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Elastic (YC W11) launches Close.io, sales software designed by salespeople
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- Moe510 14y agoInteresting! Is there a mobile app?
- sradu 14y agoI played with close.io a little bit when I was helping Elastic late last year. It was so easy to use, and pretty. Oh so pretty. Afterwards I had to go back to using Salesforce for some other project. Like using a walkman after owning an iPod.
- philfreo 14y agoIt's been a lot of fun working on http://close.io http://close.io both technically (Backbone.js, Flask, Mongo) and by working on a product that genuinely makes people happier in their jobs. I'm happy to answer any questions.
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- sachingulaya 14y agoI would love to have my sales guys using it but they don't have Macs =/. Going with ringdna+salesforce for now
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- anemitz 14y agoBoth Mac and Windows are supported natively. Once you signup, we'll detect the right OS and start the Windows or Mac download accordingly.
- sachingulaya 14y agoWell then! Please put this information on your site. Your site only shows a mac app. I am going to signup today.
- alexsb92 14y agoNot bad at all! I like having all the contact options in one application, and I find it quite useful since I don't have to deal with multiple apps/devices to accomplish a big task. Since I haven't played with it yet, what number does it call people with? Would each user would get a new one, or would it be per plan?
- philfreo 14y agoWe automatically provision a phone number from each user (and you can choose a different area code or country code) or we can port in an existing number.
- ckluis 14y agoHow do you handle web leads? Is there some form of form creation tool for generating that info? How do the leads get in the system to start?
- philfreo 14y agoWe've got an API you can hook up to your web form - http://developer.close.io/ http://developer.close.io/ (email me if you have any issues) And a bulk CSV import tool (from the dropdown in the app) http://help.close.io/customer/portal/articles/965955-bulk-import http://help.close.io/customer/portal/articles/965955-bulk-im...
- ckluis 14y agoWordpress being epic and the most used CMS and gravity forms being the most used form plugin... You might want to consider releasing a plugin to feed leads from gravity forms into your solution. My $.02.
- grep 14y agoAre you using Twilio?
- anemitz 14y agoWe evaluated Twilio, but decided against it due to lower call quality. Their gateways are virtualized in the cloud and this can lead to timing issues or hollow/tinny sounding audio. Twilio also lacked their SIP endpoint (not sure if this is still in beta) at the time we started building Close.io, which would have allowed us to do native calling. We ended up working with Plivo (another YC company) and have been happy with our choice.
- pclark 14y agoI wish this would exist all my existing IMAP emails. Then I'd use this.
- anemitz 14y agoWe can do a historical import. Shoot us an email at support@close.io and let us know from what date you'd like us to start importing from.
- businessleads 14y agoIs your team made up exclusively of superheroes?
- anemitz 14y agoThere may or may not be several people wearing capes at our office on any given day:)
- rdl 14y agoWow, this looks great. I looked at using Salesforce, and it was so painful (I've used it before) that we ended up just using RT (which is great for support issues, but sucks for sales). Going to try this out for sales. Also, yay for using Plivo and good call quality instead of Twilio. This should presumably support native SIP endpoints (and G.722), so I'm a lot more likely to use it.
- anemitz 14y agoAwesome, hope you like it:) And you're right, we use native SIP -- that's the main reason we have native applications. Behind the scenes we use the PJSIP library.
- rdl 14y agoI'd prefer to be able to route calls to my SIP endpoint (polycom) vs. the client or a phone number, when I'm at the office. When not, I'd prefer cellphone (SIP client) or desktop (SIP client, or your app).
- rdl 14y agoThe Mac download would ideally be a dmg and not a .zip.
- jaredstenquist 14y agoor a .zip containing a .dmg, which is often the case.
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- rmanisha 14y agoClose.io is awesome! How it stacks up to other CRMs I have used: Streak: Great way to store Data in spreadsheet form but very difficult to analyze. It's often sluggish and unreliable. Search is no where near effective. It's more of a Data storage app versus an actual CRM. On days it crashes or does not load, my sales came to a halt! Highrise: This is one big headache. The search feature is seriously lacking and it's difficult to add data, or even analyze it later. I like to see my pipeline at a glance. Highrise provides more individual leads at a glance. Close.io is the perfect combination of a powerful search, intuitive UX and analytical feedback. At a glance, I know exactly what I have to accomplish in a given day or week, and the top leads to pursue. Prioritizing and tasking is dead simple, and the UX extremely responsive. Best feature of all: make calls through the App. I personally am terrible at taking notes after a meeting, especially when I'm swamped, so getting the opportunity to go back and listen to my calls is super helpful! Especially when I'm trying to pinpoint areas that need improvement in my pitch.
- ntharani 14y agoAwesome work chaps. I've used it and I love the built in voip
- pbreit 14y agoOn one hand I admire them for pricing it high but on the other I think it's going to make it much more difficult to acquire customers. Salesforce is better than its detractors claim but that doesn't matter as much as the fact that sales people now just expect to use it...it's the easy choice. And it's immensely customizable. I think like the recent Amazon post noted, Salesforce.com's competition is going to come from someone who undercuts them. There's no reason for SaaS software to be priced at $100/head/month (other than the need to fund a sales force).
- philfreo 14y agoGreat point. The idea here is that (at least for now) we want to make sure we're adding a lot of value to the sales process, rather than just being another CRM that's a little nicer to use than Salesforce. There are plenty of decent CRMs (Pipedrive, Capsule, Highrise, etc.) that are already cheaper than Salesforce. The difference with us is we're not trying to be another CRM but rather focusing on sales communication that's automatically logged. We care more about the salesperson workflow than just being a database for deals. Also the $99/month plan includes a phone number with unlimited minutes, which has a real cost associated with it. If you don't need built in calling, we've got a less expensive plan.
- zaidf 14y agoAt $99/mo with unlimited minutes, this is pretty competitive in a market where it is typical to find: a. per minute pricing b. per hour pricing($2-$5/hr) c. crappy VOIP implementations I haven't tried close.io yet but I am extremely glad someone filled this obvious hole in the market. If you've spent any time looking for simple auto-dialing solutions that aren't a dump of useless features, you'll know these guys seem very promising.
- djt 14y agoDo the VOIP calls work overseas?
- anemitz 14y agoAbsolutely. We can also setup your account with an international number (most countries available) so that you can sell in the region best suited for your business.
- pbreit 14y agoWill be interesting to see how this flies as an app rather than a web site. I'm inclined to think web would be a better call for this. But we shall see.
- nzealand 14y agoThere is a web app, just like the regular app.
- cobrabyte 14y agoThe product looks great but the logo left me thinking, 'they ripped-off the Simple logo.' I guess it's just a series of rings in both cases but that's the impression I got, right off the bat. Congrats on the launch though!
- anemitz 14y agoGood eye. We also realized this at one point. The Elastic logo in its current form was done Jan. 25 2012.
- asdf333 14y agoLooking forward to trying it out! Having seen Salesforce struggle at getting a streamlined CRM product out, I think its a space ripe for some competition.
- jgalt212 14y agoA few brief comments: 1. $99/month with only email support. That's tough for me, and I'm sure others who sign the checks, to stomach. 2. We pay $15/month for Salesforce. Even if it's not that great, is Close.io really 6X better?
- sachingulaya 14y agoDoes it mean a member of my salesteam is more organized and makes that 1 followup call to a warm lead that closes a deal? If yes, then it's worth it for me.
- philfreo 14y ago@jgalt212 - All of our plans come with a "chat with engineers live" link, but I'm happy to offer you some unofficial phone support if you're serious about considering Close.io. [phil@our domain] As for being 6x more expensive than Salesforce? We've seen massive productivity gains over other CRMs and you need to ask yourself: how many more deals/month would a sales person need to close to make $100/mo? Probably not very many :)
- patio11 14y agoPlease take note, engineers: this is how a smart sales guy answers a pricing objection.
- philfreo 14y agoI'd like to point out I'm an engineer :)
- jgalt212 14y agoPhil--thanks for your response. I appreciate your offer of phone support. We are bringing in a new head of sales this week in fact. I will put your product in front of this person, and it will be up to them to decide to trial, or not. I am just speaking from my experience on both the selling side, and on the buying side, pricing at a significant premium (be that 1.5X or 6X) to existing players is going to make it very tough to break into any market. As such, why not price cheaper now? If you price flat to the competition, but offer a clearly better product that's a tried and true method of grabbing market share. With market share your brand equity will increase and you can raise prices later as you gain pricing power.
- jordo37 14y agoCongrats guys! Can't wait to get some facetime with the app soon.
- kposehn 14y agoSo, my initial impressions are: - The concept as a whole is rock solid. - The ability to send/receive email and phone calls is killer - The way the software is designed fits perfectly with my bizdev flow - They cleverly handle account support via the app itself as a customer lead that is already in place. Our rep has been very responsive and helpful. Some features are still lacking, but none are deal-breakers at this time. Overall, I expect we'll be using it for the whole organization in short order.
- andyakb 14y agoCant really comment much on the product itself, but can see the value it provides and have already suggested it to a few friends to look into more. Wanted to just give a couple suggestions for changes you could test. First, I think it would be helpful to emphasize both the 14-day free trial and also the 1 free month with annual billing. The trial is barely mentioned and I think it is a huge selling point, especially when everybody who has used the product seems to immediately fall in love with it, so it is important to get as many people to try it [risk free] as you can. Second, as was already shown in the comments, you may want to consider re-recording the video using a windows computer and display that for those who show up with windows. It may seem obvious to you that SaaS will run on any major OS, but it may not be so clear to customers. Further, even if a customer recognizes that they can use it on windows, it still helps to limit any potential "dividing" factors.
- cdjalali 14y agoLooks clean, like that calling is in it, how do I get my cell line in it?
- philfreo 14y agoWe can port your number in if you want (just email us). Or you could setup an existing number to forward to Close.io
- SatvikBeri 14y agoCongratulations!
- espeed 14y agoWhat are the differences between the Web app and the native apps (I'm on Linux)?
- nickpersico 14y agoThe only major difference between the Web app and the native app is built-in calling. There's currently no calling in the Web version.
- espeed 14y agoHi Nick. What about it being a Web app prevents it from being able to provide built-in calling?
- anemitz 14y agoWe aren't happy with the available web calling options, yet. The more traditional route, Flash, has obvious disadvantages. More recently, WebRTC has been used for calling, but it's still too immature for serious applications. Long term WebRTC is the technology we'll choose for web-enabled calling, but it needs wider adoption among browsers and proven rock-solid reliability and quality for us to trust our sales team (and yours) with it.