My Startup World speaks to Maurice Koks, the CEO of Arcade CRM about his company’s value proposition for SMBs
What is Arcade CRM?
Arcade CRM offers a cloud-based CRM solution featuring a seamless integration with Gmail which provides a unified user experience right from Gmail. Arcade CRM offers rich contact management, task and calendar management, sales management, document management, VOIP calling, real-time activity alerts, third-party integrations and a lot more in one simple affordable package accessible on the web and mobile.
Founded by Dutch entrepreneur – Maurice Koks – and three years in the making, Arcade CRM solves the sales challenges by offering a fully functional CRM removing the burden of complicated installations, lengthy training sessions and inefficient data entry.
How does Arcade CRM plan to offer more value to SMBs?
By providing small and mid-sized businesses with additional cost savings for a friction-less move to the cloud, Arcade CRM aims to unlock the power of Gmail to help teams streamline collaboration, establish an automated and repeatable sales process, and optimize their workflow.
We believe that the most powerful tools should be affordable, intuitive and delightful to use. This will reduce the barrier to entry for businesses moving to the cloud. We look forward to helping companies harness the power of the cloud, and optimizing the way sales teams collaborate and communicate.
Tell us your startup story.
Maurice Koks is a Dutch Renegade Entrepreneur who has inaugurated gainful projects, and some, not so much. In 2011 he needed a CRM for his Premium Cigar Manufacturing & Distribution business and as a Gmail user since their Beta in 2004 he searched for an affordable and easy to use CRM with deep Gmail integration which if possible would allow him to stay within Gmail while creating templates and track his emails.
After a long search he realized that unless he was ready to pay an arm and a leg for services that offered partial solutions, he couldn’t get what he was looking for among services currently available in the market. He thought, “there must be a more affordable solution out there” but there wasn’t.
So early 2014 he decided to take the plunge and started to build a system himself, Arcade CRM was born. Apart from being Founder & CEO of Arcade CRM he is a Premium Cigar Manufacturer at intercigar.com , and also a husband and a father of four wonderful kids.
How easy is Arcade CRM to use?
From automating data entry and task management to sales forecasting and reporting, Arcade CRM is a simple to use and intelligent CRM solution that provides teams with the tools they need to amplify their sales process. Once the Arcade CRM Chrome Extension is installed, people can manage their contacts, see sales activity, create and manage templates, see when emails are opened and replied to, as well as receive reminders for optimal follow-up times right from within Gmail.
Who is your target audience?
By creating an affordable and simple to use CRM, Arcade CRM aims to attract small and medium size businesses across Media, Advertising, Services, Technology, Software, Real Estate, and eCommerce to take control of their business and get better results. Arcade offers a clean and easy to use interface and is accessible anywhere a client interaction takes place.
What is the USP of your solution?
We are unique because we didn’t build Arcade CRM with the objective to raise money and have fancy offices with a ping pong culture which at the end of the day would create pressure and the need to overprice the product to be able to pay the bills and keep investors happy.
No, from the first step, we laid the foundation that would enable us to deliver a solid and affordable product so that in the long run we would not let down the expectations of our customers.
