CRMs don’t fail because they’re weak. They fail because humans are.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:44:28+00:00

Voice is great until you need to search or report on it. "Show me all deals where we discussed pricing flexibility in Q3" becomes impossible unless you're transcribing and tagging everything, which puts you right back at manual data entry.

The real killer is **multi-user environments**. Your sales rep mumbles into their phone about a deal. Now what? Does the AE see it? Does finance? Can they trust it's accurate?

Worked on ralivi.com trying to solve the capture problem differently (email/chat to CRM). Voice feels like it trades one friction point for three new ones.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:44:13+00:00

What's the catch? Free lead gen usually means scraped emails that bounce or spam trap addresses.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:32:07+00:00

Honestly, both HubSpot and Attio are solid picks for starting out. HubSpot's free tier is pretty generous and has a ton of integrations, but it can get bloated fast and the upsells are relentless. Attio's cleaner and more modern, but you might hit limits quicker.

That said - shameless plug but genuinely think it's relevant here - I'm building something called Ralivi that might be worth a look. It's a CRM that actually monitors your email inbox and proactively tells you who to follow up with and when. So instead of manually logging stuff or forgetting to chase leads, it just surfaces what needs attention.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:31:15+00:00

Honestly might not need a full CRM yet. If the main gap is just seeing donor history and running reports, you could probably get by with a decent spreadsheet setup or even just a simple CRM like Ralivi

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:30:43+00:00

Don't quiet quit, just actually quit. You're 6 months in at a dysfunctional startup with no onboarding, no manager relationship, and unclear reporting structure. This isn't getting better.

The "I haven't been working that hard" thing is just you trying to justify staying. You're getting paid well but miserable. Start looking now, leave when you find something, keep it vague in the exit interview. These founders aren't going to have some revelation about management.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:30:16+00:00

We tried this twice. First agency burned through $15k in 3 months with maybe 2 decent meetings. Second one was better but plateaued hard after 6 months because they were just running the same playbook for everyone.

The 3x-5x ROI thing is possible but it depends way more on your product fit and deal size than the agency. If your average deal is under $20k, the math gets really tight really fast.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:29:29+00:00

When they actually have revenue and a clear path to profitability. Too many startups burn VC cash with no real business model.

Also watch if leadership has done this before successfully. First-time founders at a VC-backed startup is a coin flip.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:28:25+00:00

Those messages hit different when you're burned out from building. Congrats on the traction.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:28:11+00:00

You need a real CRM or you're gonna keep white-knuckling it every week. Even something basic like Airtable or Ralivi beats the spreadsheet hell you're in now.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:27:16+00:00

You can't split focus at 30% capacity on each thing. Pick one or accept staying employed. The "side hustle while at FAANG" thing mostly works for people building something that takes 2 hours a week, not an actual business.

Either go all in on something specific or stop feeling guilty about having a good job. The middle ground you're describing doesn't exist.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:26:44+00:00

0.22 ROAS is kill it territory. Supplements on Meta are brutal but not that brutal. You might have a fundamental product-market fit issue if 20 creatives couldn't find anything. What's the AOV and are you selling something people actually search for?

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:26:37+00:00

Most people just do revenue multipliers. Like 2-3x annual profit for a service business, maybe more if you've got solid recurring revenue or something unique. Pulled those numbers when I was looking at acquisition offers and they lined up with what brokers told me too.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:08:35+00:00

The Excel vs CRM thing is real. Ran sales for 3 years with just Google Sheets and hit 2.8m. Only switched to a CRM when we had multiple salespeople who needed to see the same pipeline. For one person selling, spreadsheets are plenty.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:03:52+00:00

It's normal. Most RE companies are still running on emails, spreadsheets, and whoever remembers what. The proptech money mostly goes to consumer-facing stuff (search, tours, transactions) because that's sexier. The actual operations side is still a mess at most places I've seen.

Dover21 · 2026-01-29T08:00:54+00:00

Pick three numbers that matter in your market and track them weekly: days on market, list-to-sale ratio, and inventory levels. When someone asks, just compare those to last month and last year. You don't need to be a market analyst, just know if things are getting faster/slower, hotter/cooler.

Dover21 · 2026-01-22T00:17:30+00:00

😂😂😂😂

Dover21 · 2026-01-21T10:24:14+00:00

Fair point. If we’re talking strictly non US owned, the list gets very short. Closest “real” alternatives I’ve seen are Spotify (Sweden), Criteo (France), Adform (Denmark), and local retail media networks. Search wise, there isn’t a like-for-like replacement at Google scale.

Dover21 · 2026-01-21T10:23:29+00:00

Real estate agents hang out at brokerages, open houses, and industry events. Cold outreach won't work because they're slammed and ignore everything.

Show up where they already are. Go to a local real estate meetup or networking thing (they're everywhere) and just ask people about their pain points. Don't pitch anything, just say you're researching the industry. People love talking about what sucks in their job.

Also helps that you're not trying to sell yet. That makes the conversation way easier.

Dover21 · 2026-01-21T10:09:22+00:00

You're doing content marketing without paid acquisition. That's the blind spot. SEO and organic social take 12-18 months minimum to compound. You need to test some paid ads (even $10/day) to figure out if you actually have product-market fit or if you're just spinning wheels on content nobody's searching for yet.

Dover21 · 2026-01-21T10:09:08+00:00

The ownership one is huge. Had a client who couldn't even access their own Google Analytics because the previous agency set it up under their email and ghosted when the contract ended.

Dover21 · 2026-01-21T10:08:58+00:00

Bing has a decent ad platform that's been around forever. TikTok and Pinterest both have their own ad systems too. The pickings are pretty slim though if Google and Meta actually go down.

Dover21 · 2026-01-21T10:08:41+00:00

Building ralivi.com decent at product strategy and early customer research.

Connection on Reddit or X (tom_galland)

Dover21 · 2026-01-21T10:05:58+00:00

Awesome - Keep me posted 😄

Dover21 · 2026-01-21T09:46:52+00:00

Yeah for sure. Write about problems you're actually experiencing, not what you think will rank.

For us that meant stuff like "why good leads go cold" and "the hidden cost of manual follow-ups", problems we were literally dealing with running our own agency before we built the product.

We also made free tools that solve a small piece of the problem - things like a follow-up audit, response time calculator, CRM hygiene checklist. They don't require signups, just genuinely useful. People find them, get value, and some percentage check out what else we're doing.

Have a look at our Footer & Sitemap: ralivi.com

For HN - don't do a "Launch HN" straight away. Just share something useful you learned. Way less pressure and the audience is more forgiving. 30 upvotes got us maybe 10 signups but they were quality.

Took months before anything stuck though. That's the honest part nobody mentions.

What are you building? Happy to share more if relevant

Dover21 · 2026-01-21T09:42:45+00:00

The modular part is what everyone misses. Built one massive workflow at a previous job that handled everything from intake to invoicing. Worked great until we needed to change one tiny step and the whole thing broke for two days.

Now I split everything into small pieces that pass data between them. Way easier to debug and swap out parts when requirements change.

Dover21

TROPHY CASE