MS Access, LibreOffice Base, etc. -- Making my own databases for mah biz

[Max M.]

So I originally thought using these types of database programs would require weeks of my time to get working for taking care of my organizations requirements for tracking all the stuff I need to track for creative real estate stuff. I was originally going to use just spreadsheets.

However I played around a bit with LibreOffice Base today and it seems a lot easier than I thought, plus I found an excellent wikia site dedicated to both the abstract concept of databases and specific database implementations and definitions, so I'm gonna keep messing around with it, because it seems to me like maintaining and using a spreadsheet is a much more difficult and clunky affair than maintaining and using a database.

I plan on marketing super heavy in the next few months as well as possibly forming tons and tons of business relationships in real estate, and I cannot afford to be disorganized. I'm very finicky when it comes to systems that I use all the time.

I've investigated the various CRMs and all that and either they cost money or they're ugly monstrosities and web based. Plus there's no true customization except for Podio and Podio makes me want to remove my eyeballs out of their sockets with a fork. This database stuff seems awesome and I don't mind spending a few days creating a database system for myself. In fact, if it turns out to be a powerful enough tool I might not think anything of spending 2+ weeks.

What I'm wondering is if anyone around here has experience using these types of programs and what their experience has been? Because this stuff seems like it could be super powerful. Plus with these databases in the future there could always be ways to interface them to networks/web stuff since its all standard stuff

[Dev Horn]

This is an interesting discussion.  Sometimes I see people who are very smart, working on the wrong things because it's what they know or enjoy.  I'm guessing you enjoy working with and learning technology.  That's all good and it should be a big benefit for you.

But I kind of feel like your cart is before your horse here.  Databases are irrelevant if you have no sellers to put in there, no data about houses, no info on cash buyers.

My focus is on activity that generates MONEY.  Get activity going first.  I do this for a living and I can tell you - until you have a $5,000 a month ad budget, you can pretty much just capture this info on spreadsheets.  Unless you are spending BIG BUCKS on marketing, you won't have enough data to create an "organization" problem.

You may already be working on all the right things (other than this DB thing), so I'll just say to others: Don't spend you time on adminisTRIVIA - focus on finding SELLERS.  Nothing happens until you generate leads and find deals.  If you are not 100% focused on that, you are probably not working on the most important aspect of this business.