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Best CRM Software for Startups

By Chris Barber

Takeaways:

  • Just raised a Series A and ready to hire salespeople? Salesforce or RelateIQ.
  • Your startup is currently a side project? Streak (integrated with Gmail), SugarCRM (self hosted, free and open source), Insight.ly, or a spreadsheet.
  • Using your CRM for tracking applicants? RelateIQ.
  • Still not satisfied? Try out Pipedrive, Close.io or BaseCRM.

Close.io (ElasticSales)

"""

Close.io, hands down.

After tons of research on Quora, the web, and everywhere in between, I can overwhelmingly endorse with zero reservation the astonishing product that is close.io. Absolutely astonishing product, wonderful and approachable, helpful team. I just switched from a $9/month product to their admittedly hard -to-swallow $65/month Basic plan, and it's worth each and every penny.

Just take their trial for a test run, watch their CEO's phenomenal Sales 101 presentation, and give yourself some time to learn the product. You will love it.

"""

Highrise

"""

  1. Smaller teams / casual sales

If you have a smaller team, are doing more BD than sales, or just don't have the budget, Salesforce is not for you. It takes a lot of work to get a positive ROI.

I would recommend a ligther system with opportunity / deal pipeline tracking like BantamLive ( http://www.bantamlive.com/ ) or Pipeline Deals ( https://www.pipelinedeals.com/ )

If you don't need to track a pipeline, then you could go even lighter with something like Highrise ( http://highrisehq.com/ )

All of these are good options, and I've used them with teams extensively

"""

Pipedrive

"""

I would reccomend Pipedrive (www.pipedrive.com)

I have also checked out several other ones over the 7 years while I have been in active sales and this is the 1st solution that I really like. You can customize it yourself so that it would exactly fit your needs, it gives you very good visual picture of what is actually going on in your sales and it is very convenient for your day to day sales work.

"""

"""

We (Quote Roller) integrate with ~ 10 CRM systems, I tried them all either to design integrations or use internally.

Here is the short list of the strong points for each CRM system I've tried:

  1. PipeDrive - very nice pipeline view. Choose it if your sales reps usually have up to a 100 deals in the pipeline at any given time and have to "move the needle" on each of them

"""

"""

Pipedrive.com is in my opinion the most innovative and most simplified software available.

It only focuses on your pipeline not useless info and allows you to edit your leads quickly and easily. I always hated to work with crm's this is closest to making it OK for me

"""

BaseCRM

"""

We (Quote Roller) integrate with ~ 10 CRM systems, I tried them all either to design integrations or use internally.

Here is the short list of the strong points for each CRM system I've tried:

  1. BaseCRM - doing outbound calls? Base has a great VOIP integration recording all the calls your reps make attaching them to deals

"""

Salesforce

"""

We (Quote Roller) integrate with ~ 10 CRM systems, I tried them all either to design integrations or use internally.

Here is the short list of the strong points for each CRM system I've tried:

  1. SalesForce - you have a lot of money, more than 20 sales reps, and your VP of Sales is experienced using SalesForce. SalesForce is powerful, yet, might be an overkill for a small sales team.

"""

"""

Don't dick around. Buy a CRM that takes a long view and will:

Grow as your business and sales team grows Can integrate into other critical systems including E-Signature, Invoicing, Customer Service, Customer Success and more Has a strong developer eco-system so that you're not "stuck" with a static solution Is an industry standard and has a high probability that the salespeople and sales management you hire will already come trained on it

If you sum all of that up, you'll end up going with buying a "big boy CRM" and that is Salesforce.

"""

"""

As mentioned a few times in this chain, the sad reality is that you'll eventually need to go out and get Salesforce. When you hire your VP and Director of Sales, they're most-likely going to be trained using Salesforce. A good friend that hired his stellar VPS recently told me, "If you hire Roger Federer, you let him chose his racket". A large percent of the time, they will end up switching you to Salesforce.

"""

RelateIQ

"""

Why?

  1. "Never drop the ball" feature is really useful. Founded by a couple Palantir alumni, they use their big-data skills to help you follow up when you should. If somebody owes you a response or you or somebody else a response, RelateIQ knows and will remind you.

  2. Super-easy to get started

  3. @ tag others when collaborating

  4. Feels like modern Facebook-like software.

  5. Integrations are easy with Zapier (out of the box integrations coming)

  6. The "grid view" acts/looks like a spreadsheet. 100 new leads from the same source? Copy/paste down the entire column. Need to grab data to move to a spreadsheet? Copy/paste and it just works.

  7. Stuff just works. I rarely have a "oh f, is this really going to hang/crash, etc right now?

  8. Mobile app is a 4/5 stars for me. Could use some UX improvement, but it gets the job done.

  9. RelateIQ.com has raised $20m in VC and doesn't appear to be going away any time soon.

"""

Streak

More Alternatives

Intercom

"""

We (Quote Roller) integrate with ~ 10 CRM systems, I tried them all either to design integrations or use internally.

Here is the short list of the strong points for each CRM system I've tried:

  1. Intercom - not a fully-loaded CRM, rather contacts management system for SAAS; though, works really well for SaaS companies with inbound leads flow.

"""

BantamLive

"""

I'm using a combination of BantamLive and Gist with good results. Between them they integrate Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, GDocs, GCalendar, and my iPhone into the workflow.

"""

Pipeline Deals

"""

  1. Smaller teams / casual sales

If you have a smaller team, are doing more BD than sales, or just don't have the budget, Salesforce is not for you. It takes a lot of work to get a positive ROI.

I would recommend a ligther system with opportunity / deal pipeline tracking like BantamLive ( http://www.bantamlive.com/ ) or Pipeline Deals ( https://www.pipelinedeals.com/ )

If you don't need to track a pipeline, then you could go even lighter with something like Highrise ( http://highrisehq.com/ )

All of these are good options, and I've used them with teams extensively

"""

Nimble

"""

We (Quote Roller) integrate with ~ 10 CRM systems, I tried them all either to design integrations or use internally.

Here is the short list of the strong points for each CRM system I've tried:

  1. Nimble - great integration with LinkedIN. Choose it if you're selling via LinkedIn

"""

CapsuleCRM

"""

We (Quote Roller) integrate with ~ 10 CRM systems, I tried them all either to design integrations or use internally.

Here is the short list of the strong points for each CRM system I've tried:

  1. CapsuleCRM - good API, very flexible

"""

Even More Alternatives

  • Netsuite
  • Stride
  • Zoho
  • Google Docs
  • Streamfocus.com
  • CiviCRM
  • Genius
  • Heap
  • Officezilla
  • Insightly
  • Clinchpad
  • Sellsy
  • Kreato CRM
  • SalesNexus
  • Podio
  • Wishery
  • Casepro
  • AmoCRM
  • Comidor
  • Inflo Software
  • Nimble
  • Silentale
  • Capsule

Other Resources for Choosing a CRM

This is a list of various CRM software and a comparison of features (Source)

Other Sales Related Tools (Source)

ToutApp/Yesware/Signals

Rapportive

Boomerang

InsideView

Salesloft

Datanyze/Mixrank

Sources

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-CRM-software-for-startups

http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-is-the-best-CRM-solution-for-startups

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-CRM-to-use-for-tracking-job-applicants

Takeaways:

  • Just raised a Series A and ready to hire salespeople? Salesforce or RelateIQ.
  • Your startup is currently a side project? Streak (integrated with Gmail), SugarCRM (self hosted, free and open source), or a spreadsheet.
  • Using your CRM for tracking applicants? RelateIQ.
  • Still not satisfied? Try out Pipedrive, Close.io or BaseCRM.

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