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Show HN: Micro CRM, a CRM for People Who Hate CRMs
Hello Community!
My name is Charles-Eugene Loubao, I am a software developer who recently turned into an Indie Maker and I am sharing my new product with you today.
Micro CRM is a Customer Relationship Managment web app built to be easy to use and intuitive. Most CRMs can be complicated to use and come with an expensive price tag. Micro CRM is built to fill that need for a much simpler and cheaper contact managment platform that offers compeling features without being overwhelming.
What can I do with it ?
- Keep all your contacts in one place - Timestamped notes can be used to keep track of events associated with your contacts, or as a call log.
By getting the Premium Plan you also can also:
- Import your existing contacts from Excel CSV files - Organize easily with tags - Create email reminders to help you remember follow-ups
What's next ?
Micro CRM is in it's early days and I am planning on adding the following features:
- Search - Sorting and Filtering - Custom fields - Contact attachments (files, links, images, etc) - Team Collaboration - Possible Integrations (email, calendar, Slack, etc)
How much does it cost ?
Micro CRM is free to use for manual entry and simple contact managment. The premium plan is $5/month and for a limited time I am offering a free 30 days trial with no credit card required when you create your account.
Head to https://microcrm.cc and create your free account today!
- peterdemin 7y agoWhat’s your plan on promoting it? I feel like this space is overheated and it’s impossible to stand out
- charly1811 7y agoYou are right, the CRM space is really crowded. I am not trying to build the next Salesforce or next giant in the CRM space. I believe the reason why small businesses and freelancers struggle so much is because most CRMs out there do not ask them WHAT THEY NEED. My plan for Micro CRM is to build a simple product that will grow with my customers overtime. Right now my main strategy is to manually promote to places like HN, IndieHackers, ProductHunt (Official ProductHunt launch is Monday Nov 4) and listen to what you guys have to say and what you guys need
- MaxfordAndSons 7y ago> I believe the reason why small businesses and freelancers struggle so much is because most CRMs out there do not ask them WHAT THEY NEED. I work for a smallish CRM company targeting the SMB space. Not to be defensive, but making a general purpose CRM is hard. It's not that we're not asking, but there are as many different answers as there are customers out there. Some want contact management, some want task management, some want pipeline management, some want productivity and collaboration tools, all ending up shopping in the same bucket of "CRM". The list of potential features to add is endless, as is the scope creep and complexity creep of your software as your feature interactions multiply. Though I suppose, the silver lining for you is that if you are operating as a bootstrapped business rather than growing under duress from investors, you can choose your battles (and customers) more judiciously. Best of luck out there.
- charly1811 7y agoThank you! See you on the CRM battlefield ;)
- rman666 7y agoCan you export data with either plan?
- charly1811 7y agoI did not implement export yet but I will probably have it in the premium plan It is in the pipeline of immediate features
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- unlinked_dll 7y agoWhat is a CRM, and what problems does this solve instead of being simple/cheap? (not all of us work in the same industries with different acronyms)
- undoware 7y ago'CRM' stands for Customer Relationship Management, and in a sentence is usually short for 'a CRM app'. CRMs are what folks use to keep track of their relationship with a given client. E.g. when you call your bank, the person at the other end knows your info, what happened last call, etc. That's because of the CRM. Lots of solo-entrepreneurs struggle with CRMs, because the existing solutions are geared for large corporations or specialty verticals (e.g. healthcare, banking). Formerly, singletons used solutions like Access and FileMaker, but these are obviously deprecated in 2019 for all the usual reasons, some of which are good. OP has created a general-purpose CRM fit for solopreneurs. I'd throw down right away for this if I wasn't worried about what happens to my data if this offering disappears, which is the Usual Problem with SaaS and one not really addressed by this product (nor is it reasonable to expect it to be.)
- charly1811 7y agoThank you for your proper explanation of a CRM. I understand about your concern with your data but I can assure you, I am building this SaaS product for people like you and it is here to stay. I am also planning on building an exporting feature , not because this product will disappear one day (which will not happen) but because I want you (the user) to be able to access your data whenever you need. I am more than happy to hear any concerns you might have
- Operyl 7y agoWho takes over if you unexpectedly die or fall into a coma? That’s the hardest question I can give you, I don’t like thinking about it either .. but before I trust a huge business decision with a new SaaS these need to be asked. Do you have a team, a cofounder?
- andy800 7y agoMight there be a future version which can be embedded in a larger web site or app? In other words, being able to drop in contact management features within a mobile app or React/Vue site?
- charly1811 7y agoI am planning on building an API to make integrations with other systems easier. That feature however would be available in the Enterprise Plan ($100/month, unlimited users) which I plan to introduce once the API for third party integration is implemented. A mobile app is also on the works
- arethuza 7y ago"$100/month, unlimited users" Just a not that, to me at least, that kind of pricing seems a bit unrealistic - a lot of CRM products charge that per user per month and do very well. NB I'm not implying that you can't serve that demand - just that to anyone familiar with existing CRM products that seems bizarrely inexpensive.
- charly1811 7y agoI am trying to build a different kind of CRM. Something easy to use and affordable.
- microsage 7y agoI know you didn't ask for suggestions, but here's mine: the one thing I care about a CRM doing really well is pipeline / funnel management, i.e, the ability to define a set of stages that a contact goes through to close a deal or reach some other desired result and track contacts as they move through the pipeline(s). For example: unqualified lead -> qualified lead -> responded to email -> discussion with sales rep -> made purchase Being able to organize my contacts in this way and quickly see which contacts are at which stages and easily move them between stages (ideally with an API endpoint) is a super powerful way to drive day to day workflow (and automations like follow up emails, assuming there's an API endpoint for querying).
- charly1811 7y agoHey, thanks for your feedback. I did not say it before but I am also considering implementing a pipeline. I myself realised today that I will need that . An API is also in the works for a third plan: Entreprise ($50/month)
- microsage 7y agoThat makes sense. API access, especially at that price point, seems like something worth paying for.
- dillonmckay 7y agoSo, once a sale is made, would you continue to update the CRM system for that customer?
- charly1811 7y agoI am not saying I will implement every single feature people request but I will take any feedback my customers give me. I will continue working on Micro CRM and provide updates and fix bugs. All I'm trying to do here is build a app that people will use and be happy with.
- dhruvkar 7y agohave you checked out Less Annoying CRM [0]? It has a rudimentary pipeline feature and API access. $10/month per user. 0. https://lacrm.com https://lacrm.com
- charly1811 7y agoAny suggestions is welcome !! I am trying to build a CRM for small businesses and freelancers so I want to know what you guys need !
- stanislavb 7y agoYou should submit it to SaaSHub https://www.saashub.com https://www.saashub.com and ProductHunt to improve your exposure.
- charly1811 7y agoHi! ProductHunt Launch is next week actually! Follow us on Twitter to be notified when we launch ! https://twitter.com/GetMicroCRM https://twitter.com/GetMicroCRM
- projektfu 7y agoI’m a veterinarian. I’ve been looking for a product that I can auto forward our emails to and log calls to without any friction. I want to be able to make notes and assign tasks. It would be nice if it would integrate with my practice management software.
- charly1811 7y agoHi! Thank you for checking out Micro CRM. An email integration is on the pipeline of features to implement. What software do you use at your practice?
- projektfu 7y agoGo ahead and e-mail me and we can chat about it. I've got some ideas for you.
- cyberferret 7y agoGreat effort, and I applaud your efforts to try and come up with a solution in this very crowded space. For me, simplicity in a CRM is not the factor that will make me pull out my wallet. After all, your current feature set I can already do using AirTable or even a Google Sheet. The killer features I need, that will make me pay actual $ for would be: * Ability to have multiple team members in my company share and update my list of contacts * Ability to add contacts from other sources (e.g. directly from my Inbox, by cc'ing any correspondence to a special CRM address, or by photographing a business card). * Ability to group contacts by company or conference etc. so I can contact them at once. Basically, anything that eliminates data entry, and takes the pain out of manually creating a name, address, phone, email etc. Good luck with the build out of your feature set.
- charly1811 7y agoThank you for your helpful insight. You listed most of the things I am getting ready to build. Stay tuned!
- mehhh 7y agoWould you have any interest in pulling in CDRs & text message logs to give a broader overview of interactions with clients? If so, I'd be interested in helping write bindings for the open source PBX we use...
- charly1811 7y agoHey. Thank you for checking out Micro CRM. Such a feature might be considered when the API Integration is built.
- schappim 7y agoCould you please provide more info on how you’d do this? I have built a CRM for internal use that does this with maxo.com.au . Is the open source PBX just astrix?
- notahacker 7y ago
- dillonmckay 7y agoI like that this is actually for “customer relationships” and not sales-funnel software, where once a sale is made, the system is no longer updated.
- charly1811 7y agoThank you. MICRO CRM is a relationship management app. The only thing from a funnel software that I plan on Implementing is a pipeline which I believe can be useful.
- 4684499 7y agoHow does it compare to Monica[1]? [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497295
- charly1811 7y agoHey, thank you for checking out Micro CRM. At first glance Monica is a great open source CRM with a lot of good features. The main difference with Micro CRM is that I am trying to implement integrations such as email and calendar and build an API for third party integration without users having to deploy their own CRMs The other difference is that being a closed source product, paying customers will have a person to talk to directly in case of a problem. Lastly I am proud of my product and will also say it is better haha!
- kstrauser 7y ago> The other difference is that being a closed source product, paying customers will have a person to talk to directly in case of a problem. To be clear, "closed source" is unrelated to "has a support plan". You can buy support for FOSS projects, and good luck getting Google on the phone even if you pay them.
- robinhood 7y agoI’m Monica’s founder and I will reply if people have a problem ;-)
- hapidjus 7y agoTip: use ”real” fake data instead of lorem ipsum in the examples.
- charly1811 7y agoThank you for your feedback.
- gexla 7y agoI'm not even going to look at something on a .cc domain name. Get a .com or anything but ,cc. The .cc is notorious for spam.
- gitgud 7y agoDoes an obscure TLD really stop you from checking out a site? This is a bit worrying, as it's increasingly expensive to get a ".com" that matches your product...
- aaomidi 7y agoAgreed. It's some weird gatekeeping to care about the TLD. There is nothing special about com that solves spam.
- puranjay 7y agoIt is a bad trust signal to have a .cc domain. A lot of spam originates from obscure TLDs, which can spark privacy and trust concerns. Especially for a product that aims to store emails and phone numbers.
- gexla 7y agoGoogle has mass purged .CC from the search engine in the past. In handling a small biz mail server, I auto blocked everything .CC. It's just a bad neighborhood from my experience. YMMV.
- t0astbread 7y agoI don't mean to be a dick but that's exactly the kind of discrimination that drives the centralization of email. Please reevaluate this policy.
- sergiotapia 7y agoIt looks like shit/suspect and inspires the same confidence a .tk domain does. Do you remember those free-awesome-sites.tk urls from the early 2000s?
- bggy00 7y agoWhy not just use the free hubspot plan, and you get pipelines with that as well as email integration etc.
- charly1811 7y agoHey! Micro CRM is not trying to compete with CRMs like HubSpot. Such CRM seem to be target for marketing team. Micro CRM is a general purpose contact management with a fixed set of features .
- mr-karan 7y agoJust curious, have you taken a look at https://github.com/frappe/frappe https://github.com/frappe/frappe
- shivekkhurana 7y agoAFAIK Frappe is the framework on which the CRM is build. The actual product is ERPNEXT (https://erpnext.com/ https://erpnext.com/)
- JackPoach 7y agoThe best, free, and totally underappreciated CRM is Bitrix24.com IMHO. There's just nothing else free on the market that combines client and project management like Bitrix24. Check out https://bitrix24.com https://bitrix24.com or https://bitrix24.eu https://bitrix24.eu
- zerubeus 7y agoGood job, I'm curious why Vuejs ?
- charly1811 7y agoVue.js is my go to for frontend development. It is easier than react in my opinion and allows me to architecture my app however I want
- lepetitpedre 7y agoGreat work. At first glance, I appreciate the clean design and simple features. I've used Hubspot free plan 3 years and it works great. Not complicated and has all the features I expect a CRM to have.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- demandwork 7y agoCharles, I really appreciate your effort here. But, boy! you choose the wrong name for the CRM. Search engine will be filled with Microsoft Dynamics results.
- nannal 7y agoCounter argument DDG: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Micro+CRM&t=ffcm&atb=v117-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Micro+CRM&t=ffcm&atb=v117-1&ia=web G: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Micro%20CRM https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Micro%20CRM
- charly1811 7y agoHaha ! Picking a name for a SaaS as I learned is not easy but I love the name and even tho it might be a challenge I think we will deal with it ;)
- kkaske 7y agoWhat if a user was planning on importing contacts and using tags so they sign up for the premium account. Then they decide to drop down to the free tier. Are the tags still there that they can see but just unable to add more tags? Do the tags disappear? Or once you have a paid account you can't just drop back down to free? I always wonder how other app developers handle this kind of thing.
- charly1811 7y agoHey! Right now if a user wants to switch back to free plan, the tags are still there. They just can't access them. Same thing for the import feature. The contacts stay but they are unable to import more contacts.
- rodriguezartavi 7y agoGood for you @charly1811 - keep going! I suggest adding a silent layer of data aggregation like Clearbit, it will feel like magic to people by removing the pain of manual data entry. * used to work @clearbit
- charly1811 7y agoThanks for the idea !
- rfdavid 7y agoI really admire your efforts and optimism around the product. I started something similar 2y ago - not general like yours but a vertical CRM for a specific segment. My value proposition was to create something really simple, clean and start adding relevant features by compiling from my user’s feedback. I end up building a lot of more features than I expected (pipelines, tasks, workflow, email integrations, custom fields, filters, permissions, api, webhooks, reports etc). No matter how your product is, once you position your company as a CRM, the users will always compare you with others 9000 existing similar softwares. If you are planning to integrate google mail and/or calendar, be prepared to spend 15k to 90k for the third party company security assessment. I wish you very luck and I hope you can create something meaningful in this space.
- charly1811 7y agoThank you you for your advice. I will keep that in mind.
- jakemal 7y agoI was getting started on a calendar integration product targeted towards businesses and I just looked up the security assessment rules after reading your comment. Having to fork up tens of thousands just to allow the product to be usable completely kills the possibility. That's really disappointing. I suppose it's better to find out now rather than later.