
Elastic  (YC W11) launches Close.io, sales software designed by salespeople - anemitz
http://pandodaily.com/2013/01/29/elastic-launches-close-io-sales-software-designed-by-salespeople/
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rmanisha
Close.io is awesome! How it stacks up to other CRMs I have used:

Streak: Great way to store Data in spreadsheet form but very difficult to
analyze. It's often sluggish and unreliable. Search is no where near
effective. It's more of a Data storage app versus an actual CRM. On days it
crashes or does not load, my sales came to a halt!

Highrise: This is one big headache. The search feature is seriously lacking
and it's difficult to add data, or even analyze it later. I like to see my
pipeline at a glance. Highrise provides more individual leads at a glance.

Close.io is the perfect combination of a powerful search, intuitive UX and
analytical feedback. At a glance, I know exactly what I have to accomplish in
a given day or week, and the top leads to pursue. Prioritizing and tasking is
dead simple, and the UX extremely responsive. Best feature of all: make calls
through the App. I personally am terrible at taking notes after a meeting,
especially when I'm swamped, so getting the opportunity to go back and listen
to my calls is super helpful! Especially when I'm trying to pinpoint areas
that need improvement in my pitch.

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sradu
I played with close.io a little bit when I was helping Elastic late last year.
It was so easy to use, and pretty. Oh so pretty.

Afterwards I had to go back to using Salesforce for some other project. Like
using a walkman after owning an iPod.

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andyakb
Cant really comment much on the product itself, but can see the value it
provides and have already suggested it to a few friends to look into more.

Wanted to just give a couple suggestions for changes you could test. First, I
think it would be helpful to emphasize both the 14-day free trial and also the
1 free month with annual billing. The trial is barely mentioned and I think it
is a huge selling point, especially when everybody who has used the product
seems to immediately fall in love with it, so it is important to get as many
people to try it [risk free] as you can.

Second, as was already shown in the comments, you may want to consider re-
recording the video using a windows computer and display that for those who
show up with windows. It may seem obvious to you that SaaS will run on any
major OS, but it may not be so clear to customers. Further, even if a customer
recognizes that they can use it on windows, it still helps to limit any
potential "dividing" factors.

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rdl
Wow, this looks great. I looked at using Salesforce, and it was so painful
(I've used it before) that we ended up just using RT (which is great for
support issues, but sucks for sales).

Going to try this out for sales.

Also, yay for using Plivo and good call quality instead of Twilio. This should
presumably support native SIP endpoints (and G.722), so I'm a lot more likely
to use it.

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anemitz
Awesome, hope you like it:)

And you're right, we use native SIP -- that's the main reason we have native
applications. Behind the scenes we use the PJSIP library.

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rdl
I'd prefer to be able to route calls to my SIP endpoint (polycom) vs. the
client or a phone number, when I'm at the office. When not, I'd prefer
cellphone (SIP client) or desktop (SIP client, or your app).

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kposehn
So, my initial impressions are:

\- The concept as a whole is rock solid. \- The ability to send/receive email
_and_ phone calls is killer \- The way the software is designed fits perfectly
with my bizdev flow \- They cleverly handle account support via the app itself
as a customer lead that is already in place. Our rep has been very responsive
and helpful.

Some features are still lacking, but none are deal-breakers at this time.
Overall, I expect we'll be using it for the whole organization in short order.

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philfreo
It's been a lot of fun working on <http://close.io> both technically
(Backbone.js, Flask, Mongo) and by working on a product that genuinely makes
people happier in their jobs.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

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pbreit
On one hand I admire them for pricing it high but on the other I think it's
going to make it much more difficult to acquire customers. Salesforce is
better than its detractors claim but that doesn't matter as much as the fact
that sales people now just expect to use it...it's the easy choice. And it's
immensely customizable.

I think like the recent Amazon post noted, Salesforce.com's competition is
going to come from someone who undercuts them. There's no reason for SaaS
software to be priced at $100/head/month (other than the need to fund a sales
force).

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philfreo
Great point. The idea here is that (at least for now) we want to make sure
we're adding _a lot_ of value to the sales process, rather than just being
another CRM that's a little nicer to use than Salesforce. There are plenty of
decent CRMs (Pipedrive, Capsule, Highrise, etc.) that are already cheaper than
Salesforce.

The difference with us is we're not trying to be another CRM but rather
focusing on sales _communication_ that's automatically logged. We care more
about the salesperson workflow than just being a database for deals.

Also the $99/month plan includes a phone number with unlimited minutes, which
has a real cost associated with it. If you don't need built in calling, we've
got a less expensive plan.

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djt
Do the VOIP calls work overseas?

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anemitz
Absolutely. We can also setup your account with an international number (most
countries available) so that you can sell in the region best suited for your
business.

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asdf333
Looking forward to trying it out! Having seen Salesforce struggle at getting a
streamlined CRM product out, I think its a space ripe for some competition.

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alexsb92
Not bad at all! I like having all the contact options in one application, and
I find it quite useful since I don't have to deal with multiple apps/devices
to accomplish a big task.

Since I haven't played with it yet, what number does it call people with?
Would each user would get a new one, or would it be per plan?

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philfreo
We automatically provision a phone number from each user (and you can choose a
different area code or country code) or we can port in an existing number.

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sachingulaya
I would love to have my sales guys using it but they don't have Macs =/. Going
with ringdna+salesforce for now

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anemitz
Both Mac and Windows are supported natively. Once you signup, we'll detect the
right OS and start the Windows or Mac download accordingly.

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sachingulaya
Well then! Please put this information on your site. Your site _only_ shows a
mac app. I am going to signup today.

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jgalt212
A few brief comments: 1\. $99/month with only email support. That's tough for
me, and I'm sure others who sign the checks, to stomach. 2\. We pay $15/month
for Salesforce. Even if it's not that great, is Close.io really 6X better?

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philfreo
@jgalt212 - All of our plans come with a "chat with engineers live" link, but
I'm happy to offer you some unofficial phone support if you're serious about
considering Close.io. [phil@our domain]

As for being 6x more expensive than Salesforce? We've seen massive
productivity gains over other CRMs and you need to ask yourself: how many more
deals/month would a sales person need to close to make $100/mo? Probably not
very many :)

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patio11
Please take note, engineers: this is how a smart sales guy answers a pricing
objection.

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philfreo
I'd like to point out I'm an engineer :)

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pclark
I wish this would exist all my existing IMAP emails. Then I'd use this.

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anemitz
We can do a historical import. Shoot us an email at support@close.io and let
us know from what date you'd like us to start importing from.

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businessleads
Is your team made up exclusively of superheroes?

~~~
anemitz
There may or may not be several people wearing capes at our office on any
given day:)

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jordo37
Congrats guys! Can't wait to get some facetime with the app soon.

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ntharani
Awesome work chaps. I've used it and I love the built in voip

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pbreit
Will be interesting to see how this flies as an app rather than a web site.
I'm inclined to think web would be a better call for this. But we shall see.

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nzealand
There is a web app, just like the regular app.

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ckluis
How do you handle web leads? Is there some form of form creation tool for
generating that info?

How do the leads get in the system to start?

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philfreo
We've got an API you can hook up to your web form -
<http://developer.close.io/> (email me if you have any issues)

And a bulk CSV import tool (from the dropdown in the app)
[http://help.close.io/customer/portal/articles/965955-bulk-
im...](http://help.close.io/customer/portal/articles/965955-bulk-import)

~~~
ckluis
Wordpress being epic and the most used CMS and gravity forms being the most
used form plugin...

You might want to consider releasing a plugin to feed leads from gravity forms
into your solution. My $.02.

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espeed
What are the differences between the Web app and the native apps (I'm on
Linux)?

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nickpersico
The only major difference between the Web app and the native app is built-in
calling. There's currently no calling in the Web version.

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espeed
Hi Nick. What about it being a Web app prevents it from being able to provide
built-in calling?

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anemitz
We aren't happy with the available web calling options, yet. The more
traditional route, Flash, has obvious disadvantages. More recently, WebRTC has
been used for calling, but it's still too immature for serious applications.
Long term WebRTC is the technology we'll choose for web-enabled calling, but
it needs wider adoption among browsers and proven rock-solid reliability and
quality for us to trust our sales team (and yours) with it.

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cdjalali
Looks clean, like that calling is in it, how do I get my cell line in it?

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philfreo
We can port your number in if you want (just email us). Or you could setup an
existing number to forward to Close.io

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cobrabyte
The product looks great but the logo left me thinking, 'they ripped-off the
Simple logo.' I guess it's just a series of rings in both cases but that's the
impression I got, right off the bat.

Congrats on the launch though!

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anemitz
Good eye. We also realized this at one point. The Elastic logo in its current
form was done Jan. 25 2012.

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rdl
The Mac download would ideally be a dmg and not a .zip.

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jaredstenquist
or a .zip containing a .dmg, which is often the case.

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Moe510
Interesting! Is there a mobile app?

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SteliE
Hey! We believe in native apps so will launch mobile/tablet versions of
close.io soon. Which platform would you want to use - iphone/android?

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RaSoJo
Android here!!! :)

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grep
Are you using Twilio?

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anemitz
We evaluated Twilio, but decided against it due to lower call quality. Their
gateways are virtualized in the cloud and this can lead to timing issues or
hollow/tinny sounding audio. Twilio also lacked their SIP endpoint (not sure
if this is still in beta) at the time we started building Close.io, which
would have allowed us to do native calling. We ended up working with Plivo
(another YC company) and have been happy with our choice.

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SatvikBeri
Congratulations!

