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Satya’s Personal CRM: How to easily stay connected with people that matter

An automated tool that reminds you to reconnect with your important contacts.

As a venture capitalist at

Homebrew⁠

, my goal is to fund mission-driven founders who embrace big—big ideas, big impact, and big risk. Every day, I'm trying to stay in touch with friends, colleagues, and entrepreneurs in

my network⁠

. After years working in product management at Google and Twitter, my network of colleagues and friends has grown exponentially.

I've come to understand the importance of building tighter relationships with loose ties. I've also come to value the way that those relationships are organized. Too often, forgetfulness keeps us from rekindling relationships. And, tech tools like Google Suite have no way to remind us about reconnecting.

My solution is a personal contact relationship manager (CRM) within Coda that automates reminders about who to connect with, and when.

Problem #1: Forgetfulness.

We've all lost touch with someone we wish we hadn't. Recently, I caught up with someone I managed at Twitter six years ago. Our last interaction was a while ago, and I wish that wasn't the case—for both personal and business reasons. This person was job hunting, and perhaps I could have helped if I had known earlier in his process.

After a busy day juggling family and work, it’s easy to forget about reconnecting with people. A little love goes a long way; small gestures such as a well-timed text message help people feel valued and remembered. But, it’s always easier said than done. Even our contact lists and social media can’t help us.

Problem #2: Our traditional communication tools fail us.

Most of my professional work happens within the Google Workspace. I send emails via Gmail and book meetings via Google Calendar. However, Google doesn’t make it easy to know who I should proactively reach out to. Remembering the last time I interacted with someone requires searching through email, text threads, or Google calendar invites. It’s a cumbersome, time-consuming process that carries significant cognitive load as you search person-by-person.

⁠

Dunbar’s number⁠

is a perfect illustration of this challenge—we can only juggle relationships with 150 people. Even if you know you want to do a better job of keeping up with contacts, there's groundwork to be done.

Solution: An automated people tracker.

Until I found Coda, I always reverted back to simple tools like spreadsheets and email reminders. Since implementing this CRM, I’ve started to build meaningful habits—rituals that remind me how important it is to reconnect.

Now, when I meet important people, I add them to my contact list. Then, I decide how often I want to interact with that person.

Once you figure that out, the doc does the rest—automatically tracking when you exchange emails or have meetings. The doc even notifies you when the time is right to reconnect with a follow-up email at the click of a button.

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Ready to get started? The rest of this page is a template of my personal CRM. I’m sharing it with you so you can copy and track your own important relationships. Copy this doc, then get set up in three easy steps.

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Copy this doc

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Step 1: Connect your Google account.

After you copy the doc, the first step is to connect your Google accounts to this doc. You should have been prompted to connect to Google when you first copied the doc. If you missed it, you can also manually connect to Google by clicking Insert → Packs → Google Contacts and adding your email as a Shared account. Repeat for Gmail and Google Calendar.

You’ll know you successfully connected with Google Contacts when you see your own contacts in the table below. If you need help with this step, the Coda team can help. Just click the question mark at the bottom right of the screen.

Google Contacts (synced)

Google Contacts (synced)

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Step 2: List your people.

The next step is to create a list of people you care about staying in touch with. Simply clear the sample contacts then add important e-mail addresses to the

Add people⁠

table below. If the email is already in your Google Contacts, you can save some time by autofilling relevant information about that person like their profile picture, title, and more.

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Clear sample people

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Add person

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Photo (URL)

Google Contact

Autofill (Google)

Frequency target

First name

Last name

Company

Title

Phone

Email count

Meeting count

molly@codadoc.io

Polly Rose

Daily

Polly

Rose

Golddex

COO

(687) 356-9824

Connect to Gmail

Connect to Google Calendar

joe@codadoc.io

Joel Davis

Quarterly

Joel

Davis

Sumace

Engineer

1 (311) 888-4444

Connect to Gmail

Connect to Google Calendar

evan@codadoc.io

Adam Davis

Annually

Adam

Davis

Yearin

Marketing Manager

1 (321) 321-1333

Connect to Gmail

Connect to Google Calendar

lane@codadoc.io

Buck Dubois

Weekly

Buck

Dubois

Scotfind

Designer

(555) 555-5555

Connect to Gmail

Connect to Google Calendar

shishir@codadoc.io

Felix Martin

Quarterly

Felix

Martin

Openlane

Head of Product

(917) 459-0002

Connect to Gmail

Connect to Google Calendar

maria@codadoc.io

Maria Marquis

Weekly

Maria

Marquis

Warephase

Head of Community

(890) 459-1023

Connect to Gmail

Connect to Google Calendar

There are no rows in this table

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Frequency targets

Target

Days

Annually

365

Quarterly

Weekly

Daily

There are no rows in this table

⁠

Step 3: Keep in touch.

Finally, this doc will automatically count your email and calendar touch points with each person. If you haven’t had contact with them within your frequency target, they’ll show up in the table below. The last step is to create a draft email, then customize (if needed) and send it from your

Gmail drafts folder

⁠

. Easy peasy.

How do my emails and meetings get counted?

This doc is connected to your Gmail and Google Calendar via

Coda packs⁠

Every hour, this doc will automatically search your Gmail and calendar and count how many times you’ve had an interaction with each contact. You can see this automation by clicking ⚙️ Settings in the top right of the doc.

You can also manually re-count your touch points at any time by clicking the button below.

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Remind me to reach out

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Re-count touch points

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Latest:

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People I need to contact

People I need to contact

Photo (URL)

Full name

Frequency target

Email count

Meeting count

Create draft

No results from filter

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Ready to strengthen your relationships? Get started.

Copy this doc, connect to Google, and keep track of your contacts.

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Copy this doc

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If you would like to try this ritual and need help implementing it, the Coda team has graciously offered to help. Click this button to get assistance.

⁠

Request a demo

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Want to print your doc?
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Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.