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Hello HN!
There’s a lot of focus (and money) on scaling LLMs, but while building Twenty [1] we’ve observed that current models are already capable enough for most use-cases. We think that what’s missing today is a new kind of software architecture. One that evolves, learns from feedback, and compile complex patterns to adapt to users. I wrote about this and some of our learnings in the article above, curious to hear your thoughts!
I'm not a fan of Elon-style "pitch FSD or promise things that you don't have" either. But we had to find the right balance between expressing our vision and expressing where we are which you can see through screenshots/product demos.
The vision is definitely to have something extensible and more powerful than force.com ; we aren't there yet because we need to build strong foundations before that. We already try to separate our business apps from the core engine in the code base to learn what will be the right api and get ready for that next step when it's time.
That's my main frustration every day too. The vision for what we're building is very clear but it takes time to build it right. We'll get there :).
Hey, just seeing this thread now. Agreed! We've started a year ago and have done probably just 10% of what is needed to really get to Salesforce. We need (1) a flexible data model, (2) a flexible layout, (3) code execution. We've done (1) but have yet to do (2) and (3) this year. Next step of the plan is to let people build and share apps that leverage those 3 blocks, that's where open source will really shine!
Oh nice that you saw this (even though the post was flagged only a couple minutes after launch, not sure why). Thanks for your reply!
We have a model with 1-schema per tenant + we can create a dedicated Postgres user, so we don't have the same security risk multi-tenant apps would have. And I felt like passing SQL was the right long-term direction with text-to-sql LLMs. But I get your point.
I guess what we're looking for is more "open source frontend lib for embedded analytics" than just a query builder then. This does not exist but seems like a lot of work to build.
The shift to commercial open source with a hybrid financing model is what's driving the trend. It makes it possible to get enough funding to build high-quality software while bringing the costs down for everyone.
We're doing just that with our own CRM [1]. It couldn't have been a side-project as you need thousands of engineering hours to build something decent. But with only a few millions in engineering spend, we'll have something that is genuinely as good as the products from billion dollar behemoths. Open Source software will never be able to monetize as well as closed-source. We might only capture 10% of the value we create. But being open source inherently creates strong network effects that tends to push towards a limited number of winners, and the addressable market in CRM is so big that it's still possible to build a multi-billion dollar company while massively driving the costs down for everyone.
It's kind of like the Prisoner's Dilemma: If every company keep their software proprietary, they can all make moderate growth/profit. But if one goes open-source, they could attract a large community, drive innovation, and potentially reap long-term profits while reducing the overall market size.
Yes the design is heavily inspired by Notion but the backend and the features are those of a CRM. We’ll have email integration soon!
Yes that’s why we created this. For my previous company I couldn’t find anything I liked. I wanted something built with modern technologies and by people who care about design.
There are still a lot of things we need to develop to be at feature parity with big players but we are shipping fast and we will get there!
It’s already a good CRM for basic tasks like tracking contacts and opportunities. It’s stable and mostly bug-free. Next month we will ship custom objects and the API, then email integration. And next step is to make it truly extensible (right now your best option to do something truly custom is to fork it which obviously isn’t great).
Yes I agree, we might have to pick our battles and follow the industry norm on this one.
Thanks for clarifying for others! I didn't expect this to show on HN today but we're definitely taking the feedback and going to change that page soon
I like that you signed up just to comment on this. It probably means we're doing something that matters even if you think we don't do it well :)
We'll work on a real demo environment with a lot of records, we just haven't prioritized it yet. Right now it's not really a demo environment, but a real account that happens to be provisioned with a few example records. Putting more records wouldn't really make sense (you have to delete those records manually to start using the CRM).
We want our design to match exactly Figma. Shadcn could have been an option because their approach is to have users copy/paste the code, so it could have worked. But copying styles from Figma isn't much more work, it wasn't painful
Sorry if it isn't clear. Self-hosting is 100% free and without any limitation.
As for the cloud version, I replied here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37808121
TLDR is that the cloud version hasn't been our primary focus yet and we put a high pricing on purpose that is not the final pricing, while we figure out the good pricing strategy. As of today everything is free without any limitation, we don't enforce any limit. And when we rollout the real pricing, it will be more compelling
Yes that's only for the hosted version. Self-hosting is indeed 100% free and not limited.
We definitely need to work on that page!
No shadcn is great but we rebuilt every component from scratch. And we use styled components, not tailwind.
Storybook here: https://storybook.twenty.com
When it's mature enough we'll isolate this into a UI lib anyone can use
Since VSCode is the most popular editor, it sets a pre-configured environment for people who want to contribute. For exemple it suggests extensions we recommend using.
Odoo is an open source ERP so they're doing a lot more than CRM. They also want to replace Docusign, Shopify, Workday, Notion, Intercom, Google Sheets, and more.
We will focus on a narrower scope and try to do it very well instead of going into that many directions
Thanks pretext for posting this! We didn't expect to be featured today :)
We're currently rewriting the backend and will ship a new version on October 30 that will be much more powerful (with a flexible data model)
Tbh we haven't been focused on monetization at all. We've just put a high number to avoid disappointing people afterwards by raising pricing (I hate when company advertise something as cheap, then lock you in and raise prices). But we don't enforce any pricing as of today, you can use the cloud version for free without any limitation.
The actual pricing will likely be significantly lower. Initially we thought of introducing a pricing system that's more aligned with the value created (with a generous credit system, based on number of actions taken), because we found that Salesforce charges by seat but in large orgs most of the seat companies pay for are unused, so the incentives aren't aligned. I'm not sure we'll go this way because people also want a simple and predictable pricing they can understand.
I don't get some of the negative comments. We run an open source project with a very long backlog and I came across Gitstart as I was looking for ways to accelerate development. We started working with them recently and overall I'm very happy with the service. At first the quality of PRs wasn't great, but it is still better than the average open source contribution, and it's improving everyday as they gain knowledge of our codebase and expectations. As a remote team that is just starting a new project, it would have been hard for us to onboard and train a junior developer today. Using Gitstart fills a gap for tasks that we can easily delegate, typically something that's already done in a similar way in the code base. That way our team can focus on more challenging problems.
(Note: I was not asked to post this)
Thanks for the kind words! It's a very long journey ahead of us, that's for sure!
Yes, we agree, this should be fixed before end of next week. Issue here: https://github.com/twentyhq/twenty/issues/668
Yes! We'll probably need to isolate some of the existing components and commit on their api stability so people know they can reuse them safely
I'm not a licensing expert but I know AGPL has a concept of derivative work that is somewhat blurry for me. We could argue this isn't core to the CRM (if specific to your company) and therefore not derivative work but I agree it's subjective and therefore not ideal.
I'm not entirely convinced we made the right choice. Considering your feedback and we will see in a few months what people want to build and if we should revisit.
I aspire to achieve all of this someday!
The key challenges I foresee are:
- Backend: offer extensibility that is powerful while secure in our multi-tenant cloud service.
- Frontend: ensure that custom plugins don't feel limiting while not disrupting the unified design, as the overall software appearance, not just the core, shapes the end-users' brand perception/experience
We posted yesterday (and never before)
It would sit in the second category. And probably even more on the right than the companies you mentioned on a spectrum going from "agnostic database UI" to "opinionated CRM tool with a rich set of standard objects/APIs coming out of the box" (which doesn't mean that you can't customize it).
1) Building a full-featured CRM is a long-journey. Our strategy is to start working with companies in our YC batch which have simple needs, and then deliver improvements fast enough so that these companies never outgrow us and have to switch.
2) We're focused on a simple B2B Sales use-case for now (log tasks, kanban, etc.). Next we will focus on data integration, connectors and extensibility. The goal is to become the best system of records for the company. That should allow connecting external tools to bring the best of breed app for each category (e.g. customer engagement, support tool, phone). Later on we will eventually invest in building our own Marketing/Support apps like Salesforce did but we're still very far from there.
3) Prior to this launch we only had a handful of people we were talking to so a simple Kanban in Twenty, no automation. And after that, we will remain focused on product development in the coming months so our team is probably not the best example in terms of Sales playbook. But once we want to scale the team and have built integrations, we will likely take the "best of breed" approach I was mentioning above, using Twenty as the central piece to connect Aircall, Braze, Docusign, etc.
(Great questions by the way, thanks)
Betting on user's laziness is usually a good path! I mentioned it in another comment but I think the way we log activities is something that will evolve a lot with good connectors and LLMs. And once you have the right data logged you can think about suggesting the next tasks, performing actions on behalf of the user, etc.
I've followed you on Twitter!
Salesforce is the end-goal but we wouldn't be a serious alternative for enterprise customers today. Our strategy is to start working with companies in our YC batch which have relatively simple needs, and then deliver improvements fast enough so that these companies never outgrow us and have to switch.
It's a tedious process to get off a CRM, and particularly Salesforce, so it's much easier to target companies that are not using any tool at first and grow with them.