The story behind low and no-cost tools for small business

“Todd, real companies use Salesforce.”

I’d had enough. A longtime client had been saying this to me for months.

He’d been convinced by some peers in a founders group that he had to have Salesforce. No other solution could possibly allow him to track his conversations and deals. He wanted me to implement it for his business, and soon.

We’ll call him Bill to protect the innocent.

“Bill, that’s just not true,” I remember telling him. ” ‘Real companies’ use the correct tool for their business. Not the one recommended by other business leaders.” There might have been some sarcasm involved.

As a small business operator and advisor for nearly two decades, I’d used Salesforce plenty of times. It’s a solid solution.

Just not for Bill’s business.

Bill’s a solopreneur of a specialty B2B services business. At the time, his company was operating at about $1 million per year. He had a couple dozen customers, and his entire universe of potential customers was maybe just north of 100.

He wasn’t reaching out to hundreds or thousands of contacts. He didn’t need to integrate this tool with other tools. His sales process wasn’t complex.

All he needed was a way to track progress consistently on the handful of conversations he was having each day.

A legacy, full-featured CRM like Salesforce was exactly what he didn’t need. It would be like buying a Ferrari to do a grocery run.

“Bill, you don’t need Salesforce, and I’ll prove it to you,” I said. “I’ll build you something that will give you 100% of what you need and nothing that you don’t. And I’ll do it in a spreadsheet.”

Bill laughed at me. But he agreed to hold off on buying Salesforce for a few weeks to give me a change to prove it.

And that’s how Moves came about. Within a couple of weeks I had a working prototype. Bill requested a few additional features that I quickly added. 

He was using Moves within a month of my promise to him.

Bill still uses Moves today. He loves it, although it pains him to admit publicly that I was right. 

Some of his founder peers continue to try to get him to “upgrade” to Salesforce. But why would he?

He’s saved a ton of time and money by using something simple. He gets exactly what he needs. Then he can move on to doing what he loves: running his company. Not trying to figure out features he’s paying for but doesn’t need.

This experience with Bill got me thinking: what other internal operations tools do founders need but aren’t sure what to use? Which legacy solutions don’t make sense for them, but they just don’t know it?

I started talking with other clients and small business founders like Bill. They bent my ear big-time about their frustrations with current solutions, and questions about different software solutions they thought they needed. 

It was eye-opening and affirming. I got to work. The Year Six suite of tools is the result. I hope they can help you like they’ve helped countless other small business founders.

Because for those of us running small B2B businesses, it’s all about growing to Year Six. And beyond.

A little of my story

Todd Rode served as an Artillery officer in the U.S. Army before a disability turned his focus to the business world. 

The son of small business owners, and a multiple founder himself, Todd started creating simple, spreadsheet-based applications to fill the gaping holes he found with legacy software and SaaS solutions.

He started Year Six to help other founders quickly complete their admin tasks so they can get back to running their businesses.

He holds a BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Todd lives near Nashville with his wife.  He spends as much time outside as possible. One of the businesses he co-founded was a brewery in 2019.  He’d love to tell you the full story over a pint sometime.