Poll: What CRM do you use at your startup?

Google Contacts is not considered a CRM tool so it may not fit what you need. Good luck, let us know which one you choose to go with.

Sales Force is great when you are small - I went from Start Up to 20 Sales Reps and 5 back office with 42 total people in last few years. Here is the breakdown of what works when and why.

http://www.robinsunleashed.com/?p=106

Great info already with the voting... here is the "WHY"

I totally agree with you here. If you are planning on scaling up you team Salesforce works well, especially for managing big teams or even a number of teams.

However if you are small company say under 10 people, salesforce can be cumbersome.

So really it depends on what your company does and what you need to capture.

Agreed. Google contacts is not a CRM but could be so much more. It could be an amazing CRM if they implemented my wishlist: http://www.sennza.com.au/google-me/

Not likely though....

My best answer is "why do you want a CRM?". If it is to manage sales people now or in the near future then Salesforce is good if you can afford it, it is also good to grow into if you plan to have customer service people. Plus I hear they have a free version for small companies - not sure. If it is just for yourself, then the question is how many prospects are you managing. If it is a lot (over 200) then SugarCRM or Highrise is best suited. If less than 200, Google docs spread sheet is good to start with unless you need to track a lot of data/ prospect interactions, then use one of the former. If you have never done this before I suggest starting out with a spread sheet and keeping it simple since you will inevitably be making changes to it regarding what you will track and how you will use it to make more sales. This approach will help you refine your immediate and possibly long term needs, and what product is best suited for you. I personally always start with a spread sheet before making a commitment to any system until I know what I/we need. Zoho is a good happy medium between these two choices.