After a year of development, user testing, customer feedback, and amazing responses from readers of this blog, we have finally launched Network Hippo. We’re really proud of the final product and have been getting some very positive feedback!

We’ll be posting a ton of pictures and stats about Network Hippo over the next few weeks, but I wanted to thank everyone for all of your support during the long development road.

We’re promoting the launch in our typical “grassroots” style, and if you’re interested in helping out (and making some easy ca$h), check out the partnership program here: http://partner.networkhippo.com.

Thanks again for all of your support!

- Scott

We’re still putting some finishing touches on launching Dex v2, including an amazing new design that will blow you away (more to come).

But I thought I would share with you some of the neat contact features that we’ve implemented to make it easier to find relevant information about people in your network.

Check out the video here.

We’ve been pretty quiet lately on the blog as we’ve been down in the Mercury Grove cave working away at building the new interface and features for Network Hippo. It has been a long process working through all of the usability issues and focusing on core features that will drive a lot of value for startups, small businesses, and independent professionals.

But it’s getting very close.

I’m really excited about how we’ve been able to streamline the application to make it more intuitive and really easy to use, and I think all of our work doing usability tests is really paying off.  We’ve had tons of great feedback from users, which we have incorporated in this new launch, and we also used the service usertesting.com – which is an amazing resource that I recommend for anybody developing web-based applications.

Some of the new features:

• Fixed the auto-email import so it runs daily
• Feedback on your network (quality and size)
• Collaboration with people in your network
• Ability to send emails from within the app
• Allow your contacts to update their info
• Better social network integration
• Smart notifications sent weekly by email
• MUCH easier to add contacts, deals, activities

We’re getting really close to launch and I’m excited about how everything is coming together.

Below is a teaser screenshot of the new reporting which I think is much more useful than other CRM-like products.  More details on launch to come!

After months of discussion and consideration, we’ve finally come up with a new product name for Dex: NetworkHippo.

Why NetworkHippo?

First, it was important to us to incorporate the idea of “networks” in the name of the product.  The ability to manage your network and realize opportunities to “monetize” that network is really the core of our product.  Many other products in this segment focus on “CRM”, but we really think this is a dying term that is too constrictive and falls short of the real need / opportunity.

And hippos are awesome.  They’re big.  They’re powerful.  Considering their size, they’re extremely versatile and equally at home in the water and land.  They’re prominent – they stand out in a crowd.  They’re popular among other jungle animals, and they’re smart – but not in the “I take my self too serious” way like monkeys.

Oh yeah, and they swim with crocodiles(!).

We think that this name really represents a “breath of fresh air” in a pretty stuffy segment.

We’re really excited about the new name and the many new features we’ve been working on for our “version 1″ launch in a couple of weeks.  After lots of great feedback, and dozens of targeted usability tests, we’ve made some considerable improvements that I think you’ll love.

What do you think?

When I logged into Dex this morning, it reminded me to contact a past colleague and potential business lead that I haven’t spoken to since mid-December. That call turned into a $25,000 consulting engagement for Mercury Grove.

Dex uses several indicators to remind you when to follow up with someone.

As most of you know, Dex, our professional and small business CRM software, has a really smart built-in relationship algorithm that evaluates how well you know someone and potential business opportunities and reminds you to stay in contact with them. We knew it was smart, but today it proved it’s worth when I contacted an old colleague who had asked us for advice in December on rebuilding his company’s corporate website. We exchanged a few emails and calls and it looked like there might be a business opportunity for Mercury Grove, but in the end he decided to work with another company.

This morning, as a result of the “business poke” from Dex, I called to ask how the project was going. It turns out the project isn’t going that well, and they’d really like some expert advice on how to get it back on track and develop a much more aggressive strategy. That call turned into a decent size engagement for us, and will likely lead to much more development and hosting services.

I’m normally really good at following-up with people on a regular basis, but we’ve been so busy lately with the Dex launch and client work, that I haven’t been able to keep up with people as well as I’d like.

Thanks to Dex, the timing of the call was perfect and we’ve got a great new client!

Last week we were in Philadelphia at Indy Hall – a fantastic co-working space in the historic district of the city.  We met a lot of great people there including Alex Hillman, Johnny Nines, Bill Jones, and had a great conversation about personal CRM, how to track “introductions”, and the importance of transparency for companies with their customer databases.

Indy Hall really embodies the spirit of the growing business lifestyle of coworking: the people there are outgoing, engaged, open to new ideas, and hard-core DIY.  It was great to have the opportunity to meet everyone and be able to demo dex.

Below is the video:

Last week we were in New York City meeting with the gang at New Work City – a great co-working facility in Manhattan.  We had a great time and Dex was well received by the whole gang.  We tried to broadcast the meeting over the web, but the sound was pretty poor, which was unfortunate.

Check out the video below:

Thursday night we were in Montreal at Station C for the Dex roadtrip. Station C is a beautiful co-working facility in Montreal with a really nice vibe. Patrick Tanguay was an awesome host and we had a great group of people from the local startup scene including Tien Nguyen, Matthew Stotland from the Yellow Bird Project (pretty cool!), and Adrian Ghizaru.

We had a great discussion about how “creepy” some companies can be with CRM systems and how we hope that a more social and “open” network would prevent companies from using CRM systems to creep out customers. It was a great discussion that I hope to continue in future cities with other startups.

Thanks for the great reception in Montreal, and I hope to see Patrick and the gang back in Ottawa sometime soon!

Here’s the video:

Wednesday night we were in Ottawa presenting Dex to local startups and we had a great discussion about opportunities in the CRM space. The room at the Code Factory was fantastic, and I really appreciated having Andrew Milne – the Dex designer – out to hear some of the feedback and participate in the discusion.

It was a great event and a lot of fun.

Check out the video below:

We’ve been spending the last week working on training videos for Dex and I just got this video emailed to me by Andrew Milne for a little inspiration.

My favorite part is when he plays the air guitar on the spatula!  Brilliant!