Hey there,

My name is Jordan, and I'd like to tell you about this Uplift software. You see Uplift is unlike any other software that I am aware of, so there isn't another thing to compare it to and say, "well, it is like X, but with Y". Maybe the closest thing is to say it is like Excel, but more like Google Sheets, but not like that at all. Yeah, not like that at all.

Lets start at the beginning. I've been building software for a long time. A decade or so ago I built a lot of "CRM"s (customer relationship management) systems. They are the tool that business use to keep track of their customers. The cool thing about them is that they are some of the most flexible software companies buy. Every company has their own, unique, sales process: the information that they want to track, how they reach out to people, how they report on salespeople's performance etc. And if sales doesn't work, the company doesn't run, so the sales team has a lot of clout and can say "it has to fit what we do." and get heard. So back in the day it was pretty common to develop your own CRM from scratch, or to take an open source tool and customize it extensively to what you where doing. That worked well enough, but was expensive because it took a lot of engineering work to build a custom tool or pound an existing solution into shape.

Lets keep that idea for a minute, and jump forward to today. Now most companies will purchase a subscription to a CRM product like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Dynamics 365 or maybe SAP. There are a bunch of offerings, all of which are customizable, and all of which share another common attribute, they are expensive. Getting the unhobbled version of Salesforce will set you back about $300a month, per user, paid by the year ($3,600) before any add-ons. And then, you aren't done, you are just getting started. You have software which can be customized, but you need to hire a developer ($150/hr) or a team ($275/hr) to customize the system (and yeah, maybe to train your people how to use it, import data from other systems, connect it to other systems etc.)

And if you are really successful with your CRM rollout it will forever grow larger, more complicated, and your business will depend upon it for everything. At which point we call it an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, and everyone then needs those licenses, not just the sales team...

This works for business. Especially for big business. It is expensive, and in general everyone hates it. Users hate it because such systems tend to be slow. Software developers hate it because large and flexible systems are horrifically complex and then because the system is meant to be end-user-customizable we take away developer's tools for managing complexity. Managers hate it because they can't make changes to how the company runs — that would require changing the software and they aren't allowed less they break it. Executives hate it because they get to pay for it.

I built a lot of these CRM/ERP systems, but then in about 2018 I was fed up and switched my career to focus on public sector work. Public sector includes software supporting things like federal, state, and local government, non-profits, and NGOs. In particular I lead the technical team for a start up building software solutions for child welfare (think the system that runs foster and adoption care for the county, state etc), adult/senior welfare, juvenile justice, public benefit programs, etc.

And guess what, you pull back the lid on one of these systems, and they are a CRM trying-to-grow-into-an-ERP underneath. And most of them are built on those same CRM platforms: Salesforce, ServiceNow, Dynamics 365 etc. So I was back to building CRM maybe-evolve-to-ERP like systems. But it was sadder. You see the small, local players (local non-profits, counties with low populations, Native American tribes, etc) who I think are often the ones doing the best work are universally understaffed & underfunded. So they are mostly running their systems on paper, or maybe a spreadsheet, or if they are really cutting edge then a Google Sheet so they don't have to email the spreadsheet to everyone each day. They need a solution, and can't afford one. On the other hand, the larger entities (more populous counties, medium to large cities, the eastern and western seaboard states, or anything federal) have money, but they don't know how to get their dollars worth. They pay through the nose to these CRM platforms, and huge "professional services" companies, and then get systems that far too often are late, incomplete, or just don't function.

I've witnessed more waste & sadness than I ever wanted to.

I want to make this better. Particularly for those smaller, and local groups, and for small business too.

That is what Uplift is. It is a replacement for those paper records, for spreadsheets, for CRM/ERP platforms.

CRM & ERP systems where really a kind of "stop gap" solution to this problem space. The underlying need was that we needed something and it had to be customizable to fit. One wouldn't naturally look at an adoption agency, a public benefits program, a homeschool co-op or a charter school and say "yeah, lets run all of those on a CRM".

So, designing from first principals, what do we need?

1. A place to store data. Everyone's data is different, and this is where most of the need to customize comes from. We want something that is easy to change, like adding a new column in a spreadsheet. But harder to mess up, like accidentally deleting a formula (or an entire sheet).
2. Permissions. Some people see everything, some people see only their own information.
3. Portals. Building on the former point — it is a common, almost universal, need to get information into the systems via online forms, partners, members of the public, etc. and for constituents to be able to login and see responses.
4. Customizable logic, workflow processes that can be made unique to each organization.
5. Reporting. We want to be able to make reports on the data in the system easily, and be able to share those reports.
6. Document generation — in a way these systems are electronic paper, but the universal way of "integrating" with external systems is pulpwood paper. In the public sector this often takes the format of paper forms, in education it is often diplomas, certificates, and transcripts, and in business it is contracts and purchase orders.
7. Cost matters. Historically this has been one of the most expensive categories of software, and that expense has kept organizations from adopting it.
8. Speed of delivery & speed of adaptability matter. Not only that the system can be customized, but it must be adaptable quickly. For example it is not unusual in child welfare for organizations to have weekly change review meetings, where solutions must be found to track additional information, changes in procedures and forms, etc that come down as legal requirements from higher authority.
9. A non-cloud option. This need isn't a universal requirement, but it is an important one. More and more entities don't want, or can't have their data in a vague "cloud", but rather need it to be stored and processed in their polity.

This is what Uplift is.

Right now Uplift isn't finished. There is a lot of documentation to write, interfaces are being updated and changed, etc. But it is ready for people to start using it.

Interested?

Contact me at jordan@jordanschatz.com or add your email to the announcement list: