Most CRM advice here is about which tool has the feature you need. We came at it from the other end. We run a two-person studio, we tried the usual tools, and every one of them died the same way - not for lack of a feature, but because keeping them current became a second job.

So when we built our own, the question each time was what to remove.

Kept out, or kept optional:

Pipeline stages. A two-person business doesn't have a pipeline, it has a list of people it owes an answer to. Stages are there but they are optional.

Reporting. Nobody with eight active clients needs a chart to know how it's going.

Team permissions and assignment. There is no team (yet - may change if users want it).

Automation sequences. If you send enough email to need sequences, you're a different business than this.

Mattered more than expected:

More than one date on the same record. Quote sent, follow-up, work starts, invoice due. Almost every tool gives you one date field, which is exactly why people go back to a spreadsheet.

Being able to write a plain sentence about a person that isn't a structured field.

Opening it on a phone in a van and it not being a worse version of the desktop (it's a PWA).

The honest downside: it's not ideal if you hire a fifth person or your sales cycle passes a few months. That isn't a roadmap item, it's the point.

I built it, so read accordingly.