What I Learned Building a Personal CRM with Lovable.dev

When I was laid off (sorry, “separated”) from Point B earlier this year I wanted to lean in to new ways of thinking about researching opportunities, re-igniting contacts, understanding the needs of companies in the context of the role and stay out of the spreadsheet/google docs industrial complex.

So, I built MyPersonalCRM.app – a CRM created in a weekend and refined over a few months. I won’t bore you with all of the features, but it’s a fully functioning CRM built on contacts (starting with a LinkedIN import), companies, jobs, pipeline management, data enrichment through Apollo, job feed ingestion and a cool feature for networking I call “Networking Roulette” in which a random contact is highlighted for you to reach out to. It’s free and anyone can use it, so give it shot.

I learned a lot in this process, not just about how to work with Lovable.dev, but about what’s possible. Here are my top lessons learned by building this:

The Ease of Creating Working Software is Incredible.

Anyone with some amount of background knowledge of technology and software products can build something useful quickly. I initially used Lovable.dev to build data widget for SpendingSpotlight.org, and a couple of websites like scottfasser.com and chaos2calm.net.

It’s clear that businesses like Square that provide web building tools and hosting that charge a monthly subscription for small to mid-sized business will need to evolve. They are expensive for small businesses, the Lovable websites are much more custom and easy to update and less expensive to maintain. My $25 per month Lovable paid plan covers all of the websites and apps that I’ve built – much more cost effective.

For larger businesses, we are seeing companies create their own software to do the job of big B2B SaaS like Salesforce. MyPersonalCRM.app is a great example of that. Instead of needing to invest in a smaller CRM (like Hubspot – who has gotten very greedy and overly complex IMHO) – I can build something highly functional, customized to my likes and make it available to friends for free. The cost for visitors or more accounts on the platform is nothing (for now).

Moving from Working to Production/Commercial is a Different Conversation

When I started to share what I had built with different people, they all said “wow, that’s great! I’d pay for that!”. So, I shared the platform and watched as people used it or not. What I discovered is that there is no mission critical feature that people could not live without. Inertia and status quo is always strong.

Beyond the desire to pay for the Personal CRM was the need to integrate with a payment system (Lovable has their own payment platform you can plug into as well as Stripe), creating on-boarding materials (beyond the startup flow as part of the product), adding of security protocols and managing bugs/requests. All of which are not hard, but require specific work in Lovable and are part of the care and feeding of a subscription app.

You Still Need a Product Mindset

However, you still need to think through what the software is supposed to do, how it does it and what the outcome is. Like any good product development process, the more you think through the up-front needs, connections, integrations and use cases – the less back and forth with the Lovable.dev AI and QA cycles.

For example: I shared this platform with a couple of recruiter friends. They both asked for the ability to upload someone’s resume to their contact profile. I added that feature, but it’s not getting used and I realized that recruiters need many of the same components, but from a different perspective/pov. This will change language, labels, job feed approach, pipelines, etc. The underlying data model is close, but it doesn’t really serve recruiters well.

So, I should not have added that feature but re-factored the app to serve the recruiter – specifically. The fix wasn’t to add a feature flag, but to build a totally different version of the app that meets the needs of the market.

Seth Godin calls this the minimum viable audience (I’ve been listening to a lot of Seth lately): don’t stretch one product to fit everyone with an opinion about it. Narrow who a version is for, then build for them on purpose. That’s a product management call, not a technical one. It’s what makes the software special.

With Lovable, it’s a much lighter lift to replicate a data architecture, update it to fit a different need and overlay that with more relevant naming/labels/flows.

Custom Software will be the Rule Not the Exception

Cloud based software solutions have long built as much configuration and flexibility into their platforms as possible. While helpful, it pales in comparison to building your software platform the way you think about how you want to work and what you want it to do.

MyPersonalCRM.app is just one example of this. I can easily add, change, delete and edit anything in the app. If it breaks I ask Lovable to figure out why and fix it. It’s not perfect, but for builders (like me) it’s a lot of fun!

I see people with tech skills build really robust systems for their own businesses and soon for their friends businesses. Personal finance, home improvement guidance, house/schedule management, payroll, content creation, websites, etc. This will dramatically change how people charge and get paid for software development.

I see a cottage industry of building custom software platforms emerging that will re-shape the market – especially at the SMB level, but it won’t be long before big enterprise systems are impacted (have you seen the layoff numbers at Salesforce?).

The Chaos is Here

I am looking forward to the chaos and opportunity this new capability creates. I’m also excited about how it can decrease toil in our work – whether it’s all of the admin crap a heat pump installer has to do, or the struggle to find and land the exact right job. The new age of software will change the nature of work. More time for the things we want to do, less time spent on the things we have to do.

I built MyPersonalCRM.app because I got laid off and needed a better way to manage a job search. That it turned into a working case study on all of this – ease of building, the gap between what people say and what they do, why product thinking still matters, what’s coming for SMB software – wasn’t the plan. It’s just what happens when you build something for yourself and pay attention while you do it. It’s also a great way to learn by doing!

If you’re thinking about building something like this for yourself: start smaller than you think, and before you touch Lovable, write down who it’s for and what job it does and what good looks like. Not you and everyone like you – just you, or just recruiters, or just one specific person’s workflow (the minimum viable audience is much smaller now!). Create a solution that would be missed if it wasn’t there anymore. Go forth and build.