Build with Attio: Nick Janes and Will Stenzel, Dialed Technologies

Nick and Will don't like instructions. They prefer tinkering and hacking—lawnmowers, machines, anything they can get their hands on. So when Attio launched the App SDK, they did what they always do: started building.

Now, the team build apps and integrations full time with Dialed Technologies. They’ve had over 60 installs, built 8+ client apps, and won Second place at the Attio Hackathon. We talked to them about what they've been building, and what’s next.

Q: You both started building as soon as the SDK launched. Why did you start, and what was the first thing you worked on?

Nick: I worked on NeverBounce first. It's an API service where you send it an email and it returns a confidence score to tell you if it's valid or will land in spam. I didn't plan on doing anything with it, I just wanted to understand how the SDK worked. But after posting about it on X, people started DMing me. I had a lot of people asking, "How do I get this? I need this." That's when I realized we could actually build real things with this.

Will: Yeah, I’ve always loved figuring out how a business really works—the data model, how things connect, what workflows or automations make it run. Working with Attio, we can talk to customers, understand what they need, and then just build it.

Q: And The Swarm, was this the first client app you built together?

Will: Yes, that was our first real client project with the App SDK. The Swarm is a relationship intelligence platform we built with for a customer that needed to find warm introductions without leaving Attio.

We built a button for company or person records that searches The Swarm's database for mutual connections, and returns relationship strength, connector names, and who can make the intro. The app also prompts you to create a custom object for those relationships, and populates it with the connector's name, the target you're trying to connect with, connection strength, and source. Then you can add them to a list, build a workflow, assign follow-ups, track it, and route it to your team.

Nick: The Swarm is cool because it's not bringing outside data in like Stripe or Clay would. It's enriching what's already native to Attio—the relationships, people, companies. You're not bolting something on. You're enhancing the blocks that are already there.

The technical flow:

1. Record actions on person/company objects

2. User clicks "Find Intro" → app queries the Swarm API

3. Returns relationship data (connector name, target, connection strength, source)

4. User can add all relationships to Attio with one click

5. If no custom object exists for these relationships, the app prompts to create one

Q: You also built MapConnect, which won second place at the hackathon. How was that different?

Nick: MapConnect shows that Attio can integrate with anything and make it look native, and you can build it yourself. I chose to use an iframe so that the Mapbox API can render the map. It's important for sales teams who want to see their regions, or home-based services that have drive radius requirements.

Will: Overall, I just think the extensibility of the API and SDK is great. The fact that you can build something like The Swarm that uses all the SDK components, and MapConnect with all of the data visualization there, that range is powerful.

Q: What's the developer experience like? How would you describe it to someone who hasn't used the SDK yet?

Will: It's so smooth and easy to get started. Right away, it shows you how to install the app and see the logs. The real work is mapping the use case to the right SDK pieces, and knowing when to bring in webhooks or a custom UI.

Nick: If you can build no-code, follow instructions, or just want to create something, the SDK is for you. People look at documentation and think it’s intimidating, but there's a lot of AI tools that can help you today. Start small. Ship something that solves one problem, and learn by doing.

Q: How does Attio compare to other platforms you’ve used?

Will: I've spent hours just debugging deployments and setting up Docker files. With Attio, deployment is just a click—you run the dev command in the console, click to install, and it's deployed in your workspace. It’s seamless.

Nick: Even when it was in alpha, it didn’t feel like it. It just felt so polished. When you look at legacy SDKs with really convoluted documentation, even those with huge communities around them—the fact that Attio is already better is amazing. And the developer ecosystem around it is only going to grow.

Q: Going forward, what are you most excited about?

Will: There's something different about when you have a client and their money is running out and they're trying to find product market fit. You're like, alright, let's build this. That's been the most rewarding part—seeing how companies extend Attio in ways that make sense for them, and then using that as a launch point for our own ideas.

Nick: We're early on the curve, which is really exciting. We’re both drawn to tools that believe in the builder economy—platforms that give you Lego blocks instead of rigid software. We have that with Attio. The SDK gives the authority and autonomy back to builders.

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