Alternatives
Products that do what I got frustrated with CRMs, so I'm building my own for startups does
After trying a bunch of CRMs for my startup, I kept running into the same issues—overpriced plans that scale aggressively or bloated features that just slow me down. I wanted something simple, affordable, and actually built for startups, so I decided to build it myself: Leadchee.com. Fixed pricing, no nonsense. Curious—how do you all handle CRMs? Do you stick with the big players, go for niche tools, or build your own? Would love to hear your thoughts!
- 1AN
I've been building a CRM/accounting system for my personal small company. It's still in an early stage and is lacking a few features. But it is finally usable. https://asciinema.org/a/0g9f8c00mrkm018p10r8p8km3 Please share your thoughts
2017
- 2
- 3MC
Hello Community! My name is Charles-Eugene Loubao, I am a software developer who recently turned into an Indie Maker and I am sharing my new product with you today. Micro CRM is a Customer Relationship Managment web app built to be easy to use and intuitive. Most CRMs can be complicated to use and come with an expensive price tag. Micro CRM is built to fill that need for a much simpler and cheaper contact managment platform that offers compeling features without being overwhelming. What can I do with it ? - Keep all your contacts in one place - Timestamped notes can be used to keep track of…
2019
- 4IL
Hey HN. This is a weekend project of mine. It's an idea I had after seeing so many comments here about the lack of available .com names for startups. As PG once said: "Take a luxury and make it into a commodity"[1]. So, I decided I'd try turning name consulting from something only large corporations could afford to something anyone could. I hope you'll take me up on it :) If you'd like to see a few examples of my work, just check out the links in the footer. Thanks for your attention. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html
2011 · startupgods.com
- 5
- 6IB
2012 · crmfly.com
- 7IL
Hey Guys, We created Leadmachine after a HUGE pivot on ignite100(UK incubator). We could see the pain of all the other startups wasting money and buying poor leads while struggling to find those early customers. Wouldn't it be cool to have contact details for all websites using Olark or Google analytics while turning over £100,000 in the UK? We can do that with Leadmachine. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have or listen to feedback!
2012 · leadmachine.io
- 8SL
So a while ago I was thinking it would be neat to build a site that had the most absolute utility. The idea I came up with was a site to store those little protips that are super useful, if you know them ahead of time. I hired a guy to work on it with me, and ClueDB was born: http://cluedb.com/ Please give it a whirl (it uses Twitter auth as login but doesn't tweet anything) and tell me what you think! (Various trivia: My first try at a project coded by someone else and "product managed" by me. Runs on Flask + MongoDB. Also, this is totally unrelated to my startup.)
2011
- 9LS
We built this using investor tools. I really wanted to know which startups to work for. Are we on the right track? PS - there's a paywall but if you want to explore more, just DM me your email and I'll give you free access in our db!
2023 · usemassive.com
- 10
- 11IM
Inspired by a good friend who did Unstick.me, as well as the recent MVP for 1k project, I've decided to give consulting a shot by offering my services as a developer and product guy to non-technical folks and early-stage web startups who are looking to brainstorm on both the technology and product side, and possibly looking to have an MVP built based on their idea. I started accepting requests the other day solely with a Wufoo form, and just launched a proper one-page site here: http://youshouldworkwith.me/ Curious to hear feedback on the offer and idea in general. It's the first time I've…
2011
- 12IM
I'm documenting everything about my process. From learning to code, to building the app, and all the way to my outreach efforts. I'm learning as I go and sharing it with everyone who's not a programer, and is daunted to build a software on their own. Trust me. If I can do it, anyone can! You can find my updates on: https://Claritask.com ...as well as video updates on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdmqmifW4kIcPclXigay1dQ Would love to hear your feedback on my progress and if you have any suggestions on what I can do better. There's so many task managers out…
2017
- 13IM
Hello everyone. I'm a relatively new developer and I started my first project to go full production recently. It is a directory of payment processors and payment service providers. It's free to use and gives detailed info on their pricing, business model, supported business types, available countries, prohibited businesses and high risk business support. So far only 40 have been added with more to come. And I allow processors to contact me so that they're details can be added to the database. I'll eventually automate this and add verification the months to come. I hope you'll find it useful.…
2025 · sourcefees.com
- 14IB
Hey, just wanted to share with you guys and app that I built and deployed in a day with Lovable. So, as a founder I always wanted to have an advisor but my budget would always be less, then on the other hand hand I had Paul's essays on Startup Advice, which I never read because I was busy building stuff. Hence, I built this product which comes into a sweet spot of both at the same time being more reasonable and capable than the alternative. ps: it's running on a reasoning model and tbh I've been able to gather pretty good insights from it. Note to PG: If you're seeing this. I'm your big fan.…
2025 · paulgraham.resurrect.space
- 15IB
Hey HN, I kept seeing the same question asked over and over in startup communities: "What tech stack should I use for my SaaS?" The answers were always scattered, opinionated, and never accounted for budget or team size. So I built appstackbuilder.com — you tell it your monthly budget, app type, team size, and skill level, and it recommends a full stack (auth, database, hosting, payments, analytics, etc.) with actual pricing for each tool. A few things that make it different from generic advice: - It accounts for team size when calculating costs (e.g. Clerk charges per user, Linear charges…
Feb 2026 · appstackbuilder.com
- 16AF
As a product manager I've used different feedback tools and almost never liked the design and experience of the widget. And pricing of some existing tools is just way too high, at least for indie makers or small businesses ($35 for 100 responses...). That's why I've launched Freddy Feedback (today!). You can find it on www.freddyfeedback.com. Curious to hear your feedback (very meta ;-)).
2020
- 17IM
orignally shared this on startup school... i thought id' share it here. i'm using a `nocode communication tool` (a web-based interface... a single browser tab!) for all of these things: 1. landing page — the landing page is the product and i wanted for folks to feel "transported" right into the app without having to walk through a shitty b2b marketing-style content. this is akin to my experience back in the `BBS` days of the mid-90's where you were immediately into the app, community, and tool. no terms of service, no privacy policy. just pure, immediate value. 2. building community — we…
2021
- 18ML
I made a post a few days ago asking if any software companies/start ups needed technical video tutorial writers and I had a few very interested and serious respondents email me. I've been looking for something to do with this domain hence I give myself a Christmas present.
2013 · helpknow.com
- 19
I built a tool (https://1mil.app/hn) to help me test my intuition about various weird business ideas that were on my mind. Initially, I wanted to create a database with 1 million business ideas (hence the name - "1 million opportunities"). But turned out to be a dumb idea already. So instead I built this tool that returns only 10 ideas. It's all based on your input, market + your background. The first release scored on demand only and it gave false confidence. So I rebuilt the the scoring around "winnability": can a solo founder with a specific background "win" against what…
8d ago · 1mil.app
- 20MS
For years, I have struggled to understand my cash flow and save for the future. In addition to that, my wife has many credit cards and accounts that complicate matters. I am building a tool that connects all our accounts, helps us create a budget, and tracks and adjusts expenses on the fly. I am also sprinkling some AI magic on it for financial suggestions. I am looking for feedback on the implementation. More importantly, I am looking for more beta testers to improve the product.
2023 · financemadelovely.com
- 211R
I wanted to find a product idea to build. "Build things people want," right? So I thought, why not literally find people saying what they want? I wrote a script to collect thousands of Reddit posts where people are looking for a solution or complaining about a problem. Then I used GPT to filter out the noise and score each one based on how viable the idea seemed. Threw together a simple search interface so anyone can explore them. I was planning to build a more advanced paid version of this, but figured I'd share the raw version first to see if it's actually useful to anyone.
Nov 2025 · search.reddit-business-ideas.workers.dev
- 22UI
We built this database using the same software investors use to discover startups. My friends and I really wanted to know which startups to work for. Are we on the right track? PS - there's a paywall but if you want to explore more, just DM me your email and I'll send you a free access code! Thank you so much.
2023 · usemassive.com
- 23DF
Hey guys, I put together a site that has services and products that would be useful for startups and small businesses at http://www.startupoffers.net/ Right now there is very little content (deals/offers) but I am trying to validate the idea before I spend the next few days entering data. Let me know what you think about: - the concept itself - the site look/feel PS: monetization strategy is through affiliate links and if I get enough email signups I can potentially sell newsletter ads. PPS: There is a chicken/egg problem here, if I get enough subscribers, I can…
2014
- 24IM
I build a lot of small products myself and I realized how many indie founders want an exit that doesn’t involve platforms charging large commissions or requiring big revenue numbers. Sometimes a project makes $50/month, sometimes $500, sometimes $0 but has a great codebase, and that’s enough value for someone else. So I built buy-startups.com, a very simple, privacy-friendly marketplace for buying and selling small online startups. It’s not fancy. There’s no commission, no listing fee, no hidden funnel. Just a straightforward way for indie devs and bootstrappers to list a project and…
Dec 2025 · buy-startups.com
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