Doing What I Shouldn’t: Quitting My Six-Figure Job to Build an AI-Native CRM

I quit my six-figure “secure” job to build Customermates. Now I have no income, way too much work, and zero free time… and honestly, it’s the best decision I’ve ever made. Nothing like building your dream and realizing sleep is optional.

Customermates is an AI-native CRM built for small to medium teams who don’t want to wrestle with bloated enterprise tools. It’s ready in 2 minutes, intuitive from the first click, and fully automatable with n8n.

Here’s my journey and what I’ve learned so far 👇

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Failures and successes

I’ve been building products for years, mostly part-time as a freelancer.

Before Customermates, I worked in software, tried a couple of side projects, and realized I hated overly complex CRMs and endless onboarding sessions. I wanted something simple, powerful, and automation-first — but I couldn’t find it anywhere. With Customermates, you get a public, ready-to-use demo: what you see is what you get.

So I quit my job, and here I am, building a product I’d actually use myself.

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Dead simple but awesome

Customermates is intentionally minimal. Customer data, notes, and interactions all live in one place. The UI is distraction-free, so teams can focus on their work instead of fighting the software.

With n8n integration, everything is automatable. No “enterprise lock-in,” just clean workflows that work for your team.

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Lots of iterations

Building Customermates involved a lot of trial and error. UX flows got redesigned multiple times, automation hooks reworked, and the backend rebuilt more than once.

If I could do it again, v1 would focus on one amazing feature first — probably AI-powered notes — and ship that before adding extra bells and whistles. Letting users do everything at once looked good on paper, but in reality, it was a headache to build.

Beta feedback has been invaluable. Our rule: don’t launch until a real team can use it without instructions.

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Talk to people more successful than you

What’s helped me most is asking founders further along about hiring, automation, and product-market fit. There’s a lot of generic indie hacker advice out there, but nothing beats talking to someone who’s solved the problems you’re about to hit.

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Care more than anyone else

Here’s the rule I follow:
• Find a small but real problem your target audience actually suffers from.
• Solve it better than anyone else, even if it’s just one feature.
• Iterate, iterate, iterate, and care more about that one thing than anyone else does.

For Customermates, that’s simple: give small teams a CRM that just works—fast and smart. No onboarding or demo needed.

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What’s next

Customermates isn’t just another CRM — I want it to be the AI-native CRM that small teams actually enjoy using.

I want to build something founders rely on every day, without overhead, without frustration, and with the power to automate their workflows.

If you want to follow along, try Customermates (https://customermates.com) and let me know what you think. Your feedback helps us improve. Share ideas, report issues, or tell us what's working well so we can build a better product for you.