Review of Highrise from 37signals

I swear I’m such a laggard. All my friends and family think I’m some sort of tech guy, but I never have the latest phone, I never have the latest computer, and when it comes to software I’m the guy saying “Nah, I’m good.” It’s only when I get forced into a corner that I say “Fine, fine, I’ll try it out.” Then I try it out and I think “Why didn’t I try this sooner?!” Such is the case with Highrise from the folks over at 37signals.

I’ve been a user of Basecamp from the same peeps for years. Pretty much since their beginning. And I’ve always loved it. I’ve known about Highrise since it launched. I’ve read Rework. I read the PDF that became Rework. And I’ve been in charge of sales at MWI for 10 years. So why have I never used Highrise before? I don’t know, but I’m kicking myself because I finally started using it last week and I love it. Let me count the ways…well, let’s just go with three for now.

1. I know who to follow up with and when. When I get contacted about a new deal I put the contact person in. It creates a company during that process. Then I create a deal attached to the company. I then create tasks associated with that deal. The tasks are emailed to me when they’re due. Or I log in and just check out the task list. That’s it. I can stay on top of things that way. It’s easy. Potential clients get calls and emails when they should. No more of this “Oh man, I should have emailed that guy a week ago! Well, that deal’s gone…”
2. It’s affordable. What am I paying, $50/month? I don’t know, but it’s cheap enough to be negligible.
3. It does almost everything I want the way I want it to. It’s not perfect for me. I kind of don’t like the separation between people, companies, and deals. I wish they were a little more unified. I don’t really want to attach deals to people, or tasks to people, per se. But it’s workable. I just have to remember to set everything up the right way and then I’m good. So it’s a minor thing. But by and large when I want to do something I haven’t done before, I find that it’s already there and that it works the way I want it to.

Where does Highrise not work? Well, curiously enough I tried it out for another company of mine before I tried it out for MWI, and because the deal sizes are smaller and the volume larger, I didn’t find it such a good fit as with MWI. But I could be convinced to use it more for FO, especially after having a good time with it for MWI. Regardless, they have a 30-day trial so if you run an agency like I do, or sales for agency, and you’re more of a laggard than I am, check Highrise out.

Yes, I was paid $100,000 to write this review…oh wait, no I wasn’t, I just like the stuff and felt like writing this up. But I’ll gladly accept a check for that amount if someone from Basecamp sends me one. Or a t-shirt?