Ask HN: Freelancers, do you use a CRM software?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33683090

by labarilem • 4 years ago

4 3 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

If so, which one?

Yes. But every tool, service, SaaS, app, etc in this space is so over-complicated and bloated. Has all the features I don't need, at the cost of the features I do need.

So I built my own

labarilem• 4 years ago

Is it a private tool or is it publicly available?

tobinfekkes2• 4 years ago

It's mostly a private tool, but I also license it out to ~15 other small/medium businesses.

I've often thought about open-sourcing it, and I think in the long-run that could happen. I haven't done so yet mostly because I'm weary of the feature requests, support, and the same bloat over time that made other formerly "slick" solutions degrade over time.

Software is complex and expensive. In order to pay for it, it needs lots of users. In order to be useful for lots of people, it needs more features. With each feature, more adjacent and tangential features are necessary. They all succumb to being "everything for everyone", which is another way of saying "really useful for no one, but has a feature or two that every user might maybe possibly could perhaps need one day."

I took the the "quality over quantity" approach because I can be profitable with a handful of paying users, who are essentially paying to keep it small. That way it keeps being very useful for them, rather than marginally useful for thousands/millions. Most software, particularly CRMs, become a tax on your time or wallet rather than a tool in your belt.

Ask HN: Freelancers, do you use a CRM software?

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