Spreadsheet rot: when your tools turn against you

Jhonathan has a very specific problem: he’s the busy and sole B2B guy at an AI R&D startup, and his sales data lives in “a gigantic spreadsheet that is extremely hard to change and update.”

If you’ve ever tried to manage growing projects with Excel, you know exactly what this looks like. There’s one massive file that everyone’s afraid to touch, where seemingly harmless updates break three other things. But, weekly reports are coming up, and somehow you need to make it all look presentable.

For Axiomatic AI, a startup helping scientists and engineers move quicker from problem to solution, this had become a frustration that grew into a workflow infection that got worse with each month of data.

What Axiomatic actually does

Before getting into the spreadsheet drama, here’s what makes Axiomatic AI unique: they’re accelerating hardware development with AI. Think semiconductors or photonics, which are complex industries where even small process improvements can significantly reduce development time.

Jhonathan, as Director of Operations, handles business development. Prospects, leads, customer relationships, deal tracking — he manages the full sales cycle for a company whose customers are other engineers building cutting-edge hardware.

Why Excel and purpose-built solutions can often fall short

“It was difficult to share and to centralize data,” Jhonathan explains when asked about the infamous load-bearing spreadsheet.

What might begin as a convenient single file quickly becomes a bottleneck. Version control breaks down when multiple people need access. Formulas become fragile. References break when someone reorganizes a tab. You spend more time maintaining the structure than using the data.

Traditional CRMs promise to solve these problems, but they often create new ones. Most are built for enterprise sales teams with standardized processes and dedicated admins. For a lean startup, they’re often overkill. Smaller teams don’t need dozens of extraneous features that never get touched, rigid workflows that don’t match how said teams actually operate, and setup overhead that can take weeks or even months.

Then there’s the integration problem. Even when you find a CRM that mostly fits, you inevitably need to export data back to spreadsheets for custom analysis, reporting, or one-off calculations. You end up managing two systems instead of one, with all the synchronization headaches that brings.

Excel/Sheets, CRMs, or other purpose-built applications have their place and value, but it’s that most fast-paced teams need something in between – something with more structure than a spreadsheet and more flexibility than enterprise software, and something that can grow with your business.

Enter Grist (via CEO recommendation)

Axiomatic’s CEO was an internal champion for Grist and suggested Jhonathan give it a try. So, he did, and built exactly what he needed. Contacts, sales leads, interaction histories, task tracking — a fully customizable sales CRM, all connected using relational data that actually makes sense.

“Grist’s interface is easy to follow, and changes to one item are immediately reflected everywhere that item is referenced.”

–Jhonathan Romero, Director of Operations

He generates weekly reports for company leadership using Grist’s cards and widgets. It allows him clean data snapshots that people can understand at a glance. Not sophisticated dashboards — yet — but miles ahead of what the old spreadsheet could deliver.

Jhonathan has also used Grist’s AI Assistant all throughout his learning process to generate formulas and triggers to note when he last interacted with a given prospect. Simple enough, but this kind of calculation “helps him immensely” with follow-up timing.

An interactive example of what a lightweight custom CRM can look like in Grist.

What actually changed, and what’s coming next

Since switching to Grist, Axiomatic’s time spent wrestling with data has dropped significantly. More and more users within the company are interacting with Grist on a daily basis. Reporting is faster and more reliable. Team members can jump in and get context without needing a walkthrough of the system.

“People can look at the data at a glance and make better decisions.”

–Jhonathan Romero

Even just a few months in, Jhonathan is already planning integrations. He’s looking at connecting Grist with another tool that extracts email interactions as CSVs — automating data entry that would otherwise eat up time better spent actually talking to prospects.

More customer activity is coming as Axiomatic grows. The foundation is there to handle it without the old spreadsheet chaos. For a lean AI company moving fast, that meant something more powerful than Excel but more flexible than traditional CRMs.

Turns out, that’s exactly where Grist shines.

Ready to see how Grist can become the exact sales CRM, or other solution, your business needs? You can use Grist for free forever – no limited trials – to decide how you can upgrade your spreadsheet workflows.