Notes from building
a CRM for solo operators
Comparisons against the big players, deep dives on how specific features work, guides for getting set up, and opinions from a solo dev who built a CRM because every other one assumed I had a sales team.
Comparisons
5Groundbase vs Close — sales CRM head-to-head
Close is the canonical sales-focused CRM with built-in calling. Groundbase is the indie alternative with BYO Twilio. Here's the honest comparison, including the features Close genuinely wins on.
Groundbase vs Close.com — the indie alternative to a sales-team CRM
Close is the most sales-focused CRM in the category — built for high-volume calling teams. Here's how Groundbase compares for solo operators who do their own outreach.
Groundbase vs Zoho Bigin — the indie alternative to the giant
Bigin is Zoho's CRM for solo operators. It's polished, cheap, and a funnel into a $45/user/month upsell. Here's the indie alternative.
Groundbase vs Pipedrive for solo founders
Pipedrive is a great sales tool. The question is whether you're a sales team or a solo operator — because Pipedrive's pricing model has opinions about that.
Groundbase vs HubSpot for solo founders
HubSpot is great if you have a sales team. You don't. Here's what changes when the CRM stops assuming you do.
Guides
2Twilio A2P 10DLC for solo operators (and how to figure out if you even need it)
A2P 10DLC is genuinely confusing. Here's the structural overview, the rejection traps I hit firsthand, and a quick test to figure out whether you can skip it entirely.
Setting up Resend + verifying your sending domain (a complete walkthrough)
The piece every solo founder hits when they wire up transactional email. Add a domain, prove you own it, send your first email — about 15 minutes start to finish.
Notes
6Why I'm not marketing Groundbase on LinkedIn
Most indie marketing advice eventually arrives at "you should be on LinkedIn." Here's why I deliberately won't — and why for indie SaaS specifically, it's the wrong tool.
Why I killed Groundbase's credits system and went BYO Twilio
The "platform credits" model looks great on a pricing page. Behind the scenes it's a maze of compliance overhead, customer confusion, and accounting friction. Here's why I scrapped it.
Why Groundbase won't build social media management
People ask if Groundbase will become Hootsuite-plus-a-CRM. Short answer is no. Long answer is more interesting.
Groundbase isn't for everyone — here's who it's for and who it isn't
Most products pretend to be for everyone. That's the wrong frame. Here's the honest answer about who Groundbase fits and who it doesn't.
Why I built Groundbase as a solo dev (and why that's the point)
There's no team. No investors. No support tier. Here's why that's a feature of Groundbase, not a bug.
Why I built Groundbase on Cloudflare Workers instead of Vercel
Vercel is the default for indie SaaS in 2026. I picked Cloudflare Workers anyway. Here's the honest reasoning and what I'd tell other indie devs.