The last two days I was experimenting with Highrisehq.com - an online contact management software. They really know how to sell a product (or at least get you to try). I wanted a means to manage the deal flow (deals or opportunities to do deals) and all the communication that goes along with it. The 'deal' feature of Highrise - is not exactly what deal makers use - but its very close. The three things that caught my attention
1. Ability to link all emails, notes and their respective deals together.
2. Ability to have follow - up reminders (today, tomorrow, next week later) and add extra notes
3. Ability to work from my email, by just forwarding (or bccing) stuff with a dropbox email id
As I still evaluate - I wonder whether paying $29 / month is worth it? Well, if you make let's say a good sum of money from all the deals through finder's fees - then what you pay is nothing. So money is not the concern... its convenience and integration.
But the more deeper problem was - I still had to 'forward' or 'bcc' emails each time I wrote back to someone. It wouldnt actually capture the email as I hit reply. This is a problem of being a third party app.
So I thought through this a bit.
Gmail is my email base. Gmail Labels probably handle the 'deals' or 'case' part of Highrise. I didnt want each and every deal label (btw my standard is D.DealName) appearing on the side bar - thanks to Gmail Labs - you can now hide those labels you dont want. I enabled the GoTo Label feature in GLabs for quicker shortcut access (Hit G+L and type the dealname). I then enabled Tasks - which actually allows you to set tasks + deadlines! You can also link tasks to emails as well. And further combining GCal with Tasks and Gmail - I got a very close package to Highrise. (The only thing missing was adding notes to an email) So will I continue with Highrise... well, I'll ride out my trial period and see - but I'm getting more convinced with my Gmail Hack Solution.
Hope you find this useful! (Oh btw, if you're focused on doing business in the MENA region, contact me. If you're looking for funding in India - shoot me an email as well)
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