Every CRM a venture team abandons was abandoned for the same reason as everywhere else: recording cost more than it returned to the person recording. At venture volume that arithmetic is harsher, because whatever a record asks for is multiplied by several hundred companies a year. Three rules follow from that, and a fund that applies them gets a record that stays true without anybody being asked to care about data quality.
Rule one: a pass is one click
Most of what arrives is declined within a day. If recording that takes a minute it will not happen for the majority, and the denominator of every conversion number the fund quotes becomes fiction. One click with a reason from a short list is the whole requirement, and the reason matters more than the verdict.
Rule two: one required field, and it is the source
Everything else optional. The source is the only field whose absence cannot be reconstructed later, and it is the one that answers which channel is worth partner time. A record complete on one field beats one that is patchy on nine, because at least you know what you have.
Rule three: keep passes forever, with dates
A company passed at seed is frequently live again at Series A eighteen months later at a different price. In venture the reuse cycle is short enough that discarding passes is a measurable loss, and going back with the previous reason in hand is a completely different conversation from going back cold.
What follows from the three
A record that is shallow, complete and honest, which is the only kind that supports a real number. Funds that instead build a deep record get a partial one, and a partial dataset is worse than a shallow complete one because nobody can tell which parts are missing when they quote from it.
Questions people ask about crm venture capital
Why do venture CRMs get abandoned?
Because recording costs the recorder more than it returns, and at several hundred companies a year that arithmetic is harsher.
How fast must a pass be to record?
One click with a reason from a short list. Anything slower and the majority go unrecorded, which makes every conversion number fiction.
What should be required?
The source, and nothing else. It is the only field that cannot be reconstructed later.