January 1st marked not only the start of a new year and new a decade. It also marked Lasso’s official five-year anniversary; the launch of Lasso CRM across North America. I say official because we had been doing R&D and test marketing regionally for a couple of years prior. Wow, five years has flown by – it seems like just yesterday we launched.
As I look back and reflect on the triumphs and challenges that we have encountered I’m extremely proud of three things:
- The market acceptance of our CRM for real estate across the globe. Builders and developers across the USA, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, Europe and GCC have all embraced our solutions and helped us get better along the way.
- The people we serve across the industry are terrific. By far our biggest source of new business are referrals from existing clients; sales agents, marketing, managers, and executives.
- The commitment and passion of our employees. The last year or so has not been an easy one for the real estate industry and I love being a part of such a great group of talented, positive and down-to-earth people.
Looking forward, 2010 is going to be an exciting year for Lasso on a number of levels. As a business headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, we are excited to be “hosting the world” in a few weeks when the Winter Olympic games begin in February — our love of hockey and beer is a perfect fit for the upcoming Olympic experience. We are also excited about the opportunities that lay ahead this year in real estate project marketing, sales and customer service. As much of the world begins to recover from recession and the housing crisis, Lasso is well-positioned to become the CRM real estate software of choice for new home builders and developers of all sizes – we just need to make sure we are relentless in innovation, client service and making it easy to do business with us.
Over the past few years Lasso has accomplished a lot. Here are some interesting Lasso tidbits:
- Over 1,000 real estate projects implemented
- Projects in over 35 countries – as nearby as a few blocks from our Vancouver office and as far away as Dubai, Montenegro, and Jamaica
- Accessed by users from over 50 countries every month, 7×24
- Smallest project – 6 waterfront lots
- Largest project – over 20,000 homes
- $ Billions in inventory sold through Lasso
- Millions of emails sent every month on behalf of our clients
- 250 software features & enhancements in 2009 alone
Statistics aside, my personal goal as CEO is that you, our clients, will think of us as a great customer service company rather than as a software company in the year(s) to come and that we really do help you turn prospects into purchasers!
I look forward to the challenges and opportunities that the next five years will bring to Lasso.
Happy New Year!
