CRM for startups to scale your business

You have gotten your business up and running. And now, you want to run faster — to scale bigger and reach the next level of growth. 

Transitioning from a stable foundation to rapid growth requires strategic planning, powerful tools, and excellent execution.

On this journey, a CRM is a must-have tool in your sales stack. A powerful CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system helps track, manage, and influence prospects and customers most efficiently.

In this blog post, we will give you an in-depth understanding of startup CRM, its key features and benefits, the best CRM for startups to consider, and how to choose the right one for your business. 

Let’s explore the basics.

What is a CRM for startups?

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management software) for startups is all-in-one software to centralize customer communication, create customer segments, streamline data, and automate business processes to grow at pace and scale.

Unlike established businesses, startups often struggle with unorganized or siloed customer data, constrained budgets, and limited resources. These challenges make it difficult to sustain rapid growth and establish efficient sales and operations management systems. Here's where a dedicated startup CRM comes into play.

A startup CRM is built to scale seamlessly as the business grows, accommodating increased data volume, expanding team sizes, and evolving customer needs. 

It can help them manage leads and contacts, streamline customer information, collaborate with teams, automate complex sales processes, and analyze customer interactions. 

Ultimately, it helps startups manage meaningful customer relationships, optimize sales efforts, and drive rapid, sustainable growth.

What are the benefits of CRM for startups?

Startups may rely on spreadsheets or use a basic lead-tracking tool to manage contacts. They may also juggle different tools for emails, phone calls, and analytics. 

With limited resources and audacious expectations for faster lead flow, startups cannot afford to slow down their sales operations. They must focus on easy-to-use, quick-to-deploy software solutions that fit their budget. 

What if there was a way to have affordable and advanced contact management, lead tracking, pipeline management, and personalized outreach to help you fast-track your business growth? 

Let’s see how as we review the benefits of using CRM software for your startup:

1. Identify high-quality leads

Startups cannot afford to spend time on low-quality leads that do not convert. A good CRM assists with better prospecting by allowing your team to profile the leads based on their conversation history, interest, and other demographic data. You can also capture lead information using web forms or live chat and save it to your CRM. Each lead can be assigned a score based on their engagement with your business, telling you how likely a lead is to convert. 

This information means your salespeople are only spending time on the leads that are a good fit for your product rather than clogging your pipeline with deals unlikely to close.

2. See all your deals at a glance

As a startup, you need complete, real-time visibility into your pipeline. An AI-powered CRM gives you a visual overview of all the deals in the pipeline, with tags such as “likely to close,” “at risk,” and “gone cold.” Having this visual picture allows you to do the following: 

• Track the progress on each deal throughout the sales pipeline

• Gain a quick understanding of the status of deals

• Focus on the deals that will bring you the most profit

• Identify and resolve bottlenecks in the pipeline

• Determine which deals are likely to close and where you need to dedicate more resources

This lets you keep your pipeline healthy and moving forward.

3. Quick, automated responses

About 82% of buyers expect an immediate response from businesses. 

Even more concerning, 62% of buyers define “immediate” as 10 minutes or less. So, no matter how small your sales team is, your response must be quick. 

One of the benefits of a CRM is that it can help you keep up with customer expectations, leveraging a chatbot for immediate responses and simple conversations. 

For queries that require human intervention, the chatbot can direct the query to a specified sales rep. A CRM with an auto-assign feature can help you organize your team by assigning certain leads to specific reps.

4. Improve conversion rates

As a startup, you constantly try to increase sales. A CRM can help you boost your conversion rate.

For example, by tracking your prospects’ behavior on your site, you can tell where they’re dropping off and where they are entering your sales funnel. You can use this data to minimize the drop-off points, improving your website experience for more conversions.

5. Break down silos

A good CRM provides a unified view of all customer activity and shows all data collected by a startup’s sales and marketing teams, including:

• Prospects’ behavior on your site and in apps

• Emails, call recordings, and chat conversations

• Marketing materials the customer downloaded and engaged with

• Each salesperson’s notes, upcoming appointments and meetings

• How likely they are to convert

• Suggestions for the next-best actions

This 360° view aligns sales, marketing, and support teams and allows everyone interacting with that customer to provide a consistent and personalized customer experience. 

6. Expand revenue by upselling and cross-selling 

It’s much harder to sell to a new customer than it is to sell to an existing customer; you’re 60-70% more likely to sell more to existing customers. They already know and trust your brand.

However, cross-selling and upselling only succeed when you target the right people. A CRM gives you visibility on your customer's level of engagement with your business, so you can see who might be interested in buying more from you. For example, if a customer subscribed to your standard plan visits your pricing page, you can tell that they are likely ready to upgrade to a higher plan.

7. Boost customer satisfaction

Customers expect a lot these days, especially if they are doing business with new startups without an established brand presence. They expect your team to know their business challenges and to personalize every interaction. A CRM can help your team do that by aligning all your teams, reducing response times, and helping your company speak with one voice.

8. Improve sales efficiency

Startups with small sales teams don’t have time to spare on redundant tasks. A CRM can streamline your sales process by allowing reps to do all their work inside the platform and automating redundant tasks.

9. Fast decision-making

The analytics a CRM provides give you insights into your customers’ behavior, your sales team’s performance, and your pipeline. All of that information means you can make faster, more informed decisions.

10. Increased security

A CRM is designed to be secure and is a safer place for customer information than a document can ever be. The security controls used by a CRM can help you protect your business from fraud and other security threats.

What are the essential features of CRM for startups?

When choosing a CRM for a startup, it is crucial to find a system that accommodates your current needs and scales with the business's growth. The ideal CRM should streamline operations and provide insights that drive strategic decisions.  

Key features include efficient lead management, comprehensive communication tools, detailed reporting and analytics, intuitive sales pipeline tracking, flexible integration, and customization options.

1. Lead management

Lead management helps startups capture, manage, and nurture leads until they become customers. CRM systems automate the lead generation process of identifying potential leads from various channels, organize them based on their stages in the sales funnel, and enable timely follow-ups. This feature is essential for efficiently maintaining an organized approach to scaling customer bases.

2. Communication tools

Effective communication tools within a CRM allow startups to engage and interact with customers and prospects seamlessly across multiple channels. Communication tools can include built-in phone, email outreach, live chat capabilities, and automated responses. Continuous engagement helps in improving conversion rates.

3. Reporting and analytics

Reporting and analytics offer insights needed to make informed decisions. A robust CRM offers customizable reports and dashboards that track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as sales trends, customer behavior, and campaign effectiveness. CRM analytics help startups better understand their market, optimize strategies, and forecast future sales.

4. Sales pipeline tracking

Sales pipeline tracking gives startups a visual overview of prospects' progress in the sales process. It allows teams to monitor deals in progress, identify bottlenecks, and prioritize efforts on the most promising opportunities. Effective sales pipeline management is crucial for forecasting sales and managing resources efficiently.

5. Workflow automation

Workflow automation in a CRM streamlines the entire sales process. It can automate repetitive tasks and provide predefined workflows that automate lead assignments, follow-up reminders, and task prioritization. For example, Freshsales provides pre-set templates for workflow automation. Sales agents can add preferred conditions to existing templates to quickly create a workflow. 

6. Mobile accessibility 

Mobile accessibility is a must for startups whose teams, such as sales, marketing, and customer service, are often on the move or working remotely. A CRM with robust mobile capabilities allows sales and customer service teams to access customer data, make phone calls, update records, and manage tasks from anywhere. It ensures that no information is lost while the sales teams are working on the go. 

7. Sales forecasting 

AI-powered sales forecasting capabilities help startups accurately forecast sales trends. In addition, it helps them make data-driven decisions, optimize resource allocation, and capitalize on every opportunity for rapid and sustainable growth. Using historical data and market trends, a startup can forecast seasonal demands and adjust its inventory and marketing strategies accordingly.

Why choose Freshsales to scale up your startup?

Freshsales is one of the best CRM for startups, as it strikes a great balance between capability, usability, and ownership costs. It’s an AI-powered CRM software designed for sales professionals to get a comprehensive 360-degree customer view across the entire journey. It empowers business teams to analyze the sales cycle with the power of AI. Further, it helps identify opportunities for improvement, optimize their strategies, and ultimately drive better sales outcomes. 

Freshsales has a highly functional, forever-free plan (containing core CRM features) and affordable paid plans, making it the perfect solution for startups and small businesses to get started and scale their CRM.

All-in-one CRM

Freshsales provides startups with a 360-degree customer view, sales automation, multiple sales pipelines, and reporting capabilities. It also features multi-channel engagement features with email, SMS, phone, and live chat capabilities. The CRM readily integrates with Freshmarketer for marketing automation and Freshdesk for customer support. This means startups get a comprehensive CRM platform that can scale with their business needs without having to switch between multiple tools.

AI-powered for greater sales efficiency

Freshsales AI features span across multiple CRM modules. Freddy AI-powered lead insights and lead scoring helps sales reps prioritize leads better. Deal insights can ensure sales teams don’t miss out on any opportunities and close deals faster. Generative AI help sellers write better emails and chatbots help respond to customer queries faster. These AI capabilities streamline sales tasks and improve sales process efficiency, a very important aspect for startups with limited resources. 

Comprehensive lead management

Freshsales is designed to maximize lead capture and conversion. Startups can capture visitors as leads through web forms and chat. AI-powered lead scoring helps qualify leads automatically. Workflow automation and the ability to auto-assign leads help automate sales tasks including lead nurture. 360-degree customer profiles and kanban view of leads give sellers complete context to personalize their outreach and effectively convert leads to customers.

User-friendly platform

Freshsales is known for its clean and intuitive design, making it easy for even non-technical users to navigate and adopt the platform quickly. With users finding the CRM easy to use, startups can adopt faster and make the most of the solution’s benefits without spending time and resources to train their sales team.

Faster implementation

For most startup CRM use cases, Freshsales can be implemented in a few hours. It’s ready to use out of the box, so you can avoid risks associated with CRM solutions that call for complex implementations, which lead to delays and escalating costs. CRM administration doesn’t require technical expertise. Freshsales also comes with hundreds of apps and native integrations on the Freshworks marketplace, making it easy for admins to build a solution that fits their needs without relying on third-party developers for implementation.

Robust sales automation

Freshsales makes it easy for sales teams to improve productivity through workflow automation. With readily available templates for most sales use cases and a workflow builder to customize workflows, sales managers and sales reps can automate their day-to-day tasks on the platform. This also helps startups streamline their sales processes and work more efficiently.

In-depth reporting

Freshsales offers in-depth reporting and insights on key sales KPIs with pre-configured reports and dashboards. Users can also customize reports and dashboards to track the metrics most important to them. Predictive analytics features such as sales forecasting and goal tracking help sales managers and startup leaders plan better and allocate resources efficiently.

Friendly support

Startups new to CRM may want to choose a vendor with a good track record of supporting their clients. Freshsales support is available 24x5 across multiple channels, such as chat, email, and phone, to help you with any queries or solve any issues that you may have with your CRM. 

Startup community

Leading startups across the world use Freshsales and other Freshworks products for the features and value they offer. Freshworks community allows you to make the most of the experience existing users of Freshsales have. Share knowledge and insights on how to make the best of the Freshworks platform to grow your business.

Irresistible value 

Freshsales is affordable, offering a Growth plan for $9/user/month. On the Growth plan, you get core CRM functionalities such as contact management, multichannel engagement, and automation. Startups can get started without a significant upfront investment. As your business grows, you can upgrade to plans that offer additional features and user capacity, ensuring your CRM solution scales along with your team.

Fintech startup Avanse Financials improves lead conversion and customer experience with Freshsales.

Freshsales has a track record of supporting startups across industries such as SaaS (Software as a service), BFSI including fintech, banking, insurance, real estate, travel and hospitality, and retail. See how this fintech business used Freshsales to grow their business:

Avanse is an education-focused new-age NBFC (Non-Banking Financial Company) specializing in providing hyper-personalized education loans to students. A technologically advanced NBFC, Avanse is on a mission to provide seamless and affordable education financing. It leverages an omnichannel presence across offline and online platforms, offering a simplified loan application journey. To offer quicker and more personalized services to prospective students, Avanse needed a sales and support system that could provide a unified view of prospects.

The team found that their existing sales and support platforms could not keep up with their needs as they required a scalable solution. They could not get complete visibility of their customers or support new features easily using these systems.

With Freshsales, the team now enjoys a 360-degree view of customers. They can automatically assign the right tasks to the right people in the right teams, cutting down on customer response times. The sales sequencing feature on Freshsales has helped Avanse sales team deliver personalized messaging to leads depending on the stage of their journey. For example, a student might sign up for a loan quote but not return to complete the following steps. An automated reminder will be sent to the student using sales sequencing to increase their chances of converting. These features have been critical in helping the team improve customer experience and deliver a targeted and effective lead conversion strategy. 

Freshsales for SaaS startups

• Identify your power users through lead scores in your CRM and go after the right prospects. Know how your prospects are engaging with your website and product, understand their likelihood to buy (PQLs) with AI insights and increase your conversion rates.

• A CRM that is purpose-built for the workforce of today with flexibility to perform tasks at scale and boost productivity. Automate workflows instantly with ready-to-use templates and save time.  AI copilot to reduce friction for sales, accelerate customer acquisition, activate new users, convert more free users to paid, and continuously nurture, engage and retain customers—all at low cost.

• Increase selling effectiveness with improved and modern contact management experience. Connect with your customer across phone, SMS, email or chat, social media. Get a 360-degree view of your customer across various touchpoints and have conversations that they truly value.

• Single, intuitive and modern UI improves adoption. Reduce IT time spent on implementation with clicks not code onboarding.

Freshsales for insurance, banking, brokerage and fintech startups

• Automate workflows instantly with ready-to-use templates and save time. Get deal insights and generate personalized emails with AI. Visualize your deals at every stage in the pipeline. Set a weighted pipeline that determines the deal success rate.

• Freshsales offer you a 360-degree view of your customer across various touch points, no matter where you connect with your customer, online or offline, phone, SMS, email or chat.

• Get lead insights and increase selling effectiveness with modern contact management experience that automates tasks at scale and boosts conversion rate.

• Surface the best leads with AI-powered contact scoring. Have contextual conversations with a 360-degree view of your customer. Receive suggestions on the next best action for deals and drive them to closure quickly.

• Generate new leads from the website, chat, phone, email, SMS.  Convert website visitors into leads with web forms. With a built-in chatbot, engage prospects on the website in real-time.

11 Best CRM software for startups in 2024

Startups face unique challenges when it comes to sales. They often operate with a small team, a small budget, and a passion for their product. 

With that sort of do-it-yourself attitude, it’s tempting for startups to use spreadsheets to manage sales, but that’s not a good idea. 

Startups need to generate revenue quickly to scale, and to do that, they should use a customer relationship management platform that can keep up with your company’s growth.

1. Freshsales CRM

Freshsales is AI-powered CRM software designed for sales professionals to get a comprehensive 360-degree customer view across the entire journey. It empowers business teams to analyze the sales cycle with the power of AI. Further, it helps identify opportunities for improvement, optimize their strategies, and ultimately drive better sales outcomes. 

Freshsales has a highly functional, forever-free plan (containing core CRM features) and affordable paid plans, making it the perfect solution for startups and small businesses to get started and scale their CRM.

Key features

• AI-powered advanced lead scoring to prioritize leads as per engagement levels 

• Sales automation to automate workflows, sales sequences, territory management, and other repetitive activities 

• Custom reports and dashboards as per the business and specific business needs

• Built-in phone feature with call logs, voice notes, and off-line mode data access

2. Bigin

Bigin, built by Zoho CRM, helps small businesses manage complex customer relationships. It is a simple, pipeline-centric, mobile-native, Apple-friendly CRM, making it a good choice for startups to easily manage their sales processes and improve customer interactions. It has a free tier plan for single users to get started. 

Key features

• Free invoicing to set up automated payment reminders and generate real-time reports 

• Workflow automation to track deal updates, set up email alerts, etc.

• Clear visualization of multi-dimensional pipelines 

• Advanced workflows based on triggers — date and time

3. Zendesk Sell

Zendesk Sell is a modern sales CRM built for SMBs. It is known for its three qualities — easy to use, quick to set up, and excellent visibility across all customer interactions.  Also good as a collaboration tool, it brings sales, marketing, and support teams on the same page so that they can track and manage all their leads and fulfill customer needs efficiently. 

Key features

• Help desk smart lists to get customized views of sell leads, contacts, and deal data

• Custom analytics dashboards with drag-and-drop features

• Email automation and tracking with personalized email options

• Built-in dialer to make calls and also record them

4. Pipedrive

As the name indicates, Pipedrive is focused on sales pipelines. It is a data-driven CRM known for its capability of providing a visualization of the entire sales pipeline and process. In addition, it also works as an account management tool that helps manage emails and calls efficiently. 

Key features

• Workflows to automate sales activities like sending personalized emails

• Sales assistant powered by machine learning to manage repetitive tasks

• Unlimited pipelines that are customizable 

• Drag and drop Kanban boards for sales cycles

5. Copper CRM

Copper CRM is best for businesses operating out of Google Workspace, including Gmail, Google Calendar, and other G Suite products. It is known for its lead management and sales force automation and is designed to integrate seamlessly with Google Workspace.

Key features

• Listing management to pull new leads from emails directly to the leads 

• Email templates to streamline communication

• Google Calendar integration to sync tasks and calendar events 

• Customization to create objects, fields, rules, calculations, and views

6. Monday CRM

Monday CRM is cloud-based software that started as a work collaboration tool. Now, as a CRM, it offers the best of both worlds—comprehensive tools, including project management, customer relationship management, marketing, and more. 

It also brings all the stakeholders to the same table, including sales professionals, finance, legal, account managers, etc. One drawback of this CRM is that there’s no forever-free plan for small-scale businesses and startups.

Key features

• Lead management to track leads, assign leads to sales reps, and monitor progress

• Content generation for emails and summaries for call transcripts and meeting notes

• Reporting and analytics to identify trends and opportunities 

• 200+ templates to create boards and automations

7. Hubspot

HubSpot is a comprehensive, efficient, and easy-to-use mainstream CRM. It is known for its completeness when it comes to managing sales. It helps companies of all sizes and industries track and nurture leads so that they can close deals faster and more efficiently. 

Its forever-free plan has all the core features an SMB can require to start managing its customers.

Key features

• Real-time notifications of lead behaviors

• Personalized emails for prospects and customers

• Clean and simple visual board to get a real-time view of the entire sales funnel

• 500+ business apps integrations like Outlook, Google Workspace, Zapier, etc. 

8. Insightly

Insightly is known and chosen for its pipeline management capabilities, which help businesses collaborate easily. Considering that startups are more likely to operate their businesses remotely, Insightly is a good option as it makes work from anywhere easily possible. 

Key features

• Pipeline funnel to track potential sales values

• Variety of pipelines with streamlined views — for sales, marketing, and project teams

• Charts and reports are visually appealing, making it quick and easy to understand

• Mass emailing for better reach to prospects 

9. Salesforce Essentials

Salesforce has built Salesforce Essentials for new businesses. It has all the fundamental tools for sales and customer service features they need in their initial growth stage. In addition, it is designed to put customer interaction at the core of growth so that SMBs can take a close-knot approach to customer service and achieve their goals.

Key features

• Multiple customer support channels on one platform for seamless management

• Basic reporting for day-to-day operations (Lacks insights compared to others)

• Email integration for seamless communication 

• Contact management via powerful capture of calendar and emails

10. Pipefy

Piepfy CRM is customizable software that focuses on pipelines. It helps businesses track, manage, and optimize them within minutes. The CRM is built to provide maximum control over processes, gain deeper process insights, and increase predictability so that businesses can accelerate sales and meet their business goals.

Key features

• Lead qualification template for a standardized process

• Performance metrics to track closed deals and lost opportunities

• Automated customer boarding for a seamless experience

• 360-degree management to keep track of customers and team members easily

11. Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is a CRM and collaboration software that offers the most comprehensive feature set. It has effective sales features and extensive project management tools, and hence, it is considered to be a good business management platform that helps businesses stay on top of their game on all fronts. 

Key features

• Lead generation for users to access web-based lead-capture forms

• Website builder with industry-specific templates and unlimited web pages

• Project management to track roadmaps for projects, team members, and the company 

• File management with easy-to-share and store functionalities

How to choose the best CRM for your startup

Selecting the right CRM is important for your startup’s efficiency and growth. Here are key factors to consider to ensure the CRM you choose aligns perfectly with your business needs:

Easy to use

A CRM system should be intuitive and user-friendly, especially for startups with limited resources. To ensure quick adoption by your team, consider platforms with simple interfaces, easy navigation, and robust onboarding support. For example, a CRM with a drag-and-drop interface can simplify complex processes, making it accessible to all team members regardless of their tech expertise.

Budget-friendly

Startups often have tight budgets, so selecting a CRM that offers good value for money is important. You can start with forever-free plans with all the core features like Freshsales’ free plan or start with tiered pricing plans that allow you to start small and scale as your business grows, ensuring you pay only for what you need. 

Seamless integration

The CRM should integrate smoothly with your existing tools and platforms, such as email marketing tools like MailChimp, social media, and project management tools like Freshworks and Trello. It must provide a cohesive workflow and prevents data silos so that you can easily manage all customer interactions from a single system.

Offering required features

Identify the core features your startup needs, such as contact management, lead tracking, account management, and collaboration tools. You can look at your immediate and long-term goals and areas where you find challenges. And then, you can ensure the CRM provides these essential functionalities without

unnecessary complexity. Customizable features and add-ons can also be beneficial as your business evolves.

Automation ability

Automation is key to improving efficiency and reducing manual tasks. You can consider CRMs that automate repetitive processes like email campaigns, follow-ups, and data entry. This will help your team focus on more strategic activities and drastically increase employee productivity. For example - it should help automate follow-up emails after a demo request or sales meeting to maintain engagement without manual effort.

Data security

When it comes to data, there can be no compromises and no room for errors. Hence, you must consider a CRM with robust security measures, including encryption, regular backups, and compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR. These will safeguard your business from data breaches and build customer trust. 

Reliable customer support

Good customer support is essential, especially for startups that may encounter technical challenges. Look for support offerings such as 24/7 availability, multiple contact channels (chat, email, phone), and comprehensive knowledge bases to resolve issues promptly.