# Build brief — a focused alternative to Salesforce

> **Verdict:** Not faithfully · **Buildability:** 13/100 · **Category:** CRM
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/salesforce
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Salesforce. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**Salesforce** — The enterprise CRM and application platform that most sales, service and marketing orgs are built around. It currently costs $25/mo.

You can absolutely one-shot a contacts-and-deals tracker, and for one person that is often better than Salesforce. But nobody pays Salesforce for a pipeline table. They pay for the thing everything else in the company already points at: the ETL jobs, the marketing automation, the support queue, the finance reports, the twelve years of closed-won history, the admin who wrote 400 validation rules, and the auditors who accept it. A personal replacement replaces the part of Salesforce that was never the expensive part. If you are a solo operator or a two-person shop, build it; if you are trying to leave an existing org, this is a migration project, not a coding session.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of Salesforce that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

A local web app with contacts, companies, deals on a drag-across pipeline, activity notes, and next-action reminders, backed by SQLite.

- Track contacts, log interactions, and queue follow-ups for a one-person pipeline.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- Node runtime and a place to run it, local or a small VPS.

### Data and integrations

- Optional: an IMAP or Gmail API credential if you want email logging, which is where the weekend goes.

Each of these needs a real account, credential, or quota. Set them up before writing feature code.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build a single-user personal CRM that runs locally. No accounts, no cloud, no telemetry.

Stack, non-negotiable:
- Next.js (App Router) with TypeScript
- SQLite via better-sqlite3, file at ./data/crm.db
- Drizzle ORM for schema and migrations
- Tailwind CSS, no component library
- Runs with `npm run dev` on port 3000 and nothing else needs to be installed

Data model:
- companies: id, name, domain, notes, createdAt
- contacts: id, companyId (nullable), name, email, phone, role, notes, createdAt
- deals: id, title, companyId, contactId (nullable), amountCents, currency (default USD), stage, expectedCloseDate, createdAt, closedAt, outcome (won|lost|null)
- activities: id, kind (call|email|meeting|note), subject, body, occurredAt, contactId, dealId, createdAt
- tasks: id, title, dueDate, done, contactId, dealId
- Stages are a fixed list in code: lead, qualified, proposal, negotiation, closed.

Screens:
1. /pipeline: kanban board, one column per stage, deal cards showing title, company, amount. Drag between columns persists the stage. Column headers show count and summed amount.
2. /contacts and /companies: searchable tables, click through to a detail page showing linked deals, activity timeline newest first, and open tasks.
3. /deals/[id]: edit fields inline, log an activity, mark won or lost.
4. /today: tasks due today or overdue, plus deals with no activity in 14 days, labelled "going cold".

Also build:
- One global search box (cmd+K) over contacts, companies and deals, using SQLite LIKE queries. No vector search, no AI.
- A GET /api/export route that dumps everything as JSON, and a CSV import for contacts that maps columns in the UI before committing.
- Seed script with about 20 fake contacts, 8 companies and 12 deals so the board is not empty on first run.

Explicitly out of scope: email sending or syncing, OAuth, multi-user or permissions, workflow automation, reporting beyond the pipeline totals, mobile app, any third-party API. If you want any secret later, read it from .env and commit .env.example only.

Write a README with setup in under five commands and a one-paragraph note on how to back up the SQLite file.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- Every integration: marketing automation, support cases, quoting, billing, BI tooling, and the hundred connectors vendors ship for Salesforce and nothing else.
- Multi-user permissions, sharing rules, field-level security, and audit trails that survive a compliance review.
- Reporting, forecasting and dashboards that leadership already knows how to read.
- The admin ecosystem: consultants, AppExchange, and a hiring pool that already knows the object model.
- Historical data with lineage, which is the actual asset in any CRM older than a year.

## What you still own after launch

- Secure credentials, rotate secrets, and handle provider rate limits.
- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.
- Maintain every third-party integration as APIs and OAuth rules change.

## Risk

**High consequence.** Use this as a prototype or personal aid. Keep a qualified human and an established provider in the loop for consequential decisions.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: high. No reviewed project implementation is linked yet.

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