The Stack Is Cracking

Grab some popcorn. CRMs, Paid Databases, and AI Search have entered the arena.

Two things convinced me we’re about to see CRM, paid databases, and AI-powered search collide.

First, I had a revealing customer service call that showed how fast the lines are blurring. Second, I coded something that no novice like me should be able to build. The implications were impossible to ignore.

This is great news for users. It’s going to be a tough road for providers trying to keep up and find new moats, especially those with narrow business models.

I’ve been coding and playing tennis since I was a kid. I’m far from a pro at either. But when I hit the equivalent of a blistering Sinner forehand with the Parsinator app I built, I had an epiphany.

If I can build this, imagine what the pros are shipping.
SAS (me, scrappy dev) 15, SaaS Love.

Parsinator is simple in concept:

→ Crawl people and companies, use AI to categorize via our proprietary ontology, and generate tokenized embeddings from public data

→ Query the index with filters or upload a sample (site, deck, PDF) to sort by similarity

→ Pull relationship data from LinkedIn and CRM APIs

Bingo. A major unlock in network building and engagement.

To seed Parsinator with investors not in our CRM, I turned to one of our pricey paid databases. After the interface failed a basic query, I called our rep. Why did I need the list? What was I building? The...a referral to the “business” team.

Maybe their model really is that fragile.

AI has crushed the cost of aggregating public info. I don’t see how paid databases hold pricing power without integrating into something like CRM.

And CRM? It’s built on scraped emails and user-entered notes. Neither is proprietary. Both are easily automated. Other than stale, user-generated data, it’s hard to see real differentiation.

Mix Google Apps API calls, an AI notetaker, and Parsinator, and you’ve got a new heavyweight in the arena.

The cavalry is arriving with tools we used to only dream about. I’ve seen four Parsinator-like pitches in the last month. We’re about to be freed from manual data entry, incomplete datasets, and stale information. Whether from incumbents or new entrants, users will win on functionality and price.

The best part? We can finally focus on what actually matters: genuine human connection.

(Network management post coming… once I fix my backhand.)