As someone who evaluates CRMs pretty much for a living I'm sad to report there's nothing new here. Great UI - Kudos. But, this is way more expensive than Pipedrive whose UI is arguably as user friendly. I think you've got potential here... but you're priced same as close.io with far fewer features and a similar UI.
I tried Pipedrive but if you want to sync contacts with Google Contacts, they insist on accessing your mails as well. No way to reduce OAuth scope. To make matters worse, they use a third party API to do this, so you trust not just one, but two random companies with access to your email. This is an issue since email is not just used for marketing (think password reset tokens and so on).
Their support has been useless when I asked about this, insisting that their approach was perfectly secure and that their other customers don't care:
> We have now more than 85,000 companies from all over the World who have accepted and agreed with our Terms and Conditions and I am happy to say that we have never had any issues with these matters.
If I may, an off-topic question. I am completely unsatisfied with any addressbook software and have been looking at a ton of CRMs for personal use. I would prefer something open source, but anything self-hosted would do.
The one feature that most CRMs are missing is CardDav and CalDav syncing. I need my contacts on my phone. Do you know of any opens source or otherwise self-hosted CRM that supports CardDav and CalDav for contacts and appointments?
Thanks for your feedback! I just want to mention that Wobaka is $49 for all of your team, not per user. So if you're more than 3 users it's not more expensive :).
Funny, but I bounced off of Pipedrive.com pretty quick. Why should I trust a product if they are too afraid to show me meaningful screenshots? They have more detail in the dinky little videos, but I don't want to just sit there for a few minutes just for a chance to see something slightly real.
The Wobaka "screenshots" are also obviously fake, but there is enough detail that they still give me a clear idea of what the intention is.
Pricing does not work this way [1]. Smaller companies tend to offer a lot more accessible support, which is not as loudly advertised. In any case, if pricing did work this way, Saas would be a race to the bottom, which the market has shown to not be the case.
Can you tell us what you consider to be THE MAIN features / traits of a CRM that makes it good? Like 90% of it? We are building one now.
What we already have:
An app that is used by 100000+ active users to manage their contacts and put them into groups.
What we want to add:
Each Group would have a Tree of States
Each State would have (full HTML) Email Templates that you customize with our mobile editor
You would be able to send template emails from your phone and track email opens and link clicks, and get notifications.
Each “email open” or “link click” can move people into a new state, from 5a to 5b so to speak. Of course, primary states would have names.
You would also be able to place calls and take HTML notes on each contact, which can include images etc.
The CRM would let you see at a glance who is in what state in the pipeline (actually, a tree).
Also, business card scanning that saves contacts in bulk, then you categorize them based on Group
We may also, later, want to add other features, such as “countdown” graphics and other widgets to the templates, and tasks for teams.
Charging
In your experience, what would be a good market clearing price for such a CRM? You would be able to do everything from your PHONE, rather than having to go to your computer. Do you know of a CRM like this? Or even an app that an track email opens? I only know NewtonMail maybe.
I was thinking of charging $20, $50 and $100 a month plans, for 200 emails, 1000 emails or 10,000 emails per month, respectively.
recommendations an ubuntu-based CRM for a researcher with ~300 PDFs; requires basic metadata, some kind of tagging support, not a year's worth of setup, please!.. coder here!
It's pretty! The Basecamp styling is really clear, and it's nice to see the interface on display
There's a few unanswered questions that I hope it's helpful to point out;
* Importers -> If I want to switch, how long will it take me to move from a potential system (Excel, Google Sheets, Salesforce, etc) into Wobaka?
* Integrations -> If I send an email can that come from my Outlook Gmail and be shown? Can I see emails from my colleagues towards a contact if they want to?
* What does a workflow look like? A gif of going from New Contact -> Adding them into an Org I'm talking to -> Sending the first message would do a lot here.
* How do I engage with my colleagues? Can I tag them in tasks, or pass things along to them?
> The Basecamp styling is really clear, and it's nice to see the interface on display
Promising. Anyone who seems to take inspiration from Basecamp is worth at least 30 extra seconds consideration in my book.
Basecamp is the company behind Rails and they were IMO one of the driving forces that made Ajax accessible and web application developement enjoyable.
Their UX was (and probably is) good, and their business philosophy flies right in the face of "unicorn or nothing" which means I wish more people would learn from them. Heh, I realize I'm probably not meant to say that here, but based on previous experience I expect it to be tolerated : )
- Signed: a Java (and other languages) developer that is happy for Rails
Marketing page doesn't convince me that it's a different CRM. Lists usual stuff. Actually quite lacking if the business cannot apply their customizations/business rules/validations/workflows.
I really like the site. How did you come up with 7 days as a trial period? Seems like it may take longer than a week for someone to really see the value. I could be totally wrong though.
We’ve been through several CRM evaluations since Highrise went into maintenance-updates only.
During that time, we’ve seen some terribly unintuitive software and other offerings that look as though they’ll be great but lack some key feature.
Every CRM has a gotcha that you won’t find until you use it in anger.
IMO, seven days is not enough but I also think no evaluation is long enough unless you have the resources to run it fully in parallel to your existing process.
I went through your tweets and visualized how Wobaka slowly grew into production. I also have a similar side-project (customer support system, tbh), and you launching your product helped me gain confidence that I can do too! Unfortunately, I cannot sign up for a demo because no cc info (3rd world problems). Anyway, congratulations! It looks simple and beautiful.
I would still go with a major CRM. It's not so much about having a great product as it is about having software that a lot of people already know how to use. Even if people don't like the major players at least they're familiar with them, so recruiting and training is a lot easier even if the product is not a good as it should be.
I'd disagree in this space for their target market. They are targeting startups and many people that join startups like using new / cool tech. Also, most sales people I've talked to don't like the bloat of SalesForce, so I'd imagine they'd be cool with trying something new.
There are other reasons this will be tough, but I don't think this is one. The issue that comes to mind for me is integrations.
I found it a little hard to understand the differentiators. I think in a space like this, where there are already a host of established players, you should have the differentiating feature up front and easily consumable. I'd love to hear more about what other CRMs were missing (in a particular use case) and then hear what you did to fix it.
Looks really nice but I wonder if you went too far with Basecamp's look.
The brand colors look so similar that you could get the impression that it's a Basecamp product. It almost looks like you took their background color and changed it by the smallest amount possible just so it wasn't an exact match if you compared the hex colors.
The title of the Show HN grabbed me and the design on your homepage had me leaning in.
I think it's hard to differentiate on design fully as a basic CRM. One idea you could look into as both a feature set and a focus of your marketing is leaning into the idea that you're the ideal first CRM and you make migrating to Salesforce dead simple.
You can snag ppl like our company who have been told you'll eventually need to be on Salesforce but aren't ready for all of that overhead. Then once you've got a community of users, you have a chance at adding more and more functionality that will get people to stay with you instead of migrating.
I've always thought there was a market opportunity around that.
This is what I look for first when evaluating CRM software, which gives me an idea of the underlying schema and how to extend or integrate the software.
Most smaller CRM's do not support multiple price books, for example, that can be critical to businesses that have price differences between sales channels and regions.
A typical use case, customer story, for your solution would be helpful.
Does not answer why I would choose this over all the other 1000000 of CRM offerings (just in our office we tried Zoho, Close.io, Salesforce, Pipedrive,....).
Plus, not fully sold on the "Built to last - Wobaka is like your favorite craft beer or artisan coffee. Made with love and hand-picked ingredients. No mega-corp here." pitch.
Yeah I wouldn't draw attention to the concept of software longevity anywhere. New SAAS by a solo developer is not what I think of when I think of things that will last.
OP you're just straight up not going to get people for who stability is a priority any time soon. Your target market is people who like to fiddle with their work tools, likely beyond pragmatism and in to productivity as a hobby territory. Guy that wants to get his organisation on to something and know he wont have to think about it again, ie the guy who cares about "built to last", is going to go Salesforce and call it a day.
Thanks! I know there are many CRMs out there. I'm trying to build one that I enjoy using and that is specifically made for small businesses. This way I can remove a lot of the stuff I don't care about and still have a nice and efficient system that is easy to stay on top of :).
Congratulations on your product launch! I am not your potential customer but as a fellow software developer I would like to know the technology/programming languages driving your product if you don't mind.
Looks nice. For anyone looking to self-host or develop their own CRMs, I can't recommend https://erpnext.com enough. It's written in Python and is FOSS.
IANAL but I don't see a "Legal" or "Privacy Policy" in the app itself. Maybe someone in the know can say if it's required or not. I do skim through these document if they exist and I can't find it here. At it's current state, it screams like an open source project since it says "Made with coffee by @drikerf"
Out of curiosity - can you share if you received any new paying users through this Show HN, and if so, how many? I realize there's a 7 day trial so even number of trial signups would be interesting. Trying to gauge the HN effect for a product like this.
I clicked because you said that you made something I'll "enjoy using." It made me interested to see what a CRM is. I can tell by visiting your site what purpose it generally serves, but nowhere did I find mention of what CRM stands for. Maybe you don't need to spell it out for your target market, but I think it would still be nice to establish the acronym for unfamiliar guests. To be fair, maybe I'm in the minority, as a quick web search provides me plenty of results clearly stating that it's "customer relationship management."
Great design! Is this some known scheme/template or is it all custom? Because it resembles Notion's design a bit. Did you start from a reusable framework (e.g. bootstrap)?
[+] [-] rrggrr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lima|6 years ago|reply
Their support has been useless when I asked about this, insisting that their approach was perfectly secure and that their other customers don't care:
> We have now more than 85,000 companies from all over the World who have accepted and agreed with our Terms and Conditions and I am happy to say that we have never had any issues with these matters.
[+] [-] dotancohen|6 years ago|reply
If I may, an off-topic question. I am completely unsatisfied with any addressbook software and have been looking at a ton of CRMs for personal use. I would prefer something open source, but anything self-hosted would do.
The one feature that most CRMs are missing is CardDav and CalDav syncing. I need my contacts on my phone. Do you know of any opens source or otherwise self-hosted CRM that supports CardDav and CalDav for contacts and appointments?
Thank you!
[+] [-] drikerf|6 years ago|reply
Thanks for your feedback! I just want to mention that Wobaka is $49 for all of your team, not per user. So if you're more than 3 users it's not more expensive :).
[+] [-] bbmario|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jwarder|6 years ago|reply
The Wobaka "screenshots" are also obviously fake, but there is enough detail that they still give me a clear idea of what the intention is.
[+] [-] writepub|6 years ago|reply
[1]: https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/saas_pric...
[+] [-] EGreg|6 years ago|reply
What we already have: An app that is used by 100000+ active users to manage their contacts and put them into groups.
What we want to add:
Each Group would have a Tree of States
Each State would have (full HTML) Email Templates that you customize with our mobile editor
You would be able to send template emails from your phone and track email opens and link clicks, and get notifications.
Each “email open” or “link click” can move people into a new state, from 5a to 5b so to speak. Of course, primary states would have names.
You would also be able to place calls and take HTML notes on each contact, which can include images etc.
The CRM would let you see at a glance who is in what state in the pipeline (actually, a tree).
Also, business card scanning that saves contacts in bulk, then you categorize them based on Group
We may also, later, want to add other features, such as “countdown” graphics and other widgets to the templates, and tasks for teams.
Charging
In your experience, what would be a good market clearing price for such a CRM? You would be able to do everything from your PHONE, rather than having to go to your computer. Do you know of a CRM like this? Or even an app that an track email opens? I only know NewtonMail maybe.
I was thinking of charging $20, $50 and $100 a month plans, for 200 emails, 1000 emails or 10,000 emails per month, respectively.
[+] [-] rajangdavis|6 years ago|reply
I used to use it as a customer and was a consultant for it until a lot of the work in that area started drying up.
Seemed to be the CRM of choice in 2010; nowadays, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Zendesk seem to be the frontrunners in that space.
[+] [-] mistrial9|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Grzegrzolka|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wufufufu|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randall|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eden_h|6 years ago|reply
There's a few unanswered questions that I hope it's helpful to point out;
* Importers -> If I want to switch, how long will it take me to move from a potential system (Excel, Google Sheets, Salesforce, etc) into Wobaka?
* Integrations -> If I send an email can that come from my Outlook Gmail and be shown? Can I see emails from my colleagues towards a contact if they want to?
* What does a workflow look like? A gif of going from New Contact -> Adding them into an Org I'm talking to -> Sending the first message would do a lot here.
* How do I engage with my colleagues? Can I tag them in tasks, or pass things along to them?
[+] [-] eitland|6 years ago|reply
Promising. Anyone who seems to take inspiration from Basecamp is worth at least 30 extra seconds consideration in my book.
Basecamp is the company behind Rails and they were IMO one of the driving forces that made Ajax accessible and web application developement enjoyable.
Their UX was (and probably is) good, and their business philosophy flies right in the face of "unicorn or nothing" which means I wish more people would learn from them. Heh, I realize I'm probably not meant to say that here, but based on previous experience I expect it to be tolerated : )
- Signed: a Java (and other languages) developer that is happy for Rails
[+] [-] drikerf|6 years ago|reply
I just finished up an importer this weekend so it's easy to import your contacts from csv files.
Def going to make that GIF and look into colleague engagement more :).
[+] [-] jve|6 years ago|reply
Marketing page doesn't convince me that it's a different CRM. Lists usual stuff. Actually quite lacking if the business cannot apply their customizations/business rules/validations/workflows.
[+] [-] martin-adams|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chasd00|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mprev|6 years ago|reply
During that time, we’ve seen some terribly unintuitive software and other offerings that look as though they’ll be great but lack some key feature.
Every CRM has a gotcha that you won’t find until you use it in anger.
IMO, seven days is not enough but I also think no evaluation is long enough unless you have the resources to run it fully in parallel to your existing process.
[+] [-] puranjay|6 years ago|reply
Bad, yes. But boring? I really don't look for fun and excitement from work software.
Excel wouldn't become any more useful if it was painted pink and had wacky icons
[+] [-] njsubedi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tryitnow|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perfunctory|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mritchie712|6 years ago|reply
There are other reasons this will be tough, but I don't think this is one. The issue that comes to mind for me is integrations.
[+] [-] jkaufmann_|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drikerf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickjj|6 years ago|reply
The brand colors look so similar that you could get the impression that it's a Basecamp product. It almost looks like you took their background color and changed it by the smallest amount possible just so it wasn't an exact match if you compared the hex colors.
[+] [-] barrkel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jayyeh|6 years ago|reply
I think it's hard to differentiate on design fully as a basic CRM. One idea you could look into as both a feature set and a focus of your marketing is leaning into the idea that you're the ideal first CRM and you make migrating to Salesforce dead simple.
You can snag ppl like our company who have been told you'll eventually need to be on Salesforce but aren't ready for all of that overhead. Then once you've got a community of users, you have a chance at adding more and more functionality that will get people to stay with you instead of migrating.
I've always thought there was a market opportunity around that.
Good luck
[+] [-] drikerf|6 years ago|reply
That's interesting. I'll always help you export your data whenever you want manually until I've built a good export tool :).
[+] [-] JaggerFoo|6 years ago|reply
This is what I look for first when evaluating CRM software, which gives me an idea of the underlying schema and how to extend or integrate the software.
Most smaller CRM's do not support multiple price books, for example, that can be critical to businesses that have price differences between sales channels and regions.
A typical use case, customer story, for your solution would be helpful.
Cheers
[+] [-] drikerf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] garysahota93|6 years ago|reply
Also, I'd love to see some analytics / visualization features (or integrations into Looker/Tableau)!
[+] [-] luka-birsa|6 years ago|reply
Does not answer why I would choose this over all the other 1000000 of CRM offerings (just in our office we tried Zoho, Close.io, Salesforce, Pipedrive,....).
Plus, not fully sold on the "Built to last - Wobaka is like your favorite craft beer or artisan coffee. Made with love and hand-picked ingredients. No mega-corp here." pitch.
Great effort tho.
[+] [-] austhrow743|6 years ago|reply
OP you're just straight up not going to get people for who stability is a priority any time soon. Your target market is people who like to fiddle with their work tools, likely beyond pragmatism and in to productivity as a hobby territory. Guy that wants to get his organisation on to something and know he wont have to think about it again, ie the guy who cares about "built to last", is going to go Salesforce and call it a day.
[+] [-] drikerf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisperkins|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knadh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] homero|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benplumley|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watbywbarif|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dpcan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] westoque|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackathonguy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aschismatic|6 years ago|reply
In any case, good luck with your business!
[+] [-] chpmrc|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drikerf|6 years ago|reply