Whether you’re a longtime LACRM user or you’re just poking around, we’d like to formally introduce Less Annoying CRM (the business & people) to you!
We’ve been pretty transparent about the way we do business (I mean, our name is Less Annoying CRM) but most folks still are surprised when we tell them that we really are a small business ourselves.
So here are 5 quick facts:
- Less Annoying CRM is based in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Our entire team (except for Bracken) is located in St. Louis, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Our office is located downtown and while we can see the Arch from our window, most of us went to school around St. Louis so it’s no longer that exciting a view for us
- We were founded by brothers Tyler and Bracken King in 2009 (and their mom, Monica, is one of the internet’s OG food bloggers!).
They both grew up in St. Louis, which is why they moved the company from San Francisco back to St. Louis! - We’re family-owned, and have no third-party investors.
Like most of you, we’re not owned by a private equity firm (or some other big software company), and don’t have investors to report to. We have 0 intention of getting acquired or going public – we’re here to build the best tools that small businesses actually need. - Our customers are based in over 70 different countries.
Which still blows our minds! - The most common single LACRM user is a salesperson, and the most common business using LACRM is an insurance agency.
Plus lots of real estate and travel agents, nonprofits, university career centers, and local services!
Our favorite tip for small businesses (and one that has helped us grow):
Leverage your community for opportunities! This is in fact one of the big reasons why LACRM is based in St. Louis, instead of where all the hot new tech companies are.
A local St. Louis non-profit, Arch Grants, awarded us a $50,000 grant right when we were just getting started, and it allowed us to hire our first CRM Coach. Through Arch Grants, we were connected with another local incubator (T-REX) which offered us affordable office space, and that meant our team could actually have meetings together for the first time.
Without these local opportunities, we wouldn’t have had the kickstart we needed to really take the business to the next level.
Even now, we’re still leaning hard on our local St. Louis community: we run a coding fellowship every year to recruit students from nearby universities to spend the summer learning how to code with us. Many of our current developers today graduated from this fellowship!
It’s easy to forget when you’re running a small business that there are people and organizations around you who want to help you succeed. Whatever financial, sales, or strategy problem you’re facing, someone has been through that exact situation and is happy to help you navigate it.
That’s why we started this LACRM forum as well – we want small businesses everywhere to have a space to collaborate freely.
Have questions about how LACRM operates? Visiting St. Louis and want some restaurant recommendations (we’ve got loads)? Ask us anything in the replies!