Etacts

Etacts was established in 2009 by co-founders Howie Liu and Evan Beard, both recent graduates from Duke University where they studied Economics and Computer Science. The company emerged from the Y Combinator Winter 2010 batch, quickly gaining traction in the tech community. This early momentum attracted a notable seed funding round of approximately $740,000 in May 2010 from a roster of high-profile investors, including SV Angel, Y Ventures, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, and Ashton Kutcher. The founders' journey began with a shared frustration over managing a growing network of personal and professional contacts, which directly shaped the company's mission. Liu's subsequent success as the founder of Airtable further underscores the entrepreneurial drive behind Etacts.

The firm operated as a contact management solution provider, targeting professionals such as salespeople, recruiters, and business development personnel who rely on maintaining strong relationships. Etacts' core business was to offer a platform that analyzed a user's communication patterns to identify neglected contacts. The business model revolved around a free web application and plug-ins for Gmail and other IMAP email clients. The service functioned by accessing email headers—never the body or attachments—to determine communication frequency with various contacts. Based on this data, the platform would highlight relationships that were fading and allow users to set reminders to reconnect. When a reminder was triggered, Etacts provided context for the re-engagement, such as the subject lines of the last emails exchanged and the contact's recent social media updates. A key feature was its ability to integrate a user's Gmail account with Salesforce, allowing for the creation of prospect lists directly from their inbox.

The company's trajectory culminated in its acquisition by Salesforce on December 21, 2010. Following the acquisition, Etacts announced it would cease accepting new user sign-ups and shut down its service on January 31, 2011, with the team joining Salesforce to pursue other opportunities. The acquisition was part of a broader strategy by Salesforce to integrate innovative email and contact management functionalities into its core CRM platform, similar to its purchase of Heroku around the same time.

Keywords: contact management, relationship management, email analytics, Gmail plugin, Salesforce integration, Y Combinator, Howie Liu, Evan Beard, professional networking, inbox management, sales tools, lead management, communication tracking, contact reminders, email productivity, SV Angel, tech acquisition, CRM enhancement, social activity integration