Light-bulb moment leads to app victory
Galway start-up firm OnePageCRM is working on gaining international recognition for an application which has been designed to help SMEs develop sales.
The sales management application, which now has over 3,000 users in Ireland, the UK, the US, and Australia, was developed when company founder and CEO Michael FitzGerald looked for an online tool that would help him grow sales but couldn’t find one that would do what he needed it to do.
His response was to create one, which sets out a list of day-to-day tasks and activities on one page which are designed to convert leads and opportunities into customers.
“My idea was to make it simple like a Twitter stream,” says Mr FitzGerald.
“Our approach has been different from other apps because we focus on the next action to move a sale forward. On the one-page app, the most urgent and pressing are always listed on the top. This means you never leave the ball drop on a sales prospect.”
At the time he drew an idea for this app on a tissue in 2010, Mr FitzGerald was running a website development firm while also working on developing an accounting package. Frustrated by design difficulties, he had a lightbulb moment when he went out for an ice cream.
“When I came back, I said we were going to build this new product by March 22 — in 14 weeks’ time,’’ he says.
The decision to do this so quickly was prompted by frustration with the difficulties of getting the accounting product market- ready and because he had been influenced by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman who said: “If you are not half-embarrassed by your product when it goes to market, then you have left it too late.”
The app was developed and released by the due date but remained as side project until 2011, when Mr FitzGerald decided that his company should quit providing ecommerce services and work full time on OnePageCRM.
“The app was out there, we had good feedback and people were paying for it, but it had just a fraction of the features it needed,” says Mr FitzGerald. “During this initial stage, we had won the Best New Web Application in the Irish Web Awards.”
In 2011, Mr FitzGerald enrolled in Enterprise Ireland’s Internet Growth Alliance Programme and the following year secured €50,000 in competitive start-up funding to add the features the app needed.
Last year, OnePageCRM took part in Enterprise Ireland’s high-potential start-up programme and raised €575,000 in funding from private investors and Enterprise Ireland.
“In October 2013, we were put on the map globally in terms of investment after receiving an integration fund from Silicon Valley based venture capital firm 500 Start-ups,” says Mr FitzGerald, adding that this let the firm continue with recruitment and research and development&.
“SMEs are our target market but we have also sold to some large companies and our customers include Cisco and Enterprise Ireland,” says Mr FitzGerald. “Mostly we sell to the service sector to consultants such as web designers and software developers as well as real estate agents and legal firms. Customers include a church in Finland which uses it to collect donations.”
The company uses social media, search engine optimisation, blogging, and growth hacking to drive traffic to its site where it offers customers a 30 day free trial. In recent weeks, OnePageCRM signed an agreement with web builder Wix which now offers its customers the option of signing up for OnePageCRM on its website.
Mr FitzGerald says sales have quadrupled in the last year and that the firm is on target to achieve revenues of €2m by the end of 2015.
Currently recruiting two more software developers, OnePageCRM now has a staff of 13 and plans to increase this to 18 by the end of next year.
Work is continuing on developing the OnePage app on an ongoing basis and the company has future plans to release a separate version for Enterprise customers.
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