MaxKeenan

7 ms·

1.
by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Just wanted to close the loop here -- we just added this in our latest push today. Thanks for the suggestion!
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
I don't think this is controversial at all. Many of our users are the exact same way. For them, the value add can be a few different things: (1) searching across multiple accounts on the same platform, (2) better search than existing p
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Yes! We integrate with Local, though iCloud is much more locked down. We can index local files that are then offloaded to iCloud, but can't directly index iCloud. iMessage is something we've explored, also locked down like iCloud
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Thanks for sharing -- makes a lot of sense. Indexing browser history is very high on our priority list, lets us cover the less-widely used apps much easier. (though is somewhat limited to things you've seen while the integration is set
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Great catch -- will definitely fix. Thanks a lot
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Currently something we're working on with prompt engineering, but love your suggested approach. We'll definitely look into that more -- thanks for sharing. For now, the search is always generated from the first 5 or so results. So
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Biggest difference is search quality. Our entire product is focused on making information more accessible across web apps. We have generative Q&A search and semantic search, something Slapdash does not offer (to my understanding). On th
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
We've experimented with this a fair bit, very low occurrence of the model making up facts when the answer exists within a document, but users have reported outside information (general knowledge) being shown in their results. We essent
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Cool to hear Command E search has improved a lot -- it's good for the space generally. Curious what platforms you're searching mostly on -- for the majority of Needl users their information is already on the cloud (granted a start
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Yes. We are SOC II certified and have strict limitations on who can access that data and under what circumstances (only if given explicit permission by the user). Definitely understand that could be a deal breaker for some, but with current
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Good point. It's interesting because, in many ways, search is easier at the enterprise level than the individual level. The usage patterns & social graphs of large orgs is incredibly helpful for relevance ranking. For example, if s
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Understand where you're coming from a privacy perspective. Our encryption operates at the file system/storage device layer level so it doesn't affect our index at all other than a small I/O performance hit when storing a
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
To the first point -- certainly some friction here. In most cases the employee is able to integrate the app and flags arise to IT after the fact. Then the employee connects us with IT and we resolve the issue by going through a security que
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Certainly a very lively space, feels like just about everyone is trying to solve the problem at hand. Always happy to share thoughts / learnings in the space -- we should find a time to connect, feel free to email me at max@needl.tech
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Yup! Hopefully the workaround I sent was easy enough -- please let me know if there's anything else I can help with!
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Certainly happens - in this case IT usually contacts the employee, who connects us with IT and then we share our SOC II / describe our security processes and they grant us company wide access. Ends up not being a massive problem, but t
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Understand where you're coming from on the org-level auth vs individual. Part of the goal with Needl is to be entirely self-serve, where one member of a team can use it without needing company wide approval. Thanks for calling out the
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Not familiar enough with them to say -- doesn't seem to be publicly available.
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Thank you!
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Fair point. Some users set Needl as their default tab via our chrome extension -- https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/needl/hepjidniooep... . Can even open quick search via the chrome extension in the br
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Really good point -- will definitely add in the next few days. What hotkey are you thinking of? My immediate first thought is tab -- think that would work well for you?
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
We went the opposite route: users’ entire index is stored on the cloud. We know that’s not for everyone, but the search results it enables are significantly more powerful, and we make clear commitments to our users: (1) we never access user
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Immediate intention is to not compete with Raycast and the like. Search itself is a too difficult problem to also go down the path of fully replacing Spotlight.
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by MaxKeenan 4y ago
Thanks for sharing, definitely familiar with Usefyi -- them and Daniel Gross' Cue really set the stage for this space. In our mind, the biggest limitation for internal search is search quality, something that is becoming more and more
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Launch HN: Needl (YC S22) – Simple search across all your apps
106 points by MaxKeenan 4y ago|75 comments