Two CRM tools, one clear winner after 40 customer interviews gone sideways
Back in 2019 I helped a buddy track leads for his failed pop-up shop app, and we tried HubSpot's free tier against a plain Google Sheet. The sheet won by a mile because we could actually see who clicked what without the platform hiding basic fields behind paywalls. HubSpot kept forcing us into their funnel logic, and we spent more time fighting the tool than talking to the 40 store owners we interviewed in Austin. Has anyone else ditched a fancy platform for something dumber just to keep momentum alive?