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Solopreneurs & Ops

How to Build a Simple CRM as a Solopreneur Using Tools You Already Have

You don't need a $100/month CRM subscription to manage client relationships well. Here's how to build a functional, low-maintenance CRM using Notion, Airtable, or even Google Sheets.

Selva SantoshData quality, for people who ship
3 min read
Key Takeaways
  • The best CRM is the simplest one you'll open every day — not the most feature-rich
  • A solopreneur CRM needs to answer 5 questions: active clients, pipeline, last contact, open actions, re-engage
  • A 6-column Google Sheet is a functional minimum viable CRM for most solopreneurs
  • Notion and Airtable add views and linked records that Google Sheets can't do well
  • A weekly 10-minute CRM review prevents important relationships from going cold

The CRM You'll Actually Use

The best CRM for a solopreneur is not Salesforce. It's not HubSpot. It's the simplest system you'll open every day, enter data accurately, and actually use to follow up with people.

For most solopreneurs, that's a well-structured Notion database, an Airtable base, or a clean Google Sheet.

What a Solopreneur CRM Actually Needs

Strip away everything enterprise CRM does and ask: what decisions do I need data to make?

Sohovi finds gaps, duplicates, and format errors in your CRM data — so your team is working from records they can trust.

  1. Who are my current active clients?
  2. Who are my prospects, and where is each one in my pipeline?
  3. When did I last talk to each important contact, and what was discussed?
  4. What opportunities are in progress, and what do they need from me?
  5. Which past clients should I re-engage?

Five questions. Your CRM needs to answer these five questions reliably. Everything beyond that is noise for a solopreneur.

The Google Sheets CRM (Minimum Viable)

One sheet, six columns:

| Name | Company | Email | Type | Last Contact | Next Action | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Maria Chen | Acme Inc | maria@acme.co | Active Client | 2026-05-20 | Send revised proposal by June 1 | | James Patel | Beta LLC | james@beta.co | Prospect | 2026-04-10 | Follow up — 3 weeks no response |

Type values: Active Client, Prospect, Past Client, Partner, Other Last Contact: Date of the last meaningful interaction (call, email, meeting) Next Action: The specific next step with a date if applicable

Filter by Type to see your client list or prospect pipeline. Sort by Last Contact to find who you haven't spoken to in a while.

Upgrading to Notion or Airtable

Notion and Airtable add features that Google Sheets can't do well:

  • Views: see all prospects in kanban (deal stage), all clients in gallery (with notes), all contacts sorted by last contact date
  • Linked records: link a client record to specific projects and invoices
  • Formulas: calculate days since last contact automatically

Sohovi gives you a full quality report on any spreadsheet in seconds — upload your file and see exactly what needs fixing.

The Notion contacts database template or the Airtable CRM template are both good starting points. Modify them to your five questions — delete fields you won't use.

The Weekly CRM Habit

Every Monday (or your week-starting day):

  1. Open your CRM
  2. Update Last Contact for anyone you interacted with last week
  3. Add Next Action for anyone who needs a follow-up
  4. Identify the two people you most need to contact this week

This takes 10 minutes. Consistently done, it means you never let an important relationship go cold because you forgot to follow up.

Frequently Asked Questions

When should I upgrade from a spreadsheet CRM to a paid tool?

When your contact list exceeds 200 active contacts, when you need task reminders tied to contacts, or when you're managing a pipeline with multiple stages for multiple deals simultaneously. Below that threshold, a spreadsheet is usually sufficient.

How do I migrate from a spreadsheet CRM to a dedicated tool?

Export your spreadsheet to CSV. Import into the new tool. Map columns to fields. Most CRM tools have import wizards for this. Plan for 2–3 hours to set up and import, plus another week of parallel running before you trust the new system fully.

What if I'm using different tools for different clients and things are scattered?

This is a sign you need one unified system. Pick your primary tool, consolidate all contacts there with a minimum set of required fields, then stick to it. Scattered data is always worse than slightly imperfect centralized data.

Selva Santosh

Data quality, for people who ship

Selva writes practical guides on data quality, profiling, and governance to help teams ship better data.

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Build a Simple CRM as a Solopreneur With Tools You Already Have | Sohovi