Despite its name, startup Contactually is not about keeping track of a list of contacts, but about managing long-term relationships.
Founded in July in DC, Contactually stores information on your email contacts and syncs with Salesforce and Highrise CRMs. But more importantly, it adds value throughout the life of a relationship.
When you email a new contact, Contactually sends you an email asking how you met, what you thought of them, and how to tag them. It parses these emails – which you can write as you would to a personal assistant – using the startup’s original technology.
Later, you can create and email groups, as specific as technical cofounders you’ve contacted in the past two months. You can also add tasks and follow-ups and assign priority levels.
But the most unique feature of Contactually is its ability to suggest actions to take:
“We automatically prompt you to follow-up with the right person at the right time with the right info. This is the special sauce that only Contactually is able to bring to the table,” says cofounder Tony Cappaert, referring to competitors like Rapportive and ConnectedHQ.
For example, Contactually could remind you of the boss’s birthday or good friends you haven’t emailed in a while. It could also help startups stay in touch with their advisors and investors every few weeks. (Hopefully, the team is usually Contactually to stay in touch with Minh Nguyen, the cofounder of Plaxo, whom they recently added as an advisor.)
Contactually is now processing more than 80,000 contacts. The service is free in private beta and will sell with different pricing plans in the future.
One drawback, for the email overloaded, is that Contactually interacts with you via email. The default is a morning daily summary and an evening wrap-up email, although these can be turned off.
Contactually demoed at our Tech Cocktail San Francisco mixer and is in the fall class of 500 Startups. According to cofounder Zvi Band, also the founder of ProudlyMadeInDC and the DC Tech Meetup, the accelerator program has reinforced their strong belief in the lean startup method and their “obsessive” focus on metrics – so look out for more updates to Contactually ahead.
