You have the grand business idea, you have a competent team on board, and your startup is well on its way to making a noticeable impact. No matter the kind of startup- whether it’s creating the next best fashion line, building a purchasable mobile app, or establishing a consulting agency from scratch- you need a reliable toolbox to help you nail your goals. Build the bottom line of your startup toolbox with these gadgets, services, and resources.
1. Uber
With a startup comes small resources and profits, and particular luxuries are not doable at the start of a business. Regardless, meeting with prospective clients can have you crisscrossing the city, and tardiness is not an option. Until the day your firm can enjoy an on-site driver, let Uber handle all your transportation needs. Forget the hassle of cash only options; with Uber, everything is debited to your account! Simply login into the Uber app, request a cab within your locale, jump in, and get to that meeting in style!
2. Moz Open Site Explorer
Every startup with a website- which nowadays ought to be every business- needs great analytics. The Moz Open Site Explorer is one of the best free online tools that an entrepreneur can have. This resource can suggest a lot about your site or a competitor’s website, such as:1. View where inbound links are coming from 2. Understand your domain authority rankings as well as your overall page authority3. Learn which pages in your industry rank highest so that you can adjust your SEO strategy4. View your Twitter and Facebook likes/tweets/shares
3. POS System
For retailers- and any other business in between, gone are the days of manual cash registers. Startups now depend on point-of-sale systems for all their checkout requirements. If you are starting a retail startup, a POS system like the one at Clientron can provide you with ready-to-use packages that include scanners, monitors, keyboards, cash readers, retail software, and more! Besides retail fronts, specific POS systems offer dedicated solutions for other types of startups- such as grocery stores and salons. Keep in mind that these systems can track inventory and sales, too. The accounting process becomes easier and easier, and you get more time to handle equally important issues.
4. Dropbox
If you need an organized working space that lets your employees share files in a click of a button, Dropbox is your go-to service. This personalized cloud storage solution offers you:1. Synchronization with Office 365 means you can edit your spreadsheets and Word documents, right there in Dropbox and tag other parties about your update2. Data backup and unlimited storage space 3. Automatically integrates with and is accessible from all your gadgets (computers, phones, tablets)4. Secure file sharing for all your documents, photos, videos, and other files5. 30 days of file recovery. You can keep in touch with the trendiest news about the Dropbox app (and other tech solutions) on iheartintelligence.com. Also, be sure to have the latest Dropbox version before you sync with any other online solutions.
5. Fiverr & Upwork
If you haven’t built a sturdy foundation for your startup with an attractive online brand, then rewrite your priority list. Don’t make the mistake of thinking about branding, graphic design, marketing, social media, and PR too late in the game. A steady marketing plan will need to be aligned with business openings, product launches, content write-ups, and feature releases. However, these startup must-haves need not cost you a fortune. Hire an expert on Upwork or Fiverr to do the job that you do not have the time or maybe, skillset to perform. What’s more, it fits into a tight budget. You can get a press release written, or a logo created from as low as $5. Since you’re working with freelancers on either of the two platforms, charges will vary from project to project and person to person. However, with real-time access to so many freelancers, you’ll be able to link up with the professionals you need and at the correct price. Successful startups are led by visionaries who know what tools to use to achieve which specific goal. These top 5 tools will get you started and keep you going without necessarily breaking the bank!
6. HubSpot Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tool
Customer relationship management (CRM) is one of the most critical aspects of any business, more so for a startup. It is true that your start-up can do without process heavy and expensive platforms such as SAP. However, a well built CRM system can be one of the greatest assets for the future of your business. There are a wide range of affordable cloud based CRM solutions that can be scaled up as per the needs of your startup. Many of these tools are equipped with features such as analytics, artificial intelligence, etc. The free version from HubSpot can be a great choice for any startup.
7. Prospect.io Sales Automation Tool
If your startup involves selling any product, sales automation and productivity solutions are critical to its success. These tools can help you increase your sales volume by identifying and automating your sales pipelines. These tools may provide simple enhancements such as alerts and reminders for sales staffs to advanced AI-driven solutions for lead generation. Prospect.io is one such tool that you can use for reaching out to clients by sending cold emails. This tool allows users to set up drip campaigns where a sequence of emails can be forwarded to a group of prospects with automated follow up.
8. Asana Project Management Tool
Regardless of the nature and age of your business, project management is something that you just can’t ignore. For any startup looking to manage and coordinate its work, Asana can be an excellent tool. With the help of this tool, you can assign tasks for your team members as per their roles. You can also add new team members, view reports, receive task activity, and much more. Most importantly, Asana has a free version that you can get started with.
9. Slack Communication Tool
Effective communication is the cornerstone of building any business. Millions of startups around the world use Slack to communicate with their teams via a single platform. Using this platform, you can have private conversations with an individual via one-one chat or create multiple channels for discussing different topics or projects. Slack can also be integrated with applications such as trello, drive, Gmail, etc. Some of the most important features of Slack include organized conversations, integrated file sharing, face-to-face and face-to-screen, collaboration, and searchable history.
10. Hootsuite Social Media Tool
In today’s changing business landscape, social media has emerged as an influential platform for marketing products and services. It also serves as an efficient research tool that helps startups understand the opinion of their prospective customers about their products or services. Hootsuite is an extremely popular tool for social media marketing management that allows users to manage all their social media networks from a single dashboard. You can use Hootsuite to schedule all your social media post in advance on multiple platforms. This tool can also be used for managing social media teams, engaging with followers, and tracking social media content across platforms. Before signing up for a paid plan, you may start with Hootsuite’s 30 day free trial.
