Here we are on the weekend again; and I love the weekends. Partly due to the fact that the schedule tends to be more relaxed, and partly because this means I get to spend some time on Saelos! If you’re just getting to my blog then you should do some reading on other posts before continuing, check out the Saelos announcement, a peek at the technical advantage, the previous update, and then let’s talk about what’s coming next.
Today I want to do two things, first give everyone a quick update on the status of Saelos today (hey, this is an update post) and second, I want to share a little bit about a benefit that Saelos provides and why I believe it’s so incredibly important in the world today.
Saelos Growing Organically
Okay, so first is an update on where Saelos is today. Things continue to progress at a pretty good rate. I wrote last week about a Saturday project I undertook building a dashboard for watching a GitHub repository and monitoring growth. I applied it to Saelos to get an idea how things were looking. Here’s the screenshot:
Here’s the lowdown from that snapshot. First, Saelos downloads are exploding! The growth is tremendous with over 250% increase from the previous release. Second, 2/3 of the issues have been addressed already in the last release and working through the rest as quickly as possible. Lastly, Saelos has a total of 50 stargazers and 9 forks already. This is ridiculously fast uptake and I’m very excited to see this kind of growth continue. Oh, and by the way, the downturn in that one release was because we pushed the next one so quickly there was no time for the Beta 3 to be adopted!
Monopoly Should Only Be A Board Game
All this growth is exciting and the fact that, yes, there is a real need and desire for a super strong open source CRM. Honestly, just a super strong CRM (open source just happens to be the best mechanism in the world). But not a run-of-the-mill standard customer relationship management software that only functions in a small business environment. (Don’t get me wrong Saelos works brilliantly for SMB.) No, what everyone really needs is an option.
There’s nothing worse than a monopoly in a market. And let’s be honest with each other. Currently there’s a bit of a monopoly in the CRM market. And this has lead to stagnation, lack of innovation, and an overwhelming sense of despair. Why? Because when you’re an 800lb gorilla (or maybe that’s a bear named “Codey”…) you keep iterating on the same outdated mentality and philosophy and grow by acquisition alone. The result is frustration, despair, and heartache for businesses and sales teams everywhere.
So how does a cartel get overthrown? By no longer buying their product. But let’s be more realistic. It’s not quite that simple because businesses need a CRM. They need some system to manage their customers and those relationships (not to mention potential customers). And so simply walking away from a software platform is not an answer, something must fill the gap. Enterprise businesses should have options, reliable, capable options which can function at scale. This transition isn’t going to happen overnight. Rather, I believe, the best method for opening the floodgates for businesses is to create an alternative that offers immediate successes. Consider small wins. Super small wins. In fact, maybe we call them micro wins.
CRM Micro Services
Let me be the first to say I dislike talking about other software because what I prefer to do is talk about our software and why Saelos is different. And why Saelos is better and ways in which Saelos stands apart, and functions differently than other systems. And so let’s talk about Saelos and the future of the customer relationship management space. I hinted at my ideas at the end of the last paragraph and in the title to this one.
As technology has advanced we’ve ridden the waves of box software, to hosted software, to software as a service. Even the irony of a ‘no software’ software company is hard to overlook. But as we continue to move forward in technology and software we see the landscape continue to change.
If we step out of CRM and look at technology in general we see the shift from hosted software, to containerization, and then server-less software (or functions-as-a-service).
But specific vertical markets like CRM have not made these same advancements, in part because monolithic software companies have found massive profits in their markets and have not been interested in pushing the limits of technology (or even keeping up-to-date with those technology advancements). There’s a second reason why some of these same improvements haven’t been applied to these markets and that’s due to the inability of closed source software to be able to fully capitalize on these changes.
This is why open source software has a particular advantage for businesses. Run your own containers, run your own server-less infrastructure, or even your own function-as-a-service with open source software.
I believe Saelos as an open source server-less CRM gives rise to the future of customer relationships management. I believe we will (and should) see a proliferation of micro-services in the field of CRM. Use the tool that’s right for the job, pick and choose the best parts of each platform to make your business successful. And in this way, Saelos brings immediate success and improvements to businesses that have existing CRM systems already.
And if by chance a business or organization does not yet have a good CRM in place, or is ready for a complete overhaul and change to their current system, than Saelos provides an amazing platform upon which to build. That’s the true beauty of Saelos, use the frontend, cutting-edge UI, use the advanced API backend, or simply use the functions you need. Saelos works perfect in each of those settings.
I am really excited about the future of Saelos and all it has to offer. If you haven’t yet taken it for a spin, I suggest you look for yourself and see what the future holds.
Staying Connected
The last thing I’ll leave you with for this quick update post is a very simple and easy call-to-action. If you like this content and want to be kept in the loop regarding all things Saelos then you need to fill out this short form and you’ll get an update newsletter direct in your inbox each time once is created.
That’s it. I’ll do my best to keep the Saelos Slack channels updated as well as the newsletter and if you are following my blog here, you’ll also get updated whenever I post something here too.
