The Less Annoying Blog

Less Annoying CRM version 3.5 is here!

Posted by Tyler King on December 6th, 2012

I'm excited to announce that we just launched the next major version of Less Annoying CRM! There are a ton of great improvements which we summarize in this video: If you don't like videos, here's a brief overview of some of the changes: The navigat... Read more >

User Retention: Reframing Expectations

Posted by Michael Wuellner on July 25th, 2012

A few months ago we set a goal of getting as many trial users as possible on the phone. It became clear to us that our customization options were pretty massively underutilized—they're designed to be easy to tweak to any business' needs, and a ... Read more >

Sending verified emails through Amazon Simple Email Service with DKIM and PHPMailer

Posted by Bracken King on May 22nd, 2012

One of the most frustrating aspects of running Less Annoying CRM (and, I'd imagine, just about any website) is outgoing email. We try to be conservative about email and only send those that are essential (login info, etc) or requested (specific featu... Read more >

Introducing Less Annoying CRM integration with email marketing tool MailChimp

Posted by Michael Wuellner on May 8th, 2012

For a long time, our users (and prospective users) have been asking us about what kind of support we offer for email marketing or mail campaigns. Finally, we have an answer: MailChimp! MailChimp is an industry leader in sending bulk email. Whether it... Read more >

What we did when a patent troll asked for our help

Posted by Michael Wuellner on May 8th, 2012

If Less Annoying CRM were a brick-and-mortar, we’d have that clichéd sign on the wall: We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. One of the perks of being a small bootstrapped start-up is that we don’t have to please anyone... Read more >

FIPer: A modified FIP with even less dependence on defense and luck

Posted by Bracken King on May 4th, 2012

If you follow baseball at all, you are probably familiar with the concept of ERA as a summary statistic of a pitcher’s performance. You may also be familiar with work over the last couple of decades developing the concept of Defense Indepe... Read more >

How to set up a CRM for a web design contractor or a small firm

Posted by Michael Wuellner on May 2nd, 2012

Without designers, the whole internet would still look like Geocities from the mid-90s. Thankfully, there are more talented web designers around than ever before -- solo operators and small firms alike. If you're a talented web artist who needs help ... Read more >

How to set up the perfect in-home computer repair CRM

Posted by Michael Wuellner on May 2nd, 2012

A potential customer recently came to us with questions about how to set up his CRM. He runs an in-home computer repair service across the pond in Europe, and needed to know how our system could be molded to fit his business' workflow. In w... Read more >

How I monetized a blog in 30 days: what worked, and what didn't

Posted by Tyler King on April 24th, 2012

I help my mom run a cooking blog called The Yummy Life. She writes all the content, and I make sure the site actually works. We've been at it for almost two years, and until recently there wasn't much reason to worry about monetizing it because... Read more >

The Ten Commandments of Small Business Customer Service, Part 2

Posted by Michael Wuellner on April 20th, 2012

If you read Part 1, you know what this is all about. If not, go read it! Let’s jump right in and check out the second tablet before Moses’ arms get any more tired. VI. Thou shalt always offer a solution, workaround, or timetable for resol... Read more >

The Ten Commandments of Small Business Customer Service, Part 1

Posted by Michael Wuellner on April 10th, 2012

I've been doing customer service for my entire professional life, and luckily, I’ve had the pleasure of working at two small companies that are dedicated to providing quality, personal customer service. Over that time, I’ve gotten a ... Read more >

You'll be done reading this post in 3 minutes or less!

Posted by Michael Wuellner on March 28th, 2012

Listen, I know you’re in a hurry. This won’t take but a second. You’ll be out of here in a few minutes, tops. Let's talk about an interesting phenomenon in SaaS companies’ web design. Ever noticed that everybody wants to tell ... Read more >

5 Tips for Transitioning From Office Life to Working from Home

Posted by Michael Wuellner on March 13th, 2012

About a half year ago, I switched from the nine-to-five office lifestyle to the ultimate start-up lifestyle: working from home. My pleasant fifteen minute commute is now closer to two seconds.I was pretty excited about the move, but I quickly came to... Read more >

Chrome Extension: Collapsible comment threads on SB Nation blogs

Posted by Tyler King on March 8th, 2012

The Less Annoying SB Nation chrome extension makes it so that you can collapse and expand comment threads on any SB Nation blog. This makes it much easier to follow long conversations and filter out threads that don't interest you. To use the ex... Read more >

Why we're taking an un-lean approach with our next project

Posted by Tyler King on March 5th, 2012

At Less Annoying CRM, we've always been big believers in the lean startup approach. Since day one we've worked hard to launch as quickly as possible, validate (or invalidate) our ideas based on customer feedback, and iterate aggressively. So far... Read more >

Why you should write more reviews/testimonials for fledgling businesses

Posted by Michael Wuellner on February 28th, 2012

About two years ago, a Vietnamese sandwich (banh mi) shop opened up near my apartment in San Francisco. In Vietnam, banh mi is street food that you buy from a cart—in San Francisco, it’s just about the only affordable sandwich in town, us... Read more >

Blogging 2.0 - Lessons learned from our first blog

Posted by Tyler King on February 23rd, 2012

If you've been following Less Annoying CRM for a while, you might know that we spent our first 18 months writing regular blog posts about tech tips for small businesses. You also might know that we abruptly stopped blogging about a year ago. Well, no... Read more >

Updates to Mac Chrome application shortcuts and the iOS fullscreen webapp generator

Posted by Bracken King on January 18th, 2011

Today I just wanted to mention updates to two utilities we've posted previously. The first comes courtesy of Mait Vilbiks who has generated an easier to use version of our Mac Chrome application shortcut generator (download the updat... Read more >

Visualize your Google Analytics data in Google Docs with a motion chart

Posted by Bracken King on January 11th, 2011

A while back I posted about how to automatically import Google Analytics data into Google Docs using a third party script. One of the coolest features of Google Spreadsheets is the motion chart which helps visualization of multi-dimensional d... Read more >

It's ok to adjust your expectations

Posted by Tyler King on January 6th, 2011

Today's post might seem off-topic, but it does relate to technology in the end. Bracken and I are fans of the St. Louis Rams. In case you don't follow football, they were expected to be horrible this year but then they ended up being o... Read more >