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What’s the best CRM software for Startups?

This essay originally started on Quora. I was so dismayed by the other answers, recommending startups spend many hundreds if not thousands of dollars every month on over-hyped sales CRM. Sales are not made by software but by people. Yes you need good tools but there are some very affordable ones out there. Here’s an overview of CRM software Foliovision have tried first hand.

If you are a startup, especially a bootstrapped one, you should care about the amount of money you spend. A lot of the contenders in this space want $50/month/user or more (Salesforce I’m looking in your greedy direction right now). http://close.io is another one in that category ($59/month). While talking about greed, even Salesforce doesn’t hold a candle to the credit card hammerers over at InfusionSoft (do not even think about it).*

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Richard Branson, a whiner running down the road with a billion dollar cheque

Hardly but that’s what the crows are calling Richard Branson over at LinkedIn in response to Branson’s post “Career Curveballs: Embrace Change or Become Stagnant”.

Branson talks about starting Virgin Airlines and selling Virgin Records:

I’ve often joked about the best way to become a millionaire – start out as a billionaire and launch an airline! While moving from the music industry with Virgin Records to aviation with Virgin Atlantic was a huge career curveball for me personally, it was an even bigger jump for the rest of Virgin, not to mention my friends and family. We went from taking on rival labels in the charts and in the clubs to challenging global airlines in the air – and eventually in the courts!

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Paypal Pickpocketing Merchant Fees: How Paypal steals from best clients

Update 26 February 2013 – Fortunately some stories have a happy ending and I’m pleased to report that this is one.

Just before I wrote the original article, I put in a request for a refund of lost fees. At first Paypal offered me just a quarter of the lost fees. I sent in a detailed analysis of the last two years (the information available online) as well as a rough projection for a previous year. Paypal’s merchant support were gracious enough to offer about 50% of the lost fees as compensation. While Paypal should stop doing this – blocking clients automatic access to better rates – their customer support was efficient and polite. If you made the same mistake I did of not applying for merchant rates, I recommend approaching Paypal slowly and carefully and provide them detailed documentation of your financial loss. This is very forward thinking on Paypal’s part as I’ve put a lot more money in their coffers than the relatively small sums separating us.

Why would Paypal steal from their very best clients? A bit of a mystery. You’d think they’d take better care of those of us keeping them in business.


The Usurers Marinus van Reymersuaele: senior Paypal executives eyes look much the same
while they are cooking the books in their favour.Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Since the days of the Old Temple, through hawala in the Middle Ages and to Casanova’s lettres de change, the money changers have always had their hands deep in our pockets. For a small business, operating internationally, it’s very difficult to get paid without paying close to 10% of the revenue to some intermediary or another (sometimes split like merchant and gateway fees). In this context, Paypal seems like a breath of fresh air. At  2.9% to 3.9% plus 30¢ transaction fee, your costs are about half of the other solutions.

Happily Paypal seems to have stopped regularly stealing from businesses by freezing accounts on slim grounds.

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Visiomente: Modern Carpet Baggers or What’s Wrong with American Business

Foliovision were recently contacted to provide $500 of technical work by a firm called Visiomente. A simple Typepad to WordPress content move. Normally we would never write about an inquiry but Visiomente made such an effort to screw us and wasted enough of our time that a look at their business tactics is widely instructive about what’s wrong with American business these days.

Our hopes are this post might help other small businesses protect themselves against Visiomente and their ilk in the future.

Visiomente appears not to do anything themselves except run around and subcontract experts to provide work to high end clients. It appears Visiomente’s sole business model is to contract at the lowest possible prices and then charges on the work at the highest possible prices under their own name.

Keep reading Visiomente: Modern Carpet Baggers or What’s Wrong with American Business

Focus in Business Means Leaving Money on the Table: Apple

This post is a continuation from a recent post about Scientific Management and the Toyota Way.

Something we are working on is some additional capacity in peak periods (as auto manufacturers have additional suppliers they can bring online if a sudden surge in demand appears). Gradually we are getting there. In the meantime, I take great care not to take on more work than we can handle. There’s at least a $100,000/month of business which I’m not seeking as we just couldn’t maintain quality standards yet. We are working on increasing capacity first and then slowly adding those additional clients.

My girlfriend is shocked and horrified that we are leaving this kind of money on the table. Her shock diminished when I explained that every day Foliovision leaves millions on the table in Slovakia alone:

Keep reading Focus in Business Means Leaving Money on the Table: Apple

Neo-Taylorism vs Toyota Production System vs Human Relations Movement for Knowledge Work

A new order for some advanced Basecamp features came in. I checked the weblog of the client to see where they are coming from and ran into a new term: neo-Taylorism. Taylorism apparently had very negative connotations. My only acquaintance with Taylor is with the sails manufacturer and the association is positive. I decided to go digging and in the process ran into the concepts of:

  • scientific management
  • human relations movement
  • Toyota production system

Running a company is a pain in the neck tremendously challenging.

If you are in the knowledge business, there are two major challenges:

  • managing people
  • managing process

You are spared the pain of managing inventory. In a sense, time becomes your inventory but it does at least take a third dimension out of the equation, in comparison to auto parts production where you really, really need to manage raw materials and parts.

What’s cool about business theory is that it’s all been invented before.

Scientific Management: neo-Taylorism

This Taylor is Frederick and he died in 1915, before Henry Ford’s factories were built. Frederick Taylor came up with something called Scientific Management. The basic idea was to improve workflow (hey I need some of that) and labour output (work faster!).

The basic idea is that best practice methods should be documented and taught: all workers should produce quality work. A good start. The problem remains that with equal pay, there is no disincentive for workers not to dog it or goldbrick. Taylor called this slow working “soldiering”. Many workers call it “getting through the day”. I’ve got a friend like this. Once someone approaches work like this, that person is nearly unemployable at Foliovision or anywhere else where enthusiasm, productivity and quality of work are valued.

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