Build a Personal CRM in a Weekend with DenchClaw

Build a personal CRM in a weekend using DenchClaw. Track contacts, relationships, notes, and follow-ups — all local, private, and free.

Mark Rachapoom

March 26, 2026·7 min read

Build a Personal CRM in a Weekend with DenchClaw

A personal CRM is the single highest-ROI tool for anyone serious about their professional relationships. It sounds like overkill until the day you realize you've lost track of every person who might have helped you land your next opportunity, raise your next round, or close your next deal.

The problem with most personal CRM tools — Dex, Clay, Monica — is that your data lives somewhere else, the AI features cost money, and you're always working within someone else's constraints. DenchClaw changes that. It's free, local, and the AI actually understands your data.

Here's how to build a genuinely useful personal CRM in a weekend.

Saturday Morning: Foundation (3-4 hours)#

Install DenchClaw#

npx denchclaw

Open localhost:3100 in your browser and add it to your Dock as a PWA. Connect Telegram for mobile access — create a bot via @BotFather and paste the token into DenchClaw settings.

Design Your Contact Schema#

Most personal CRMs fail because people try to track too much and end up maintaining nothing. Start with what you'll actually use:

Tell the AI:

Create a Contacts object with these fields:
- Full Name (text)
- Email (email)
- Phone (phone)
- Company (text)
- Role (text)
- How We Met (enum: Conference/Introduction/Online/In Person/Cold Outreach/Other)
- Relationship Strength (enum: Strong/Medium/Weak/New)
- Last Contacted (date)
- Next Follow-up (date)
- Tags (tags)
- Notes (richtext)

This covers the basics. "Relationship Strength" is the key field most people skip — it lets you filter to who actually matters when you're in a crunch.

Import Your Existing Contacts#

You have contacts in Gmail, LinkedIn, your phone, and probably a messy spreadsheet somewhere.

From Gmail:

Import my Gmail contacts

From a CSV export (export from LinkedIn, your phone, or wherever):

Import contacts from this CSV, mapping Name to Full Name, Email to Email [attach file]

From LinkedIn: DenchClaw can open LinkedIn in your browser and pull connections:

Open LinkedIn and import my connections list into Contacts

Don't worry about importing everyone. Start with 50-100 people who actually matter to you.

Your First Views#

Create two saved views:

Create a view called "Follow Up This Week" showing contacts where Next Follow-up is within 7 days, sorted by Next Follow-up ascending

Create a view called "Strong Relationships" showing contacts where Relationship Strength = Strong, sorted by Last Contacted ascending

The second view shows your strongest relationships — sorted by who you haven't talked to recently. That's your "don't let this go cold" list.

Saturday Afternoon: Enrichment and Notes (3-4 hours)#

Add an Enrichment Action#

The killer feature: one-click contact enrichment.

Add an Action field to Contacts called "Enrich" that searches the web for each contact's current company, role, and LinkedIn URL, then updates those fields

Now every contact row has an Enrich button. Select your recent imports and enrich them in bulk — DenchClaw runs through each one, looks them up, and fills in company and role information.

Entry Documents for Each Contact#

Every contact in DenchClaw can have its own document — a full markdown page for notes.

Click any contact and open their document. Add notes about how you met, what you talked about, what they care about. The AI can help:

I just got off a call with Sarah Chen from Stripe. She mentioned she's evaluating new vendor management tools and is frustrated with Salesforce. Add a note to her contact record.

The AI writes the note in her document, updates Last Contacted to today, and suggests a Next Follow-up date.

Meeting Preparation#

Before any meeting, ask:

I'm meeting with John Kim tomorrow. Give me a summary of my history with him, his company, and what we last talked about.

DenchClaw queries his contact record, pulls his entry document, checks for any linked deals or notes, and returns a briefing. This is the kind of context a chief of staff would prepare — you get it in 10 seconds.

Sunday: Workflows and Automation (4-5 hours)#

The Weekly Review#

Set up a recurring workflow:

Every Monday morning, send me a Telegram message listing: contacts with Next Follow-up this week, contacts I haven't talked to in 30+ days with Relationship Strength = Strong, and anyone who has a birthday this week

DenchClaw schedules a cron job. Every Monday you get a personal outreach brief on your phone.

The "Reconnect" View#

One of the most useful patterns:

Create a view called "Reconnect" showing contacts where Last Contacted is more than 90 days ago and Relationship Strength is not Weak, sorted by Relationship Strength then Last Contacted

This is your "I should reach out to these people" list. Open it once a month and send 5-10 catch-up messages.

Build a Simple Dashboard#

Build a dashboard app showing: total contacts by Relationship Strength (pie chart), contacts added per month (line chart), and upcoming follow-ups this week (table)

DenchClaw builds a .dench.app that queries your DuckDB and renders the charts. It appears in your sidebar. You'll check it every morning.

Interaction Logging#

Build the habit of logging interactions fast:

Logged: coffee with Marcus from a16z, talked about their portfolio companies in AI infrastructure, he offered to intro me to their head of data. Update his contact, set follow-up for next week.

One message. DenchClaw updates Last Contacted, adds a note to his document, and sets a follow-up date.

Maintaining Your Personal CRM#

The CRM that doesn't get updated is useless. Here's how to keep it alive with minimal friction:

After every meaningful interaction: Log it via Telegram immediately. Voice memo to text works great.

Every Sunday evening: Open "Follow Up This Week" and action everything in it. Shouldn't take more than 20 minutes.

First Monday of each month: Open "Reconnect" and send 5 catch-up messages.

Quarterly: Review "Strong Relationships" and consider who you're neglecting.

The goal isn't to have perfect data. It's to never forget to follow up with someone who matters.

Personal CRM vs. Business CRM#

Your personal CRM is not your sales CRM. Keep them separate:

Personal CRM: Career contacts, advisors, friends in industry, investors, potential collaborators
Business CRM: Customers, leads, deals, pipeline

DenchClaw can handle both in the same workspace — just separate objects. But don't mix the mindsets. Your personal CRM should feel like a relationship journal, not a sales pipeline.

See what DenchClaw is for the full feature overview, or jump to the complete setup guide if you want a broader workspace configuration.