Case study

Custom CRM solution for a growing WordPress plugin business

4 months | Solo project | Medium-level complexity

WordPress ecosystem

Requirements gathering

Client management

Iterative development

Systems design

months total

months of iteration

spreadsheet system built

Summary: When a plugin business outgrows informal tracking, the answer doesn’t have to be enterprise software.

What was happening

A few years into building a WordPress plugin business, the developer’s client list had grown past the point where informal tracking could keep up. Contacts lived in different places. Follow-ups slipped through the gaps. Tasks sat in one spot while client notes sat somewhere else entirely. There was no single place to look when a lead went quiet or a renewal came around. The instinct was to reach for a CRM — but enterprise platforms built for sales teams of twenty brought complexity and cost that made no sense for a solo operation. What was missing was something in between: a system built around how this particular business actually worked, rather than how a vendor imagined it might.

What I did

The first step was a proper discovery call — not a quick chat, but a real look at the client lifecycle, the daily working rhythm, and where decisions actually got made. From there, a custom Google Sheets solution took shape, using cross-sheet functions to connect contacts, task tracking, and follow-up scheduling into a single reference point. The initial build was live within a month. Then came three months of iterating alongside the developer, watching how the system held up in real-world use and refining it wherever the cracks showed. Requirements gathering and client relationship management principles shaped every round of changes. The goal throughout was a system that fit the workflow — one that felt familiar from day one and grew with the business rather than ahead of it.

What changed

Client contacts, tasks, and follow-ups moved into a single connected system, eliminating scattered information across multiple tools.
Missed follow-ups and slow response times became a thing of the past — every active relationship was visible at a glance.
Four months of close collaboration between client and consultant produced a solution shaped by real usage — not assumed requirements.
The developer ended up with CRM capability that felt built for them — no training overhead, no subscription cost, and nothing they’d never use.

Reflective: The best systems are the ones people actually use — and the only way to build those is to watch what happens when real work meets the first draft.

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