Alternatives to Pipedrive

When I started at StackShare, I needed an easy way to create a pipeline of the different partners we were engaged with, and track the status of those conversations. Having just begun to explore partnerships in earnest, our needs at StackShare don't necessitate something as robust as Salesforce Sales Cloud, Close.io or similar offerings that exist.

Nevertheless, I didn't want one more Google Doc to track things either, and I heard about Streak, so I figured I'd give the free version a try. So far, it has accommodated everything I need, and it integrates simply with Gmail which meant I had it running in a few minutes. You can create a pipeline entry directly from an email thread, which I find useful compared to logging into a separate platform, and there is basic functionality for scheduling follow-ups and tasks. The pipeline stages are fully customizable as are the fields you can add - (I added a note field to explain why someone may be in the "Backburner" stage, for example).

As we scale our Business Development initiatives and grow our team, we'll likely need to look at upgrading Streak or incorporating other tools like Yesware. But, for a quick and easy way to organize a sales pipeline and track the respective conversations, the Streak free version nicely accommodates what I need and has been very helpful in managing discussions with a variety of partners thus far.

#StackDecisionsLaunch

We use Close.io to sell Close.io, of course. Our own web app is tightly integrated into our product via dogfooding our own API. All our team members Google Apps/Gmail accounts are synced with Close so communication with customers / trials is always easily visible. Close.io

So I am a huge fan of JIRA like #massive I used it for many many years, and really loved it, used it personally and at work. I would suggest every new workplace that I worked at to switch to JIRA instead of what I was using.

When I started at #StackShare we were using a Trello #Kanban board and I was so shocked at how easy the workflow was to follow, create new tasks and get tasks QA'd and deployed. What was so great about this was it didn't come with all the complexity of JIRA. Like setting up a project, user rules etc. You are able to hit the ground running with Trello and get tasks started right away without being overwhelmed with the complexity of options in JIRA

With a few TrelloPowerUps we were easily able to add GitHub integration and storyPoints to our cards and thats all we needed to get a really nice agile workflow going.

I'm not saying that JIRA is not useful, I can see larger companies being able to use the JIRA features and have the time to go through all the complex setup to get a really good workflow going. But for smaller #Startups that want to hit the ground running Trello for me is the way to go.

In saying that what I would love Trello to implement is to allow me to create custom fields. Right now we just have a Description field. So I am adding User Stories & How To Test in the Markdown of the Description if I could have these as custom fields then my #Agile workflow would be complete.

#StackDecisionsLaunch

For Etom, a side project. We wanted to test an idea for a future and bigger project.

What Etom does is searching places. Right now, it leverages the Google Maps API. For that, we found a React component that makes this integration easy because using Google Maps API is not possible via normal API requests.

You kind of need a map to work as a proxy between the software and Google Maps API.

We hate configuration(coming from Rails world) so also decided to use Create React App because setting up a React app, with all the toys, it's a hard job.

Thanks to all the people behind Create React App it's easier to start any React application.

We also chose a module called Reactstrap which is Bootstrap UI in React components.

An important thing in this side project(and in the bigger project plan) is to measure visitor through out the app. For that we researched and found that Keen was a good choice(very good free tier limits) and also it is very simple to setup and real simple to send data to

Slack and Trello are our defaults tools to comunicate ideas and discuss topics, so, no brainer using them as well for this project.

Looking for the best CRM choice for an early-stage tech company selling through product-led growth to medium and big companies. Don't know if Salesforce or HubSpot are too rigid for PGL and expensive. I also had an experience of companies outgrowing Pipedrive pretty fast

We use G Suite because it allows us to store all of our documents and emails all in one place, with setup and sync far easier than Zoho Suite. Not only does it make it easier for us to collaborate but it allows us to have a separate place for all of our business related projects.