        
       | pmarreck wrote:
       | Amused, impressed and terrified, all at once.
        
       | kimoz wrote:
       | Will help me in my plate spinning process ;)
        
       | Willish42 wrote:
       | Still not entirely certain this isn't just a really impressive
       | parody, but for my sanity I am hoping it is.
       | 
       | I think this says a lot about the "attention economy" way all the
       | various dating and social apps take up your time to use them, and
       | how we've digitized the process so much that people unironically
       | see the appeal of a CRM system for managing contacts. Classic
       | case of "new tech to solve the problems of all the other tech",
       | where the other tech is actually the source of the problem, and
       | probably shouldn't be relied on in this way.
        
         | ericmcer wrote:
         | I am sure it is not a parody. I have witnessed co-workers
         | getting professional photographs and using spreadsheets to
         | track dates/matches, all to carefully optimize their dating app
         | success.
         | 
         | It reminds me of the early 2000s "pick up artist" stuff, I had
         | a few friends who read the books and would actively hit on
         | women anytime we went out. It was horrible haha.
         | 
         | As for the maker of this app, if it fills a need and gets
         | widely adopted who knows?
        
         | dinkleberg wrote:
         | This has got to be a parody, right? I really hope it is!
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | avaldez_ wrote:
       | This is the 21st century version of the catalogue aria in Don
       | Giovanni https://youtu.be/qgC3GGxF1E0
        
       | ablatt89 wrote:
       | Probably useful for straight girls more than guys tbh:
       | 
       | COUNT(ROWS(person.gender == Male and person.orientation ==
       | Straight)) == 0
        
       | technick wrote:
       | Back in my day we used notes in contact cards!
        
       | Darioros wrote:
       | Most people here don't need a software to manahe their 1 date per
       | year
        
       | technick wrote:
       | Back in my day we used the notes field on contact cards or in
       | outlook.
        
       | someweirdperson wrote:
       | That "force" in the name implies that it is a tool for a group of
       | persons working together on all those dates?
        
         | marcosdumay wrote:
         | Sure. That's way better than the alternative.
        
       | verst wrote:
       | People have been shamed for using spreadsheets to track their
       | dates, this is even worse.
        
       | msie wrote:
       | If only I had a need for this!
        
       | random3 wrote:
       | Can someone chime in why this hasn't worked in the past?
       | 
       | It seems a personal/portable CRM could be highly useful. The
       | second aspect is the vertical aspect (professional or "personal")
       | 
       | One thing I keep hearing from people that have sold companies,
       | exited etc. is that they are having a hard time operating within
       | their networks without the CRM.
        
         | makeworld wrote:
         | No experience, but there is https://github.com/monicahq/monica
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | MattGaiser wrote:
         | I think it simply would need a lot of discipline to keep up to
         | date and without a manager nagging or bonuses being dependent
         | upon updating it, most people lack that discipline.
        
         | dsfyu404ed wrote:
         | > Can someone chime in why this hasn't worked in the past?
         | 
         | Because spreadsheets and notes are free and good enough.
         | 
         | I used to be a full time shitty cheap car flipper. I used to be
         | single. They're about the same level of communication work. The
         | ROI of a proper CRM isn't there because in both cases your
         | customer is just not that serious about the interaction when
         | they're in the part of the funnel a CRM helps you with and even
         | then it doesn't really help you with the bulk of the customers,
         | it helps you with the long tail. When you're a one man shop
         | squeezing out an extra 1% or whatever a CRM gets you isn't
         | worth the time vs focusing on other areas. (These days I work
         | in a client facing role with a proper ticketing system and
         | integrated CRM so I do have something to compare to.)
        
         | chuckwalter wrote:
         | I've been working on FriendApp the past year. I think it hasn't
         | worked in the past because the average person doesn't realize
         | that they could really benefit from this solution. It hasn't
         | necessarily felt like a burning problem. I think it has to add
         | some value beyond just classifying and adding additional
         | metadata to contacts.
         | 
         | My goal is to develop features that also facilitate sharing of
         | activities, upcoming events that I'm attending that I want to
         | share with people I know. Things I want to do, and making that
         | visible to select groups of people.
         | 
         | Hope you'll check out where we're heading
         | https://www.friendapp.com/
        
         | awad wrote:
         | CRMs work at scale by selling to executives who are not the end
         | users but are in control of budget. They then have their sales
         | managers enforce data fidelity amongst the sales team who, to
         | keep their jobs, are incentivized to make sure data in the CRM
         | are up to date, or whatever the closest approximation to that
         | is.
         | 
         | So for a personal CRM to work, you'd need to sort out, at
         | minimum, the monetization piece and the data fidelity piece. If
         | you open source it, you still need to make sure people keep the
         | data up to date and that's actually pretty hard.
        
           | random3 wrote:
           | Executives also want to take the rolodex with them, hence
           | they have an incentive to keep a personal CRM so that they
           | keep their contacts after they leave.
           | 
           | Superhuman sold to executives for $30/month - which is a
           | relevant (high) price point.
        
         | nlh wrote:
         | Yes. Having been in this space for a bit, there are a few
         | reasons why it hasn't worked (yet):
         | 
         | 1. The problem of deduplicating contacts is tough (but
         | solvable). If you don't solve it well, then the utility of
         | personal CRM goes wayyyyy down and you're getting notifications
         | about the same people with different email / WhatsApp /
         | Instagram addresses and that gets annoying.
         | 
         | 2. People haven't shown a big willingness to pay very much for
         | this (so far), despite everyone saying they want it. So we're
         | left with the open source solutions that don't solve the
         | problems very well.
         | 
         | 3. People are SUPER concerned about privacy. See a comment
         | above about someone who wants the system to automatically scan
         | email, etc. and extract contacts, but that it must be 100%
         | local and privacy-centric. You can't have both of those - to
         | intelligently extract contacts without duplicates (and figure
         | out that @mybestie on Instagram == mybestie@gmail.com ==
         | my.c.bestie@corporate.com) you need a big database of who's who
         | to match against.
         | 
         | Everything is solvable I think - we're not talking cold fusion
         | here. But it's tougher than it might seem on the surface.
        
           | rcme wrote:
           | One problem I've had adopting such a system is that you want
           | the system to help manage some load of work, e.g. maintaining
           | your personal relationships. But using the product is itself
           | work: you need to set it up, remember to use it, keep it up
           | to date, etc. So, just as you've procrastinated keeping up
           | with old friends, you procrastinate using the tool. And, of
           | course, the tool doesn't reduce the workload of keeping up
           | with friends. In fact, done successfully, your work has
           | increased as you need to talk to your friends more often. So
           | you're basically adding work (using the tool) to do work you
           | didn't have the energy for in the first place (talking to
           | your friends).
           | 
           | Everyone loves the idea of talking to their friends,
           | conceptually. But, given ample time and opportunity, many
           | choose not to keep up with friends. It's almost as if people
           | only "want to want" to keep up with friends, rather than
           | actually want it.
        
           | BeefySwain wrote:
           | Could you expand on what options exist currently? You say you
           | are in the space, does that mean you have been keeping an eye
           | on it, that you are working on something, or ?
        
           | random3 wrote:
           | I believe a plugin (e.g. in Obsidian, Notion, Superhuman)
           | could work better than Monica. In fact I think Superhuman has
           | the bets oppportunity to create this product.
        
       | szundi wrote:
       | Only problem with this is you either has nothing to fill in, or
       | just when it would start to matter the dates you are forgetting
       | about are not really the ones who worth it.
       | 
       | I also like the "probability" field.
        
       | partiallypro wrote:
       | Do you have to hire engineers for $500k+ to get it to work, in
       | the spirit of Salesforce?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
         | I imagine that would depend largely upon how much data you
         | needed to transfer to the new system.
        
       | pkghost wrote:
       | The copy in the example entry is telling: "I met her on Polk
       | street."
       | 
       | If you don't know SF well, Polk street is one of two frat boy
       | rows.
        
       | ZephyrOhm wrote:
       | P.S. Marc Benioff, please don't sue us. Remember that imitation
       | is the sincerest form of flattery.
        
         | kypro wrote:
         | Thing is it has nothing to do with how some exec feel about the
         | product.
         | 
         | Corporations don't like stuff like because they don't want to
         | deal with clients who don't understand the joke being playing
         | with their brand. OP isn't going to be the one who has to do
         | damage control when this blows up and some percentage of people
         | start to to believe it's actual Salesforce behind this product.
        
       | dpierce9 wrote:
       | Concept and parallel aside, you might not want the word 'force'
       | in the name of your dating app. Just a thought.
        
         | scrumper wrote:
         | Totally agree. Call it "Funnel". Which is gross and puerile on
         | one level but not, like, violent.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | NickC25 wrote:
       | Dunno if this was intended as a joke, but I find the whole
       | presentation of the site to be hilarious. Well done!
       | 
       | As others have said, if you were able to find if Hinge, Bumble,
       | Tinder, Grindr, etc... have open APIs that you could connect to
       | your app? Same goes for things like Eventbrite or Meetup.
       | 
       | "I met so-and-so through (dating app) on (date/time) and we hit
       | it off well. We then met up again via (event app) and continued
       | meeting up regularly, and I was able to keep notes about so-and-
       | so on the app - their favorite bars, foods, music, etc... as they
       | revealed it to me, and the app was able to provide me with info
       | as to when I was last in touch with them, when there's
       | availability at their favorite restaurant, a music act at their
       | favorite bar, etc..."
       | 
       | I'd love to have an app like that in my life.
        
         | lordfrito wrote:
         | As much as I love this idea, part of me read this and thought
         | "Great, one more reason for women who aren't interested in me
         | to feign even more interest, because big event xyz is coming up
         | and it's 'revealed' to them I can afford it so it's 'revealed'
         | to me they want to go."
         | 
         | SMH
        
       | gourabmi wrote:
       | This needs a way to migrate master data and touch points info
       | from a Google Sheet.
        
       | TechBro8615 wrote:
       | Designed to be deleted, just like Salesforce
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | ssalka wrote:
       | Add a ChatGPT integration to suggest openers and you've got
       | yourself a killer app /s
        
       | jaqalopes wrote:
       | A lot of dunking going on in here, and fairly so, if nothing else
       | because there is no good business model for an app like this
       | unless they build it into dating apps (who's going to manually
       | enter data from Tinder into this thing?).
       | 
       | But the dunking seems to overlook the genuine problems with
       | modern dating that didn't exist in the past. I find that it's
       | very easy to mindlessly swipe a thousand people on an app and
       | suddenly end up with more matches than I have the energy and
       | attention span to process. If there was an easy way to turn this
       | "inbox" (which is really just one step above my Gmail spam
       | folder) into an actionable database, that could have real value
       | in a world where dating happens stochastically through apps.
       | 
       | Separately, it isn't weird at all to keep some sort of track of
       | your dating life. Past generations had the "little black book,"
       | basically a romantic rolodex. I've never used one but who's to
       | say I couldn't benefit from a digital version that lives in my
       | phone?
       | 
       | Most of all, a commenter here that is since deleted said
       | something I think is apt: "I think the number one problem with
       | online dating is not managing all the people. It's forcing
       | yourself to keep the number of active pursuits low enough to
       | manage. If you don't kind of commit to seeing if someone is going
       | to pan out, then they won't." This is of course the actual
       | solution to the problem I experience with modern dating. The only
       | downside is that, unlike downloading an app, it requires that I
       | change how I think and behave.
        
         | awinter-py wrote:
         | different co's approach to the integration problem was via
         | 'data grab by keyboard'
         | 
         | https://www.thekeys.ai/product
         | 
         | not sure about bidirectional data flow though -- maybe you can
         | do that via accessibility interfaces?
         | 
         | Also possible that OSes will offer standard chat UX in the
         | future, making it simpler to hook plugins into conversations --
         | ios already does this to some extent with imessage plugins, but
         | 'tinder for imessage' is the opposite of 'imessage for tinder'
         | so this is most useless bc of lock-in
        
       | ddmma wrote:
       | Should target the sex selling market. Business model guaranteed.
        
         | fknorangesite wrote:
         | You'll have to repeal FOSTA-SESTA first. And you'll even save
         | some lives as a nice side effect.
        
       | Mongoose wrote:
       | The conference has to be called Dreamyforce
        
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