How did I feel about our CRM? It got the job done. Through sheer force of will we made it work. But it was clunky, complicated, and although we made it 'perfect' for what we did it took a while and someone who was very good with IT to make it happen. I haven’t used it in many months but if it hasn’t changed, I don't recommend it and I wouldn't choose it again.
Who is the CRM really for? In your Search it will be of marginal use to you upfront and add value over time if you use it correctly. On the other hand, it has immense value to your interns from the start. It has to be easy enough for them to learn quickly and use appropriately. Same for your investors if you are sharing with them. Despite a fairly common outcome from any number of CRM's options, a few of them have a nice looking and intuitive 'UI' (User Interface). This can be essential to a regularly rotating cohort of interns (who will hopefully be using this system more than yourself in short-term bursts) or an investor who is short on time. The CRM you and your team build initially is for you in Year 2 of operation and successive years of potential add-ons but primarily for your team in the beginning.
There are a number of things to consider when choosing a program to use. Though far from necessary, if it were possible I would advise sharing viewing access with all of your interns. My first few months as a PT member of the team were very confusing without access to active deals. I didn’t want to waste the time of our Co-Founders by asking lots of questions about what I missed on days I wasn’t in the office but I didn’t truly understand what was going on and what had happened to deals that disappeared when I couldn’t view their notes…When you have team members who are part time (including investors, advisors, etc.) it is helpful for them to be able to check in on their own rather than get either constant or inconsistent updates from you or bothering you for the details which could easily be found from your notes online.
It should work well with 3rd party 'apps' as well. We regularly 'downloaded' into Excel and used Mail Merge (Word, Outlook, Excel) to send a few hundred emails each day. Then, based on responses, we updated both our Excel and our CRM with only the most successful responders. Then...repeat. There are plenty of 'apps' that do this automatically for you. They will send out hundreds of emails, keep track of responses, filter into appropriate 'baskets' on your behalf and follow-up based on a lack of response. You might also want it to sync with your email program, to have access from your phone, or for other unknown future integrations you discover as you Search.
Be sure to create appropriate labels to push ‘opportunities’ into baskets as they go through your filter. Has a letter or email been sent? Was there a response? Have you had a call? How did that call go? Did you send an NDA? Has it been signed? Same for IOI’s or LOI’s. This is a resource to keep track of which companies are in which baskets and to dive deeper into individual companies to see the details of your communication with them. There should be a check-box or a drop down option to update an item on each step of its march of progress. Did someone have an amazing call but turn out to be too small or not ready to sell for another 3 years? That is still very valuable information as you run your new company. That’s a potential add-on to follow-up with…but in 3 years you may not recall exactly who it was you spoke to and how the conversation went. Check your CRM!
Is it worth paying for your CRM? I genuinely don’t know. Paid versions often come with ‘better’ features but they may not be necessary. There are plenty of cheap or free options available and those are best to look into first. Play with your top two or three choices. Pick one. It will likely have ‘upgrades’ you may or may not decide to take advantage of in the future.
After you buy your business you may find it necessary to change CRM’s either because it is more relevant to the industry or because it is what the previous owner used. Don’t worry too much about the potential to use your first CRM in 3 years in an unknown industry. If it works for Search, it’s perfect for your job.
To this point I have not recommended a single system by name. This was on purpose. My experience with CRM’s, and I have only used 3 of them on a daily basis, has varied. You need to pick for yourself. If you connect with me, I can talk to you about more current experiences but if you were to read this article several years (or possibly even months!) after it was posted the names might be all you take away and that would be unfortunate because they are constantly changing features and looks. How you use the CRM and who you use it with is essential. Consider the next 2 years and what your goals are…I have used free, cheap, and very expensive services. I preferred the cheap one but I know that there are a few Open source options which come highly recommended. The most expensive one works well but no Searcher needs it.
Here is a list of CRM's SEARCHERS ARE KNOWN TO USE at the time of this post to help you get started:
Nathan Israel has been the lead intern in charge of sourcing and technology at multiple search funds. He has participated in a search fund acquisition as well.
253 views
8 comments
Sign in to see all replies.
Create an account.