“While the first benchers are struggling, searching for jobs, last benchers have started hiring people for their startup,” said a board somewhere. Whether you’re the first or last bencher, you and your startup life will be a match made in heaven only if you accept failures and not see them as a negative,.
Starting a business is not a breeze, but keeping it running is certainly an even tougher row to hoe. From finding the right talent to communicating with teams and clients and managing finances, you’ll have to sweat blood.
Having said that, technology isn’t just a tool. It gives startups a voice that even they didn’t know they had before.
Below is a list of 10 must-have tools for startups to boost their business. The tools are covered under these objectives:
- To find the right talent
- To manage projects and clients
- To generate leads
- To execute email campaigns
- To market and brand your business
- To manage finances
Let’s have a look:
To Find the Right Talent
1. LinkedIn
A tool that is certainly connecting the world’s professionals, LinkedIn boasts a whopping 562 million users in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. It has members from all 500 of the Fortune 500 companies. You can not only actively search for candidates using relevant keywords here, but also search for potential employees based on their past or current employer.
Apart from that, LinkedIn lets you look for employees based on references from the recommendations you trust. If you have a budget to recruit a workforce for your startup, you can also upgrade your membership to premium to search for, and contact, candidates privately on LinkedIn. You can also develop a complete, keyword-rich profile for your organization that may be of interest to people who wish to work with you (clients or employees).
2. AngelList
A relatively small, yet effective, professional network for startups, AngelList is literally ‘Where the world meets startups’. One of the most popular LinkedIn alternatives, it’s where startups can post jobs and employees can look for jobs in startups. You can also invest in a startup or raise funds for your own startup here. It already has a massive 90,300 startup jobs posted and there are no middlemen required.
To Manage Teams and Projects
3. ProofHub
ProofHub is a project and team management software that puts all the right tools your team needs in one place without having to invest in several of them to manage projects and collaborate. It helps to plan what needs to be done, discuss ideas, organize files and documents, and deliver projects of all sizes. It helps to get more done easier, faster, and smarter. It allows managers to know what the team is working on, the team to know what they need to do and the clients to stay in the loop. Some of its features include Chat, Kanban boards, Gantt chart, Calendar, Time tracking, Task management, Proofing of designs and documents—all in one place.
You can opt for a free trial and there’s no credit card required. It’s already loved by more than 85,000 teams and businesses worldwide. Its notable clients include Netflix, Google, Walt Disney, NASA, Pinterest, TripAdvisor, and many more.
To Generate Leads
4. Jotform
No matter if you want a short survey form, contact form or even an event registration form, Jotform can help you with all of those. As lead generation and customer feedback matter the most in any business, Jotform is favorite of many entrepreneurs. You can have a standalone form or even an embedded one on your website. This way you can build an email list. Jotform also allows you to receive feedback from these forms. It’s one tool that is easy-to-use and quick to set up.
To Execute Email Campaigns
5. MailChimp
Without a doubt, a brand needs to constantly engage with its potential and existing clients. Email marketing plays a very important role in that. As per a report by the Direct Marketing Association, 66% of online consumers have opted for services and even bought something because of an email marketing communication.
MailChimp is one of the easiest email marketing tools. Used by huge organizations as their email software, its campaign builder is extremely easy. It also provides templates for every type of campaign which include but are not limited to: newsletters, e-commerce, and more.
6. Freshmail
Having more than 60,000 active users, Freshmail offers free accounts to anyone who has up to 500 subscribers. The features are limited, but it also gives you the automation feature in the free package. Apart from that, it also offers text and creative templates to choose from so that your work becomes easier.
To Market Your Business
7. Google tools
The marketing of your brand is very necessary. People should know you’re a potential option among your competitors. To become more visible, there are three must-have tools: Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Google Adwords Keyword Planner.
Google tools help you manage and gather the data and information which in turn can be used to spur your business growth. Any successful online marketing campaign gets better when actionable steps are taken to improve it using the data gathered.
8. Hootsuite
Building a professional network using LinkedIn is important and so is being present on the relatively casual social media platforms. Social media presence shows that you’re an active business. It helps you reach as many people as you want. However, since there are many, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, managing all of these simultaneously can take a lot of time.
Were it not for tools like Hootsuite, you wouldn’t be able to monitor all your social networks with the option to make scheduled posts. If you need a sorted social media management strategy, Hootsuite is the way to go.
To Manage Finances
9. Wave
Good finance software is a must-have, along with project and team management, lead generation, email campaign, and marketing software. Wave will help you manage your invoicing and payroll activities. As soon as you connect your bank accounts to this software, it tracks your expenses and creates insightful reports. This tool is for free and has helped a lot of businesses manage their accounts.
10. Salesforce Invoice and Payment Platform
If you want to quickly and easily track invoices, payment status, and choose early payment options, Salesforce Invoice and Payment platform comes to the rescue. It’s a fully integrated platform and also makes early payments easier for you. You don’t need to worry about getting paid earlier in exchange for offering invoice discounts.
Over to you!
What are some tools that have helped you boost your startup business? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
