Delhi has stereotypically been the startup city of deals and hustlers. Infamous for people who tend to prize their ‘contacts’ and somehow this fits right into the grand scheme of things that the online sales CRM ClinchPad is based in the capital city.
About
Started by Cheenu Madan, ClinchPad is a SaaS based product aimed at small teams and organizations to help effectively channel and manage their sales lead. Part of the GSF Accelerator ‘13, the name ClinchPad ( Clinch + LaunchPad ) simply stands for ‘grabbing a deal’
Product
On using the product, the landing screen greets one with a card like interface stacked one below the other. For the keen eyed observer it is definitely reminiscent of Trello ( the organizational tool ), but that is not a bad thing. The interface does aid usability especially for a desktop environment. With a pipeline layout which lays emphasis on leads. The user begins by moving their contacts between the various stages of the sales ( beginning from a prospect going all the way to negotiation & closing ). The sales incharge can add meta data to the lead in the form of to-do, collaborators, value of the sale and in the end mark it as won/lost. Enough points for future benefits of individuals and their teams.
ClinchPad integrates with Google and in an attempt to get rid of the cumbersome methods currently used, one can upload their csv/excel sheets with the product. According to the team the ‘reports’ and the ‘summary emails’ are one of the most popular sections which help the managers to scan through their team’s effort faster.
The product is simple to use with a basic learning curve. Certain sections like the integration with Google need more visibility and we personally discovered it only during the walkthrough with the team. In a mobile-first world, the offering on that front also seem a little weak. But the ‘summaries section’ mentioned above and the ‘apps timeline’ mentioned below make up for it now.
Users
ClinchPad is currently being adopted by a diverse set of people such as the freelancers, marketing agencies and real estate firms amongst other, with a unifying theme that they are involved with sales in one form or the other. Though the Western audience remains the prime target group, the product has seen adoption from smaller Indian cities.
Pricing
At the heart of any SaaS product lies the pricing. ClinchPad boasts of a genuinely enticing onboarding plan. The service is free-to-use for the entire team as long as the number of leads and the usage are within the limits of 100 and 250mb respectively. On the paid side the plans go from as low as $9/month ( 1 user and 2gb storage ) upto $99/month ( 33 users and 20gb storage ) all the while offering unlimited leads.
Competition & Timeline
ClinchPad is in no way the only company trying to crack the CRM sector. Even in the products catering to small and medium enterprises the competition from names like Pipedrive & Highrise along with the desi Zoho and its suite of products is there.
A less known fact about ClinchPad is that they already have an iPhone app in place, much less publicized though. The core focus for the coming months for the ClinchPad crew is to push out their apps by covering more platforms and changes to their web app.
The value of a sales tool lies in the integration it brings to the fold. The team is already in work to integrate the ClinchPad with some of the most popular business offering out there. One shouldn’t be too surprised to find it being a part of our favorite online form builder to email marketing service in the near future.
We’d love to know your experience with the product. For those of you who have not yet invested in a sales tool, the free plan for ClinchPad is great way to feel things out and experiment with it. If for nothing else, their blog is worth a special mention!
