David Mytton writes in to tell us how his software startup uses Highrise to keep track of beta testers:
I am in the initial stages of building a software startup. Our first product is an application which monitors server health - CPU usage, memory use, etc - and alerts you when there are problems. The product entered private beta testing last week and I am slowly getting new people signed up to give it a go. The website is www.serverdensity.com.
We're doing this in a very personal way. I initially invited just a couple of contacts who I thought might be interested but we have since branched out to a wider audience. That said, we are still giving out invite codes as individually as possible and conducting feedback calls over the phone.
Since we're inviting people over the weeks, I need to follow up with them at different times to ensure they have enough time to try out the product. I also need to keep a record of when I am actually due to call them and what their feedback is. I am using Highrise to do most of this.
When a new user is contacted, I enter their details into Highrise and make a note of when I e-mailed them. I schedule a followup if I don't hear back in a few days and equally make a note when they do sign up. I am able to use the tasks to remind me when I need to get in touch to arrange the feedback call and then when the call will take place.
We use FogBugz to handle all customer care and bug tracking so send communication through that. I link up the Highrise contact with the case ID in FogBugz. This gives me a tactical overview of where we're at in the feedback process through Highrise with the actual correspondence and feedback logged in FogBugz. Once the call is done, I can summarise the feedback in the notes for that contact in Highrise.
All of these contacts are of course linked to a single case for the beta feedback. This gives me an easy way to view all the beta feedback contacts and notes in one go and keep on top of talking to customers and working on changes based on the feedback.
If I didn't have Highrise, I would have to resort to e-mail histories to find out where we're at, who was invited when and so on. Using Highrise centralises everything which means I'm more efficient and can spend time developing rather than dealing with the paper trail.
Not only that, but I can do all of this using the free account so that I can keep my startup costs to a minimum but I know that through regular use, I will be able to easily upgrade at a later date - hopefully once my company has started generating revenue. When you're just starting out, it is important to keep costs as low as possible without compromising on what needs to be done; Highrise makes that possible.
Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.
