What tools do you use to keep track of your users, vc's and other contacts for your startup?

June 2nd, 2015

What tools do you use to organize contacts and information about your customers, VC's, referrals and other important contacts?

I would like the mobile version, as usually, I get information on the go about possible contacts. Linkedin doesn't work for this, since I can't cluster the contacts by segments for my business.

I would appreciate any leads, specially for free or low-cost tools.

Maria Brandt

June 3rd, 2015

Truly thankful for the insights.

Terri: since you created Archively: how many of notes can I add to a contact?

Few notes about these technologies:

- They are either focused for recruiting or for sales pipeline. Archively and Loxo focus on profile, and resumes, and therefore actions related to recruiting .

- W5Templates, RelateIQ, Ondigo focus on sales pipeline. Ondigo seems to be only mobile. Love the colorcoding of Ondigo to quickly differentiate clusters, but I don't see a contact summary version (similar to what archively has).

-Zaelr seems to be a messaging app, and I don't see how I can use it.

-I am also looking at evernote, which allows me to organize notes per contacts. Specially attractive is the premium version ($50/year) , where I can edit pdfs, create slides and organize emails by contacts looks powerful (but I won't have a pipeline about customer responses).

- Insignthly seems to be a CRM tool that focuses on customer communication. they also have a contact and project tool. The free version works for 2 people.

As a startup, I need a way to organize communications with customers, user feedback, pain points, potential vc's. Thus, it is truly important to have: list of contacts easily classified in clusters, but also have ways to expand notes, and categorize such notes as: pain points, opportunities, nice to have, import to a to-do lists, etc.

So far, I am inclined to use evernote, archively (depending on limits for # notes) or insightly.

Let me know if you have more comments.

Perri Gorman Founder of Archively & UnrollMe

June 3rd, 2015

So Maria - Archively is pitched for recruiters but I can show you hot to use it for all of the things people you need and unlike Evernote, it is specifically designed for people. We use it to track customers, candidate pools, investors, user feedback, sales pipeline - everything. The grouping is extremely flexible.

You can add as many notes as you want and attachments and projects in the $88 a month version. Let me know if I can help further.

Cheers

Craig Conlee

June 2nd, 2015

Salesforce. It's easy. All the other are similar but with different color buttons.

Alison Lewis CEO/Creative Director

June 2nd, 2015

I can't help it. Sales Force for non-salesy people trained in it is not easy at all. It's old style (looks 2001), poorly made, strange hidden behaviors for non sales people, expensive, and you have to do all these add-ons to get what you want. Spent 2 weeks on it and ran away to RelateIQ, which integrates directly into Google and autotracks all your communications. Then RelateIQ got purchased by SalesForce, so it's been upgraded to do pipeline and some other key reports, but kept it's good design.

Perri Gorman Founder of Archively & UnrollMe

June 3rd, 2015

Stephen we are just finishing our API and it will mostly be integrating with ATS systems but we are planning a Zapier integration in the next month or so.

Maria Brandt

June 3rd, 2015

I will try archively free version, and request the W5templates free trial. The premium version of $88/month cannot be justtified at this stage of the business since I am not doing actively recruiting.

Thanks

Stephen PMP Project Management Professional

June 3rd, 2015

Perri - excellent! I'll keep an eye out.

Maria, not at all to undermine our new good buddy Perri, but it seems like you're genuinely on the hunt so I'd be remiss if I didn't share this new Zapier (coincidently) report / cheat sheet on CRMs for your consumption - https://goo.gl/oVdlh0

It is by no means comprehensive, but I do think it will be of assistance. They have a full report as well which I can share, but this is a good summary. And yes, there are many other reports like it out there that I happened to have stored over the past year or so if interested.

Lastly, not to overwhelm, but here are 3 solid tools I use to cross-reference and compare other tools, apps and like solutions:

All The Best,

Stephen

Craig Conlee

June 3rd, 2015

Maria, I am still in development with the app. You would use the platform to reach out to potiential people that you are marketing too. Either your investors or potential clients. You are using it right now, but, in a very klugey way. Hence, logging on to this site to send messages or logging on LinkedIn to send messages. And I am sure these messages that your sending on Linkedin, FD and others is not tracked. My platform is integrated into 5 CRM system to date. Saleforce.com, MS Dynamics, SugarCRM, Zoho, and (soon to be Nimble).

If you ever been in a sales role and I am sure now you will be since you are an starting something, you will find out how tough it is to track messages outside of email. BTW, email is clearly not effective anymore.

Perri, have you heard of Ebsta? There is just talk right now to team up with them. My application is about messaging with integration with social media and crm platforms. There is a backend piece in which i have plans for my phase 2 or 3 for customer segmentation solutions, coupled with execution with my app... this gives an amazing insight on a lot of things.

Alison Lewis CEO/Creative Director

June 2nd, 2015

RelateIQ and love it.

Stephen PMP Project Management Professional

June 3rd, 2015

Thanks for elaborating, Craig. I very honestly would love to see the research to substantiate that email marketing doesn't work anymore as you mentioned. I use it often, but am open to shifting if there is such a dramatic downward trend.

Thanks!