PagoCRM is for getting paid, not managing pipelines

Almost every CRM starts with a contact.

Where they came from. Which stage they're at. How likely they are to close. Coloured pipelines, arrows, forecasts.

PagoCRM starts at the other end. With a fee nobody has collected.

What actually keeps people up at night

I've worked with sports clubs for years. And I've never met a club treasurer worried about their sales pipeline.

What worries them is something else. The payment that bounced. The family that pays late every month. The spreadsheet only they understand and that, if they get ill, nobody else knows how to open.

It's money that has already been earned and hasn't arrived. That's the part of a small organisation that keeps people awake.

It started as a form

PagoCRM didn't come from a whiteboard. It came from a form for football parents we built for a client, which, almost without us noticing, started creating the fees on its own.

Then came the uncomfortable part. To get the first real customer, I offered to pay myself. Months later it went live at an athletics club. And with the second club we understood it was no longer a project. It was a product.

None of it was fast. All of it was real.

The question we ask every time

Revolving around getting paid means saying no to a lot of things that look great in a demo.

Once, a sports foundation asked me for seven features and I said no to one. They were all reasonable. Six fitted. One didn't.

And every time a feature tempts us, the question is the same:

Does this help someone get paid?

If the answer is yes, we think about it. If it's no, it goes on a list I read with great affection and no hurry.

It's not that the rest doesn't matter. It's that there are a hundred tools that do the rest. And hardly any that obsess over the money arriving on the day it should.

Why not a "real" CRM

People have asked me. "If you already have the contacts, why not build a full CRM?"

Because a full CRM competes with giants that have more money, more people and more patience than we do. A product that only wants you to get paid competes with a spreadsheet and a tired treasurer.

That second fight we can win.

And we chose it ourselves. No investors asking us for a bigger market. Just customers paying us every month for something very specific.

Other CRMs help you sell more.

PagoCRM helps you collect what you already sold. Which, if you think about it, should come first.