Our Story
Like many other startups, we stumbled upon the idea for Import2. In April 2011, a friend of ours (who later became the CEO of a multimillion SaaS company) asked us if we could help him. He was staying on the couch in one of our founder's apartments and his problem was a so-called "real-life problem". He had a great CRM product and a number of customers willing to use it, but no solution to migrate their legacy data from Highrise. At that time, we were working on another project which we thought was "cool" and "fun". His request looked like another boring consulting job. But we agreed anyway.
Import2 truck on duty
Fast forward to our 1,000th customer, and we decided to shutter all other projects and concentrate on data migrations. It was obvious that retaining business data was critical. For most businesses, the data itself was more crucial than the software they used.
We learned how different, and often conflicting, the data structures of various vendors are. We had to build a complex solution, then we could automatically move data between popular CRMs, help desks, marketing automation, and other apps that businesses use every day. We could complete a data migration project of any size and customization.
However, 10,000 customers later, it was obvious that many turned to our services because they were completely overwhelmed by the chaos of having business data spread out over multiple apps.
We learned how different, and often conflicting, the data structures of various vendors are. We had to build a complex solution, then we could automatically move data between popular CRMs, help desks, marketing automation, and other apps that businesses use every day. We could complete a data migration project of any size and customization.
However, 10,000 customers later, it was obvious that many turned to our services because they were completely overwhelmed by the chaos of having business data spread out over multiple apps.
For many, it was difficult to even know how to approach or understand the problem. Some vendors made it nearly impossible for customers to download data out of their apps or had minimally designed import tools. Many did not need a full-scale migration, or they were in need of solutions beyond just a one-time migration. Some asked for a simple way to update existing data or whether we could help to import or export data when they need it. And most importantly, the majority of customers wanted to do the job themselves. And, we created a self-service tool, that would give anyone the power to manage their own data in business apps they used.
We built it on certain beliefs:
- Data is a critical asset of any business
- Vendors putting barriers on accessing data is wrong
- Data belongs to you, it is not owned by a vendor
- Data tools should be simple for anyone to use
- Getting data in and out of your business apps should cost less than your time
We want to be different. We do not want to sound sophisticated or technical, so only tech gurus understand us. When it comes to business data management our goal is to make you feel like a data master.