18 Jul 2025
Productivity

Industry-Specific CRM Templates That Actually Work. Most CRMs force ...

...healthcare admins and construction managers to hack together solutions that barely meet compliance requirements. TemplateCRM delivers pre-built, compliance-ready CRM setups that understand exactly what each industry needs. The platform ships with healthcare-specific HIPAA workflows, construction project management templates, and other niche configurations that would take months to build internally.

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.


Your are here

The idea of industry-specific CRM templates falls into a crowded space where many have attempted to provide niche solutions. The fact that we found 9 similar products suggests that there's ongoing interest in this area, but also significant competition. Engagement with these similar products is low, with an average of only 1 comment per product launch. Given the lack of substantial engagement and the history of mediocre solutions in this category, you need to carefully consider if you can offer a fundamentally different approach to succeed. You will likely struggle to stand out.

Recommendations

  1. Given the competitive landscape and past failures, thoroughly research why existing niche CRM solutions haven’t gained traction. Understand their shortcomings and identify unmet needs within specific industries. This will provide a solid foundation for determining if your approach offers a truly differentiated value proposition.
  2. Instead of broadly targeting multiple industries, identify a very specific niche within healthcare or construction that is demonstrably underserved by existing CRM solutions. Focus on a niche where compliance requirements are stringent and the pain points are acute, and build a solution tailored to their exact needs.
  3. Explore opportunities to build add-ons or integrations for existing CRM providers, rather than attempting to build a full-fledged competitor. This approach could allow you to tap into established user bases and avoid the challenges of acquiring customers in a competitive market. Review the comments from similar products; for example, Nexus CRM was criticized for lacking email integration.
  4. Consider expanding beyond CRM templates to address adjacent problems that these industries face, such as project management, communication, or resource allocation. Addressing a broader set of needs can increase the value proposition of your offering and create a more compelling reason for businesses to adopt your solution.
  5. Given the challenges of breaking into the CRM market, it might be wise to explore other, more promising opportunities. Assess the potential return on investment for this idea versus other projects, and prioritize those with a higher likelihood of success.
  6. Implement robust spam filtering and ensure email deliverability from the start. One similar product, CRMFusion, was criticized for its waitlist emails often ending up in spam folders. Invest in proper email infrastructure and monitoring to avoid this issue.
  7. Given that other products were criticized for lacking features such as email integration and customer portals, ensure you have those core functionalities in your product. Consider the minimum viable product carefully.

Questions

  1. What unique compliance challenges are present in your target industries (healthcare, construction) that existing CRMs fail to adequately address, and how specifically will your templates solve these problems?
  2. Given the low engagement observed in similar product launches, what innovative go-to-market strategies will you employ to generate initial interest and build a loyal user base in your chosen niche?
  3. How will you validate that your templates truly save time and resources compared to the alternative of 'hacking together' a CRM solution, and what metrics will you use to measure the ROI for your customers?

Your are here

The idea of industry-specific CRM templates falls into a crowded space where many have attempted to provide niche solutions. The fact that we found 9 similar products suggests that there's ongoing interest in this area, but also significant competition. Engagement with these similar products is low, with an average of only 1 comment per product launch. Given the lack of substantial engagement and the history of mediocre solutions in this category, you need to carefully consider if you can offer a fundamentally different approach to succeed. You will likely struggle to stand out.

Recommendations

  1. Given the competitive landscape and past failures, thoroughly research why existing niche CRM solutions haven’t gained traction. Understand their shortcomings and identify unmet needs within specific industries. This will provide a solid foundation for determining if your approach offers a truly differentiated value proposition.
  2. Instead of broadly targeting multiple industries, identify a very specific niche within healthcare or construction that is demonstrably underserved by existing CRM solutions. Focus on a niche where compliance requirements are stringent and the pain points are acute, and build a solution tailored to their exact needs.
  3. Explore opportunities to build add-ons or integrations for existing CRM providers, rather than attempting to build a full-fledged competitor. This approach could allow you to tap into established user bases and avoid the challenges of acquiring customers in a competitive market. Review the comments from similar products; for example, Nexus CRM was criticized for lacking email integration.
  4. Consider expanding beyond CRM templates to address adjacent problems that these industries face, such as project management, communication, or resource allocation. Addressing a broader set of needs can increase the value proposition of your offering and create a more compelling reason for businesses to adopt your solution.
  5. Given the challenges of breaking into the CRM market, it might be wise to explore other, more promising opportunities. Assess the potential return on investment for this idea versus other projects, and prioritize those with a higher likelihood of success.
  6. Implement robust spam filtering and ensure email deliverability from the start. One similar product, CRMFusion, was criticized for its waitlist emails often ending up in spam folders. Invest in proper email infrastructure and monitoring to avoid this issue.
  7. Given that other products were criticized for lacking features such as email integration and customer portals, ensure you have those core functionalities in your product. Consider the minimum viable product carefully.

Questions

  1. What unique compliance challenges are present in your target industries (healthcare, construction) that existing CRMs fail to adequately address, and how specifically will your templates solve these problems?
  2. Given the low engagement observed in similar product launches, what innovative go-to-market strategies will you employ to generate initial interest and build a loyal user base in your chosen niche?
  3. How will you validate that your templates truly save time and resources compared to the alternative of 'hacking together' a CRM solution, and what metrics will you use to measure the ROI for your customers?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 9
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 1
  • Net use signal: 0.0%
    • Positive use signal: 11.4%
    • Negative use signal: 11.4%
  • Net buy signal: -11.4%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 11.4%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

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Are you tired of managing your influencer outreach efforts manually? Are you finding it challenging to keep track of all your influencer contacts, their social media handles, and other relevant details? If yes, then the Influencer CRM template is the solution

The comments consist of encouragement ('Good luck, bro') and a suggestion for a public, crowdsourced list of influencers to facilitate collaborations. A comment was also deleted.


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Client management software for digital freelancers and agencies

29 Jul 2023 SaaS Design Tools

I'm new to HN, so apologies if I get a few things wrong.My co-founder and I were agency owners. I had a design and dev shop, he had a marketing agency.We found that being super responsive to clients was a non negotiable for success (eg., responding to adhoc questions, justifying invoices), but it took a lot of effort during a project and came at a cost.That cost was sales and building pipeline, resulting in the "feast or famine" situation that digital creatives talk about in terms of revenue. So we have started creating a CRM for digital creatives.Our CRM takes is design for digital creatives. It is powered by AI and rules to make client management and engagement more efficient, by taking away those awkward money and scope conversations.In Tango we have started with gathering information with less effort and simplifying proposals, contracts and payment, but will be extending further in the coming months to communications and pipeline management.Would love your feedback!

Started CRM for digital creatives to improve client management.

High client responsiveness impacts sales and pipeline building.


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